Learn About This Section

Whether or not children are identified formally as having special needs, teachers often know through formal assessment or informal observation when a child needs extra support. Therefore, this section focuses on providing children with special supports in developing phonological awareness.

How to Complete This Section

In this section, you will:

•Watch a classroom video in View a Teaching Example.

•Examine documents illustrating an individual child's progress, with phonological awareness, in See a Child's Learning History.

•Create a brief photo history of a child's progress, in Do a Learning History.

•Reflect and discuss the content in this section of the course, including your thoughts and reactions to the videos and the activities, in Share Ideas.

Estimated Time Allotment

It will take approximately six hours to complete this section of the course. Unless otherwise specified, the entire section should be completed within two to four weeks, before beginning work on the next section of the course.

Professional Development Goals

The professional development goals for the course were listed in What You Will Learn in the Introduction section. In this section, you will focus on the following goals:

2. Implement teaching strategies that help children develop

phonological awareness, including:

c. using specific tools to develop elements of phonological

awareness (such as books, pipes, bathtubs, paper bags, and

mirrors).

3. Assess children both formally and informally, including:

a. devising strategies to help children who are struggling to hear

the sounds in words; and

c. adapting your instruction based on what you learn.

4. Support children's development of phonological awareness in

ways that:

a. stimulate and challenge but do not overwhelm the child; and

c. progress from modeling, to guiding, and then to encouraging

students to do tasks independently.