I am keenly aware of the need for me to keep on refining my practice; I want to remain open and inquisitive to new possibilities, which could improve my efficiency at meeting the needs of the children I teach. Although being a self-employed sole trader can be lonely at times, one advantage is that it allows me freedom from hard and fast adherence to a particular method of teaching.
My quest for new insights led me to attend my first 'Psychology in the Pub' event on Tuesday, where I listened to Dr Emily Harrison clearly present her research into rhythmic-based reading interventions. Anyone who has ever worked with young readers will appreciate the need to develop the 'sound' of the reading. And yet, some children experience real difficulty in mastering the rise and fall of their voice for appropriate pronunciation, phrasing and fluency (even with the help of engaging texts, clear modelling from the teacher, and repeated practice).
I was introduced to suprasegmental phonology through Emily's work. On Tuesday evening, she interchanged the term with prosody and speech rhythm sensitivity. During her talk, she referred to a body of research findings, which served to underline the importance of suprasegmental phonology in reading development.
My quest for new insights led me to attend my first 'Psychology in the Pub' event on Tuesday, where I listened to Dr Emily Harrison clearly present her research into rhythmic-based reading interventions. Anyone who has ever worked with young readers will appreciate the need to develop the 'sound' of the reading. And yet, some children experience real difficulty in mastering the rise and fall of their voice for appropriate pronunciation, phrasing and fluency (even with the help of engaging texts, clear modelling from the teacher, and repeated practice).
I was introduced to suprasegmental phonology through Emily's work. On Tuesday evening, she interchanged the term with prosody and speech rhythm sensitivity. During her talk, she referred to a body of research findings, which served to underline the importance of suprasegmental phonology in reading development.
(I think this little pair are a perfect example of early speech rhythm sensitivity.)
Emily highlighted the relationship between suprasegmental phonology and segmental phonology, and illustrated how they combine to provide phonological awareness. She also noted how most reading interventions in schools concentrate their attention on segmental phonology (letter-sound correspondences, and the segmenting and blending of words).
Source: p105 'Evaluating the Potential of a Speech Rhythm-Based Reading Intervention' by E. Harrison
In her research, Emily conducted two studies: one with beginner readers, and the other with older, struggling readers. For each study, she set up three groups:
- a control
- a segmental phonology (phonics) intervention
- a suprasegmental phonology intervention
- stress
- intonation
- timing
More details can be found in 'Evaluating the Potential of a Speech Rhythm-Based Reading Intervention' by Dr E. Harrison:
The findings of her research show no significant improvement in the results for the control group, but equivalent and significant gains in the segmental and suprasegmental phonology groups, in both studies.
Unfortunately, I had to rush off at the end to catch the train home, but when I came away my head was buzzing with a whole bunch of questions:
Are my methods of teaching children with poor speech rhythm sensitivity explicit enough to meet their needs?
How could I dovetail the teaching of segmental and suprasegmental phonology? Could the teaching of spelling strategies provide an ideal opportunity (where I could also continue to combine morphology* and etymology** where appropriate)? What would be the most simple and effective way to do this, which would work to scaffold and strengthen - rather than overload - the child's working memory?
What if school interventions were to move away from a prolonged focus on isolated words and, instead, encouraged work with continuous text - where target words are incorporated in a sentence which holds relevance and meaning for the child? Might that offer even more opportunities to develop a child's prosody?
Were other teachers aware of this free event - which I felt offered so much scope for potential professional development? (We were asked to introduce ourselves at the beginning, and I was the only teacher in the room.)
Thank you for reading my musings! If you have any thoughts, please share them. If you'd rather not do so publicly, I invite you to send me a private message.
* morphology - adding prefixes and/or suffixes
(e.g. want / wants / wanting / wanted / unwanted)
** etymology - word origins
(e.g Christmas = Christ + mas)
Unfortunately, I had to rush off at the end to catch the train home, but when I came away my head was buzzing with a whole bunch of questions:
Are my methods of teaching children with poor speech rhythm sensitivity explicit enough to meet their needs?
How could I dovetail the teaching of segmental and suprasegmental phonology? Could the teaching of spelling strategies provide an ideal opportunity (where I could also continue to combine morphology* and etymology** where appropriate)? What would be the most simple and effective way to do this, which would work to scaffold and strengthen - rather than overload - the child's working memory?
What if school interventions were to move away from a prolonged focus on isolated words and, instead, encouraged work with continuous text - where target words are incorporated in a sentence which holds relevance and meaning for the child? Might that offer even more opportunities to develop a child's prosody?
Were other teachers aware of this free event - which I felt offered so much scope for potential professional development? (We were asked to introduce ourselves at the beginning, and I was the only teacher in the room.)
Thank you for reading my musings! If you have any thoughts, please share them. If you'd rather not do so publicly, I invite you to send me a private message.
* morphology - adding prefixes and/or suffixes
(e.g. want / wants / wanting / wanted / unwanted)
** etymology - word origins
(e.g Christmas = Christ + mas)