The first learning expectation is: Develops increasing sense of syllable structure in oral words. The performance indicator is: Claps or beats the syllable rhythm in 2- to 4-syllable words. This is definitely one that will not develop without direct teacher instruction. Even with instruction, for some children this will take up to 6 months of exposure before they truly catch on to the concept. This will greatly depend on the amount of language exposure a child has had. The best way to expose this concept is to clap the syllables for familiar words and ask how many times you clapped. Do not expect them to fully understand what is going on at first. They may also struggle with being able to count the claps. Keep working on it a little at a time until they begin to attain mastery and be very patient. This will not come easily for many children.
The next learning expectation is: Produces rhyming words. The performance indicator for this one is: Produces, independently of adult assistance, a word, real or nonsense, which rhymes with his name or another given word (make sure that she is varying her responses and not memorizing rhyming pairs). Since nursery rhymes have fallen out of favor, the ability for children to conquer this one has diminished considerably. The concept of rhyming does not get the same level of exposure that it once did. That lack of exposure makes this performance indicator more difficult for children. Factor in the great swell of language inexperience and this one becomes even further out of range. For 4 year olds with a language delay, conquering rhyming is not within their grasp until you pull them up to a certain level of language development. Only about 25% of 4 year olds will be able to do this without adult assistance by the time they are 5 years old. We are just dealing with too much language delay currently in the early childhood community.
The next learning expectation is: Starts to develop an awareness of beginning sounds in words. The first performance indicator for this one is: Identifies whether or not two words begin with the same sound (when an adult gives 3 or 4 oral words, child selects those that begin with the same sound and identifies the sound, not the letter). I teach from a phonics-based approach instead of a whole language approach, and I will tell you the children struggle horribly with this one. When I find a four year old that conquers this one easily, that child will be an early reader. Many kindergarten children struggle with this one for the first half of the year. I hate to tell the kindergarten teachers that this will only get worse in the coming years, but it will. I see diminished capacity for this performance indicator escalating. Children are requiring more and more assistance with recognizing beginning sounds than they were even 3 or 4 years ago. I have to over-exaggerate every beginning sound for them to hear it. What once took me a month to teach is now taking me 3-6 months to teach. It is frustrating. As with everything else, this is tied to the language delay uptick.
The next performance indicator for this learning expectation is: Names several words that begin with the same sound as his name. If a child has had lots of exposure to their own name, then this one is a little easier for them than the previous one, but not a done deal. I have to be so deliberate in my teaching of phonemic sounds. A half-hearted or random exposure approach produces very little results in today's early childhood population. It just does not come naturally anymore except for the very few. Guess what causes it? Language delay.
The last learning expectation for the component - Phonological Awareness - is: Continues to increase awareness of the syllable structure of oral words. The performance indicator for this one is: Consistently claps the syllable beat of words of up to 4 syllables; blends given syllables to identify a whole word; deletes a syllable form a compound word and identifies the remaining part. This one is almost laughable. There are many kindergarten children that do not conquer this one at the end of the year. Syllable identification is one of those areas where I see children struggle horribly. They cannot even count 4 syllables when they clap that amount much less do it without assistance or consistently. I gave a good synopsis of how to teach syllables in the previous paragraph on syllables.
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