ALPHABETIC

PRINCIPLE
DEFINITION AND CONCEPTS

Henzle A. Tumboy
Presenter
 ACTIVITY 1. BE QUICK!
Instruction: (5 mins.)
Describe the person to your left in 1
WORD. The order of giving
description is in Alpha order.
Be Quick or consequence awaits!
How would you describe
the alphabetic principle?
Foundation of any alphabetic system
Understanding the systematic and
predictable relationship between
letters (graphemes) and sounds
(phonemes) of the language.
The alphabetic principle is the
understanding that letters represent
sounds which form words.
Skills involved in
developing the alphabetic
principle:
Phonemic awareness
Phonics
Letter knowledge
Phonemic awareness

o Learning to manipulate
phonemes
Phonics
oLearning the letter and/or
letter combinations that
represent the sounds of
the language
Letter knowledge

oRecognizing and naming

letters in a random order
How important is the
alphabetic principle in
developing overall reading
abilities?
 Reading develops in a hierarchical
manner
Phonemic awareness and phonics
skills form foundation for higher level
skills (i.e., fluency, vocabulary and
comprehension)
Alphabetic principle provides a
strategy to identify and access words
in print
 Once the alphabetic principle is
mastered, readers can develop
automaticity with word
identification
Automaticity leads to fluency at
the sentence and passage level
Frees cognitive energy to focus on
comprehending text
 Interactive model of reading
development (Chall, 1983, 1996)
Pre-K • Prereading (phonemic awareness)

K-1st
• Initial Decoding (phonics)

1st-2nd
• Confirmation and Fluency

3rd-8th
• Reading for Learning

8th-HS
• Multiple Viewpoints

College
• Construction and Reconstruction
 Without knowledge of the alphabetic
principle, readers would have to learn
words holistically and by sight
 If automaticity and fluency fail to
develop, shifting from “learning to
read” to “reading to learn” is
significantly hindered
 Comprehension of text can be a futile
endeavor
 Alphabetic principle is only part
of word identification process
 It is necessary, but not
sufficient
 Word meaning and context of
selections also play a vital role in
applying the alphabetic principle
Simultaneous engagement
of 4 processors
 Process information from
orthography
 Relate to the phonology
of the language
 Meaning engages to
make sense of word
 Context enhances
comprehension rate
Consider that it’s…
 Possible for reader to pronounce a
word, but not know its meaning
Possible for reader to know a meaning
of a word, but not be able to identify its
written counterpart
 Therefore, both factors must interact
for “reading” to occur
Teachers Professional
Growth

Galilea Ann Pagobo

Presenter
How do teachers develop
the phonemic awareness
and phonics skills that
enable readers to apply
the alphabetic principle?
 National Reading Panel (2000)
recommended five areas of effective
reading instruction
◦ Phonemic awareness
◦ Phonics
◦ Fluency
◦ Vocabulary
◦ Comprehension
 Areas parallel interactive model of
reading development
Phonemic awareness
 Prereading skill
 Along with letter knowledge, best
predictor of how well a child will
learn to read
 Understanding that words are
comprised of phonemes
 Activities include phoneme
isolation, identity, categorization,
addition, deletion and substitution
 Most critical blending and
segmenting
 Forms the foundation for reading
and spelling skills
 Decoding and encoding
Phonics
 Systematic and predictable
relationship between written letters and
spoken sounds
 Helps children recognize familiar
words accurately and automatically and
decode unfamiliar words
 Contributes greatly to ability to read
words in isolation and in connected text
Criticism of phonics instruction
 English spellings are too irregular
 But think of it this way…
◦ Teaches children a system for remembering
how to read words
◦ Even when a word is “irregular”, it usually
contains some regularity that can help
children remember how to read them
◦ Alphabetic system is a mnemonic device
 Various instructional approaches (e.g.,
embedded, analytic, etc.)
 NRP recommended systematic, explicit and
direct instruction
 Systematic
◦ Planned sequence of phoneme introduction
◦ Incorporates skills in both reading and
spelling
◦ Use of decodable text
◦ Adapted to students’ needs based on
assessment
 Special Cases on Skills
Development in Alphabetic
Principle

Ardee S. Tumboy
Presenter
How do students who cannot
access phonemes auditorally
develop the alphabetic
principle?
Issues
 Learning to read by memorizing words
would be impossible for any child
 Would need to learn 30 words per day if
sight word recognition were the only
strategy used
 Requires at least 35 exposures to
becomes a sight word
Evidence
 Skilled deaf readers utilize
phonological information more often
than average readers
 Combine information from print, their
oral skills (speechreading, speech and
residual hearing) and kinesthetic
movements to develop mental
representations of letter sound
correspondences
Differentiated access
 Enhance audition through use of
hearing aid, cochlear implant,
assistive listening device
 Speechreading
 Articulatory feedback
 Cued Speech
 Visual Phonics
Differentiated Instruction
What about older students who
have not acquired the
alphabetic principle?
Beyond 3rd grade
 Instruction shifts from “learning
to read” to “reading to learn”
 Students without foundational
skills are often left behind
 Acquisition of higher level reading
skills may be difficult if not
impossible to achieve
Remedial Instruction
 Early intervention is most effective
 NRP (2000) studies indicated that
phonemic awareness instruction improved
abilities in students from 2nd to 6th grade
 Instruction should possibly focus more on
decoding (phonics)
 If blending and segmenting are issues, can
benefit from 5 minutes of practice per day
How do I know where to begin
and what instructional
materials I should use?
Start with assessment
 Determine student’s knowledge of alphabetic
principle
 Assess
◦ phoneme awareness
◦ phoneme blending/segmenting
◦ letter knowledge
◦ pseudoword decoding
◦ high frequency word reading
◦ reading fluency
Assessments
 Criterion and norm referenced
 Curriculum-based measures
 Ensure validity of administration,
especially when communicating using
sign language
 http://www.sedl.org/
Intervention
 Choose age-appropriate materials
 Consider core and/or
supplemental curriculum
 Monitor progress and differentiate
based on assessments
(administered at least quarterly)
 http://www.fcrr.org/
Reference:
Beyond Phonics : Implementing Balanced Literacy Instruction

Beverly Trezek, Ph.D.

btrezek@depaul.edu

Statewide Conference on the Education of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

“Celebrating our Unique Community”
Fort Worth, TX
July 23rd, 2010
ALPHABETIC PRINCIPLE
CONCEPTS AND RESEARCH

Christine
Presenter
Two Parts of Alphabetic Principle
 Alphabetic Understanding : Words are
composed of letters that represent sounds.
 Phonological Recoding: Using
systematic relationships between letters
and phonemes (letter-sound
correspondence) to retrieve the
pronunciation of an unknown printed
string or to spell words.
Phonological recording consists of:

 Regular Word Reading

 Irregular Word Reading
 Advanced Word Analysis
Regular Word Reading
A regular word is a word in which
all the letters represent their most
common sounds.
Regular words are words that
can be decoded (phonologically
recoded).
Beginning decoding ("phonological
recoding") is the ability to:
 read from left to right, simple,
unfamiliar regular words.
 generate the sounds for all letters.
 blend sounds into recognizable words.
Beginning spelling is the ability to:
translate speech to print using phonemic
awareness and knowledge of letter-
sounds.
Progression of Regular Word
Reading Skills
IRREGULAR WORD
READING

Vanessa
Presenter
Irregular Word
A word that cannot be decoded
because either (a) the sounds of the
letters are unique to that word or a few
words, or (b) the student has not yet
learned the letter-sound correspondences
in the word (Carnine, Silbert &
Kame'enui, 1997).
 Irregular words, in beginning reading,
are ‘decodable’ yet the letter sound
correspondences in those words may
not yet be familiar to students.
 The key to irregular word recognition
is not how to teach them. The teaching
procedure is simple. The critical design
considerations are how many to
introduce and how many to review.
 Advanced word analysis involves
being skilled at phonological
processing (recognizing and producing
the speech sounds in words) and
having an awareness of letter-sound
correspondences in words.
Advanced word analysis skills
include:
 Knowledge of common letter combinations
and the sounds they make
 Identification of VCe pattern words and their
derivatives
 Knowledge of prefixes, suffixes, and roots,
and how to use them to "chunk" word parts
within a larger word to gain access to
meaning.
 “Knowledge of advanced word analysis
skills is essential if students are to progress in
their knowledge of the alphabetic writing
system and gain the ability to read fluently
and broadly.”

Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts, 1998

 ALPHABETIC
PRINCIPLE SKILLS

Lerry Templo
Presenter
Two essential skills for students:
 Letter-sound Correspondences :
comprised initially of individual letter
sounds and progresses to more complex
letter combinations.
 Word reading: comprised initially of
reading simple CVC words and
progresses to compound words,
multisyllabic words, and sight words.
Kindergarten Skills

 Letter-sound correspondence
 Decoding
 Sight word reading
First Grade Skills
 Letter-sound and letter-combination
knowledge
 Decoding
 Sight words
2nd and 3rd Grade Skills

 Letter-Sound Knowledge
 Decoding and Word Recognition
 Sight word reading
In summary…
 Alphabetic principle forms the
foundation for developing reading
and spelling skills
 These skills are critical to success
in all school subjects
 Professional development for
teachers is also essential
HAVE A GOOD DAY!

THANK YOU.