Country Studied: Belgium
Area of Focus: Phonemic Awareness
Type of learning difficulty the Best Practice is supporting:
- Reading and writing difficulties
Aims and objectives of Best Practice
Over the past decades, researches have proven that phonemic awareness is one of the best weapons educators have in their arsenal when it comes to teaching children with learning difficulties. These pupils need to overcome the obstacle of understanding phonemes and learning how to use them to create words since alphabetic knowledge has been found to be crucial for the future reading skills of any pupil regardless of ability. Therefore, teachers need to provide students with solid foundational skills.
This best practice, with the use of embedded phonics in digitally made pictures, aims to take learners with difficulties from the pre-alphabetic phase to the alphabetic phase.
It targets:
- Pupils with learning difficulties, especially those with dyslexia. With the use of mnemonic strategies, it aims to familiarize those pupils with the consonant letters and as a result to help them be able to produce novel words which begin and end with any given consonant.
- Teachers in general education who are searching for efficient phonics practices.
Short description of Best Practice
This embedded mnemonic strategy is aimed at young learners at the beginning of their foreign language learning journey. Before the letters of the alphabet are introduced, there has to be a clear understanding of how phonics work so as to help students become successful language learners in the future.
In this practice, the target stimulus (a letter) is fully integrated within a flashcard (e.g. the letter /r/ as part of a robot) which is then shown to the learner. The teacher names the letter and waits for the student to repeat it correctly. In doing so, the teacher pairs the letter to the sound and the pupil creates a connection between them and the picture making it easier to recall and eventually retain and use the information correctly in the future.
Something that can potentially become part of the process is jingles. Pairing the letter sound with a rhyme can be even more effective since children of small ages have an affinity with song. If we achieve to make it stick to their brain, it will be much easier to remember the letter sound and name in the long run.
The duration this method can last until it finally yields results varies according to pupils’ difficulties and abilities.
3 Key learning Principles that were used in this Best Practice to support learners with LD
- Use of pictures in order to make learning easier and fun. Practices that utilize more than one senses bear optimal results when dealing with children with learning difficulties. By introducing a visual aid, we instantly make new information memorable. For this particular practice, the visual aid can be a popular figure from pop culture to better enhance the students’ chances of retaining information. When pupils see their favorite cartoon or comic character, they get excited and see the process as more of a game. They instantly become more interested and consequently invested. By making the key feature of the practice fun, we ensure more engaged and knowledgeable pupils.
- Producing novel words as a way of incorporating new knowledge and also boost confidence. Learning is meaningless unless you are able to use it. In this practice, since acquiring the letter-sound correspondence is just the first step, encouraging students to put to use what they learnt is of crucial importance as they see what they did actually worked. This is significant not only for their progress, but also for their self-esteem. Children with learning difficulties most often lack confidence because they compare themselves to their typically developing classmates. Furthermore, they cannot comprehend the material easily which is disheartening and makes them want to give up. However, when encouraged to put their new ability to use, they realize that they can and do learn, they just need the right way to be taught. Consequently, their confidence is boosted, and hence, they become more eager to learn.
- Strengthening students’ alphabetic ability which is the key to successful readers in the future. As is common practice with anything, building strong foundations means building a strong structure. As far as language learning is concerned, that foundation is alphabetic knowledge. Learners, when dealing with a foreign language, have to deal with a new sound system and sometimes with a completely new alphabet. By making sure that pupils have acquired phonemic knowledge, we make the first important step towards language acquisition. From then on, educators can start building from the bottom up. From phonemes to words, words to sentences, sentences to texts. And of course, having retained the basic information, it is easier to then build the overall use of language.
Strategies used as part of Best Practice
- Strategies for modifying or creating teaching materials to suit different abilities.
- Creating a positive and supportive classroom environment.
Results and impact
In the study of this best practice, the results can only be considered as encouraging.
Before implementing the new technique to the children with learning difficulties, their performance on letter-sound accuracy was bellow baseline. With the introduction of mnemonic flashcards, the accuracy data showed an ascending trend. However, it is worth mentioning that the letter-name accuracy showed a far steeper ascend.
In addition, all students were capable of producing novel words beginning and/or ending with the targeted letter. Of course, the number of words produced depended on each child’s individual progress and learning ability. It is true though that they were all able to achieve this goal.
Something also worth noticing is that all students had positive attitudes towards the method. It is important to engage students with activities they enjoy because only then can we be sure that they will get involved and actively participate in the lesson and the learning process in general.
Moreover, after the students had achieved mastery of all letter-sound correspondence, there was an evident boost in their confidence which the researchers were able to tell on account of their willingness to create novel words. By aiding students in achieving small victories, one at a time, we help them build a history of successes. As a result, it is very likely that they will develop a sense of self-efficacy and thus acquire confidence in their abilities and in consequence fill the classrooms with pupils who are passionate and enthusiastic.
Finally, all parents expressed their content towards the method and the positive results and impact it had to their children on the whole.
Evidence as to why this was considered Good Practice
Mnemonic instruction has benefited students in special and general education in all academic levels, from Primary Education to Higher Education. Because of their versatile nature, they can be adapted to multiple academic areas, but they do have a specific documented success in increasing vocabulary instruction and factual information in children with learning difficulties in particular.
The effectiveness of mnemonic strategies in the language letter-sound correspondence acquisition has been documented multiple times by researchers. This practice has been the object of several studies for more than two decades. With a simple search, we can be provided with a multitude of said researchers which attest to this practice’s effectiveness.
As mentioned earlier, the study from which this practice was taken, only had positive results to show for everyone involved, thus making it a successful technique of teaching phonemic awareness.
In addition, the attitudes students maintained during the process and also their final feedback they themselves and their parents gave constitute this as a best practice as it kept everyone happy.
Transferability
This practice is easily transferable to whichever language anyone could want to learn, at any level, to all students.
Given that we are debating the very basis of a language, this practice can be implemented on a general education environment regardless of the students’ abilities. It should be considered an introduction to the targeted language, meaning that it can be used even from the first grade of primary school since most schools in Europe introduce L2 (usually English) in the first two grades of primary school.
In its final stages, embedded mnemonic strategies could also become a classroom game. Dividing the class in groups and assigning different letters at a time to see which team can come up with more words that begin or end with the targeted letter.
Furthermore, in Latin-based languages or Cyrillic-alphabet languages which share the same alphabet for the most part, and in some cases, even contain same or similar words for the same object, it would be very helpful for pupils to link the flashcards and in turn the letters they represent to something they already know from their mother tongue. In doing so, they will be able to remember phonics effortlessly.
Resources used as part of Best Practice
The mnemonic flashcards used in this practice can be created in two ways. Either by hand or with the assistance of a computer and a printer.
The first method requires more time and effort on the teacher’s side. It also requires from them to be creative and artistic, which is not always the case, and thus, this makes the process incredibly time-consuming, complicated and nearly impossible. However, for those with artistic inclination, it could be a fun process.
On the other hand, the use of computer is a much more effective and efficient method. Teachers do not have to spend more than a fragment of their time to create and print the flashcards. It is even highly likely that examples in most well-studied languages already exist on the internet ready to be used.
Critical issues
Perhaps the only issue that could potentially hinder the successful outcome of this method is teachers’ lack of knowledge in phonics instruction. Before implementing the method to their students, they first have to study extensively about it or even attend seminars on how to conduct the instruction successfully. Only in this case will they be able to make sure they will not be creating further confusion, adding to students’ possible frustration.
Another critical issue, which has to do with the teachers as well, is their attitude towards students. They need to be encouraging and patient, not creating a hostile environment when students are not successful, and they have to find ways through which to help pupils without adding more stress.
Any additional learning that we can take from this Best Practice, example:
Since we are dealing with the early stage of language acquisition and most likely very young learners, this practice helps us keep in mind to set realistic goals. When learning a foreign language, it is especially difficult and all the more demanding for pupils with difficulties to become phonemically aware. Teachers’ expectations should be minimized and lowered towards achieving a goal which students see its practical use.
Additionally, it reminds us that learning is a constant process that needs to keep going no matter how much we have achieved. In this case, when letter-sound and letter-name acquisition has been accomplished, it should be viewed as the evaluation point from which the teacher can begin to assess students’ abilities and not the end of instruction. This was evident with the pupils’ willingness to produce novel words.
Lastly, though we know how mnemonic strategies work, more studies need to be conducted on this specific embedded mnemonic practice as it is still elemental. We need to develop it into a further practice that could be used in later stages. It has the potential of becoming multisensory and therefore more effective for learners with difficulties.
