On the most recent Thursday (7/31/15) blog, I ended the post
with the following questions:
What tools are there for monitoring language
development across all 4 levels—sounds, words, sentences, discourse?
How often should we monitor progress?
What do we do with the information we gain
from monitoring?
*****
Our choice of tools, frequency of monitoring,
and what to do with monitoring data should depend on the skill being assessed and
our understanding of the individual child and his/her development.
TOOLS
Monitoring: The Developmental Perspective
There is
an abundance of research tracing and establishing typical ranges for oral
language development across the sound, word, sentence and discourse levels. Once we have an understanding of the
developmental norms, we can begin to trace the course of development for
individual children in a range of contexts as they engage in a variety of
tasks. I will focus this post on monitoring
the development of “sound” skills.
The Sound
Level
At the sound level, there are “norms” for
when children are typically able to discriminate and produce specific sounds. There are also norms for discriminating those
sounds in words and producing those sounds in different “positions” of words
(beginning-“middle”-end or release and arresting positions).
Since sounds are such small units and even
infants produce sounds, why is developing “sound” knowledge and skills a
challenge? For us as readers and adult
listeners, we can easily recognize which sounds are in a word (in our own
native language, of course). But the
toddler has the important job of separating words out of the long chains—sentences--he or she hears and then
separating out the sounds within a
word, a skill that becomes increasing important if you want to learn to read.
In
discussing the “developmental trajectory in children’s acquisition of phonological
processing skill, Christie (2008 in Achieving Success in Preschool
Literacy edited by Justice and Vukelich, p.32) references the work of Marilyn
Adams who tell us “that before young
children can become aware of phonemes—the individual sounds that make up spoken
words—they must first become aware of the larger units of oral language. Thus, children must first realize that spoken
language is composed of words syllables and sound. For example, they need to learn to recognize
when words end with the same sound (i.e., rhyme) and begin with the same sound
(i.e., alliteration). They also need to
be able to segment sentences into words and words into syllables….
And then
they have the tasks of phoneme isolation, phoneme blending, phoneme
segmentation and phoneme manipulation (deletion, addition and manipulation.”
There are “norms” for phonological processing
skills critical for learning to read and for subsequent phonemic awareness,
phonics, morphology, and spelling skills.
All of these skills constitute a fairly discrete set (“constrained”
skills to use the Hoffman, Piagle, Teale term—
“In discussing the Common
Core State Standards, Hoffman, Paciga and Teale point out that some literacy
standards (“Foundational Skills” which they call “constrained” skills) are
relatively easily conceptualized in terms of component parts that follow a
fairly linear trajectory. …. https://www.academia.edu/4622466/Common_Core_State_Standards_and_Early_Childhood_Literacy_Instruction_Confusions_and_Conclusions
Here
are some links with more detailed information about the development of “sound”
skills.
The Development of Phonological Skills By: Louisa Moats, Carol Tolman
Basic listening skills and "word
awareness" are critical precursors to phonological awareness. Learn the
milestones for acquiring phonological skills.
Teaching Phonemic
Awareness and Phonics by L. C. Ehri, National Reading Panel Meta-Analysis
IRA Position Statement
Monitoring
with Naturalistic Observations
I believe using a naturalistic observation is
the first step in monitoring progress unless there is a particular concern
about the rate at which the skill is developing or there is a specific intervention
plan in place. Because this is a “constrained”
set of skill where the sequence of skills is specifically identified and there
is a well-developed trajectory, the
curriculum should indicate which skills are the current focuses of
monitoring.
Monitoring
with Formalized Checklist
See Mather and Welding, Essentials of
Dyslexia Assessment and Intervention for an “Informal Assessment of
Phonological Awareness “Checklist” that involves an adult interviewing the
child based on a development progression of skill. (pp.87-88)
Monitoring
with Standardized Tests
There are
a range of tests for example, CTOPP, PALS Pre-K. Many of these tests focus on children in the
K level and above. (See Mather and Welding, pp. 85-86.)
*****
When using
knowledge of the developmental stages or formalized checklists, it is important
to note
the context (and, if relevant, the task) in which the monitoring occurs.
FREQUENCY OF MONITORING
Timing: I
propose that the timing for monitoring should depend on:
*concerns of teachers and parents about the “pace”
or “rate” at which the skill is being developed by individual children,
*meeting the goals of the specific curriculum
(assuming there is a specific curriculum),
*sensitivity to the predictive power of the skill (for subsequent development of other
skills).
USING THE INFORMATION FROM MONITORING
Using data to plan instruction and timely intervention. Yes!, we should use the data--assuming
that we know what the monitoring tells us about what we need to change about the curriculum, the teaching/learning,
the context, or our understanding of the child.
Even if we don’t see anything to change, having a record of the child’s
development is useful for both teachers and parents.
The next
set of questions:
Should we
approach monitoring of progress at each level of oral language development
(sound, word, sentence, discourse) in the same way?
How much knowledge,
skill or training is required to monitor progress?
Are there
other factors that influence monitoring progress?
How well
do we use the data from monitoring progress?
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