Although kindergarten teachers are usually well educated, I have also noticed that kindergarten teachers are not fully trained in phonological awareness. Teachers who receive a degree in elementary education, are often certified to teach kindergarten-fifth grade. It seems that 2-4 years of undergraduate classes cannot fully cover phonological awareness along with all of the other teaching concepts. In my experience, principals are generally unaware of the importance of phonological awareness, and they tend to believe that kindergarten is for learning the ABCs and then writing and reading. Recently, the principal at my school attended a conference where the importance of phonological awareness was explained to her. She then decided to buy phonological awareness books for the teachers, and I think that this was very helpful. How many teachers actually have a firm grasp of phonological awareness from the beginning? My first year teaching, I taught rhyming first, and as some students picked it up quickly, about a third of my students could not pick up this skill for many months. I was confused about why they weren't able to learn such a fundamental skill, until I realized that other concepts were actually much easier for them to grasp. I think that teachers should be probably trained in phonological awareness, and that training should continue throughout their career to insure that children are building a strong foundation in reading.
Beth M. Phillips, Jeanine Clancy-Mechetti, Christopher J. Lonigan. Successful phonological awareness instruction with preschool children: lessons from the classroom. Sage Publications, INC, 2008.
Beth M. Phillips, Jeanine Clancy-Mechetti, Christopher J. Lonigan. Successful phonological awareness instruction with preschool children: lessons from the classroom. Sage Publications, INC, 2008.
Hi Cara,
ReplyDeleteI could not agree with you more about the lack of emphasis placed on phonological awareness in schools. Before our recent article discussion in class, I am embarrassed to say that I had much difficulty differentiating between phonics, phonemic awareness, and phonological awareness. I have always considered myself to be well versed in reading methods and techniques too. My first year of teaching was in second grade, then I taught a year in third grade, and I have spent the last three years in fifth grade. Because I have been removed from younger grades for a while now, I have not had to teach much phonological awareness. However, I think back to my undergraduate training, and I feel I did not receive adequate training in this area. I take my educational studies seriously, and I did not learn what is needed to implement phonological awareness. I almost feel cheated about my lack of understanding.
I agree with you that if principals understood how critical phonological awareness is in the literacy process, more emphasis would be placed on it. I think we would have more professional development and training concerning it as well. The problem is that most people do not know that a problem with phonological awareness exists. I am glad your principal got each teacher a phonological book. Teachers are definitely able to grasp the concepts taught within phonological awareness, but if we do not have access to them, we will not be able to teach them effectively. I do ultimately think that this gap could be better solved if the undergraduate programs ensured that proper training was received.
Hey Cara,
ReplyDeleteI just finished a blog post about the renewal of the prekindergarten-for-all movement. I read an article in the New York Times called "Language Gap Study Bolsters a Push for Pre-K." Interestingly enough, the article raised some of the same concerns you discuss here--namely, that prekindergarten teachers aren't always sufficiently trained to teach fundamental concepts such as phonological awareness and that the ones who are trained are not motivated to stay in prekindergarten because the salary isn't commensurate with the amount of work they put in. The article implied that it isn't enough to decide that all children will have access to a prekindergarten education; we also have to make sure that this prekindergarten education is a quality one.
I was interested in what a prekindergarten teacher may use as guidance for designing instruction so I visited the Common Core website as a first resort. Interestingly enough, the Common Core Standards for Foundational Reading Skills begin with kindergarten. I thought this was interesting in and of itself. The fact that the standards begin with kindergarten implies that the dominant ideology of our educational system believes that education begins with, and not before, kindergarten. If the CCSS do not reflect an ideological valuing of prekindergarten--how can we expect teacher training or salaries to reflect that value?
If a prekindergarten teacher were to turn to Common Core for assistance, he or she would still have to go through the added time commitment (and for some—barrier) of breaking the kindergarten foundational reading skills into their component parts and figuring out how to teach each of those component parts. As I reflected on this task, I realized that without training in what phonological awareness is and how to teach it, it may actually be impossible to decide how to break the kindergarten standards for phonological awareness into appropriate standards for prekindergarteners. For example, standard “CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2a” states that kindergartens need to be able to “Recognize and produce rhyming words.” What is the appropriate way to break down this standard for prekindergarteners? Would it be simply to ask them to “recognize” or “produce rhyming words?” Is even that too advanced? Moreover, the term “prekindergartener” encompasses many age groups—three-year olds, four-year olds, etc. Would the standards look the same for the three-year olds as the four-year olds? Surely not, considering a three-year old and a four-year old are experiencing such different types of development.
When we begin to look at the issue of prekindergarten—even if we look at just phonological awareness as you point out—I think we begin to realize just how necessary but enormous this task of providing quality prekindergarten for all children is.
Cara-
ReplyDeleteMuch like learning about the different components of teaching concepts of print, I, too, was surprised to learn about the different components of teaching phonological awareness. I do not have an undergraduate degree in elementary education but I also noticed how many elementary school teachers I have worked with were not explicitly taught how to teach phonological awareness—surprising for such an important skill. Your experience with your principal also reminds me of Megan’s experience in Mississippi, where the administrator at her school overhauled their kindergarten program to meet the needs of the kids they were teaching. Sometimes we complain about administrators who are out of touch. We need to think about the flip side, and how valuable it is when administrators are in touch, resulting in changes such as those seen in your school and the increased emphasis placed on phonological awareness. Maybe after this course you will provide some of that guidance in filling in gaps in early childhood education!
Julie