The Benefits of Increased Phonemic And Phonological Awareness Teaching Skills

Phonemic and phonological awareness is an essential competency for emergent literacy (Moats, 1999; Yopp, 1992).  Phonemic and phonological awareness is now typically introduced during Pre-kindergarten programs.  This emphasizes the need for universal Pre-K, since foundational concepts in emergent literacy are being introduced and then reinforced during the Kindergarten year.  When such learning opportunities are missed or ineffective, a child might find him or herself in First Grade and in need of a Tier 2 or 3 reading intervention to develop the phonemic and phonological awareness exhibited by same-age/grade peers. 

Why do we need teachers proficient in developmental reading skills?  Samantha Coppola's TED Talk provides a powerful response.  Effective teachers are the great equalizer with the potential to positively change a child's destiny.  

  Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992). Phonemic awareness is essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes.  Without phonemic awareness, phonics makes little sense.  Phonemic awareness is fundamental to mapping speech to print.  For instance, if a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon“ begin with the same sound or is unable to blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run",  then he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a word.

A phoneme is a speech sound.  A phoneme is the smallest unit of spoken language and has no inherent meaning (National Reading Panel, 2000).  Phonemic awareness involves hearing language at the phoneme level.

Phonemic awareness is not phonics.  Phonemic awareness is auditory and does not involve words in print.  Phonemic awareness is important because it teaches students to attend to sounds. Phonemic awareness primes the connection of sound to print.  Phonemic awareness gives students a way to approach reading new words.  Phonemic awareness helps students understand the alphabetic principle whereby letters in words are systematically represented by sounds.

Phonics, is the use of the code (sound-symbol relationships to recognize words.  Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of language. This is an encompassing term that involves working with the sounds of language at the word, syllable, and phoneme level.

Phonemic and phonological awareness is difficult because although the English language includes 26 letters, there are approximately 40 phonemes.  Sounds are represented in 250 different spellings.  For instance, /f/ as in ph, f, gh, ff.  Research has established that children lacking phonemic and phonological awareness skills exhibit difficulty grouping words with similar and dissimilar sounds (mat, mug, sun), blending and splitting syllables (sun-ny), blending sounds into words (m_a_n), segmenting a word as a sequence of sounds (e.g., fish is made up of three phonemes, /f/ ,/i/, /sh/), detecting and manipulating sounds within words (change “r” in “run” to “s” to make “sun”), (Kame'enui, et. al., 1997).

Teacher preparation programs need to strengthen their training in this regard and develop better partnerships with early childhood programs and elementary schools to ensure optimal training of teachers in the implementation of intervention programs that utilize a phonemic and phonological awareness approach.  Acceptance of the need for this awareness will increase the likelihood of effective action planning for students identified as at-risk learners during the emergent literacy stage of learning.

Vacca & Padak (1990) find at-risk learners are seldom more academically vulnerable than during instructional situations that require them to engage in acts of literacy.  Kletzien & Bednar (1990) view at-risk readers as students who see themselves “as poor learners who have limited aptitude to benefit from educational opportunities.  They are at risk by being constantly discouraged and by having an inadequate understanding of their own learning abilities and potential” (p 528). 

Most research-based reading intervention programs utilize a phonemic and phonological awareness approach as the foundation for their model of reading intervention.  The most effective reading programs for at-risk students utilize a multisensory and systematic approach (Ehri, Nunes, Willows, Schuster, Yaghoub-Zadeh, & Shanahan, 2001; Kim, Wagner, & Lopez, 2012; Kruidenier, MacArthur, Wrigley, 2010). Research by Slavin, Lake, Davis, and Madden, (2009) found one-to-one intervention effective for students at-risk for reading failure.  As noted above, effective teachers are the great equalizer with the potential to positively change a child's destiny.  Developing phonemic and phonological awareness skills as a teacher of reading simply makes a teacher more effective.  

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (August 31, 2017) The benefits of increased phonemic and phonological awareness

teaching skills. [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

References;

Big Ideas in Beginning Reading (2009) University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning

Retrieved from:  http://reading.uoregon.edu/resources/bibr_pa_concepts.pdf

Davenport, P., & Anderson, G. (2002). Closing the achievement gap: No excuses. Houston, TX:

            APQC.

Ehri, L. C., Nunes, S. R., Willows, D. M., Schuster, B. V., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z., & Shanahan, T. (2001)

                Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read: Evidence from the national

                reading panel's meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly 36 (3). 250-287.         http://dx.doi.org/10.1598/rrq.36.3.2

Lezotte, L. W. (1991) Correlates of Effective Schools: The First and Second Generation.

            Retrieved from: http://www.effectiveschools.com/images/stories/escorrelates.pdf

Kame'enui, E. J., Simmons, D. C., Baker, S., Chard, D. J., Dickson, S. V., Gunn, B., Smith, S. B.,

Sprick, M., & Lin, S. J. (1997). Effective strategies for teaching beginning reading. In E. J.

Kame'enui, & D. W. Carnine (Eds.), Effective Teaching Strategies That Accommodate

Diverse Learners. Columbus, OH: Merrill.

Kim, Y.-S., Wagner, R. K., & Lopez, D. (2012). Developmental relations between reading fluency and

reading comprehension: A longitudinal study from grade 1 to grade 2. Journal of

Experimental Child Psychology , 113(1), 93-111. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.03.002

Kletzien, S.B. & Bednar, M.R., (1990). Dynamic assessment for at-risk readers. Journal

 of Reading v33. n7  528-533

Moats, L. C. (1999). Teaching reading is rocket science: What expert teachers of reading

should know and be able to do. Washington, D. C.: American Federation of Teachers.

Lyon, G. R. (1995). Toward a definition of dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 45, 3-27.

National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of

the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction

[online]. Retrieved from: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/smallbook.htm.

Shaywitz. S. (2003). Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for

Reading problems at any level. New York: Knopf.

Slavin, R. E., Lake, C., Davis, S., & Madden, N. A. (2011). Effective programs for struggling readers:

                    A best-evidence synthesis. Educational Research Review, 6(1), 1–26.

                    doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2010.07.002

Smith S. B., Simmons, D. C., & Kame'enui, E. J. (1998). Phonological awareness: Research

bases. In D. C. Simmons & E. J. Kame'enui (eds.), What reading research tells us about

children with diverse learning needs: Bases and basics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates.

Yopp, H. K. (1992). Developing Phonemic Awareness in Young Children. Reading Teacher,

45(9), 696-703.

Vacca, R. T. & Padak, N. D. (1990). Who's at risk in reading? Journal of Reading v33. n7

486-88.

Zangwill, W.I. & Kantor, P. B. (1998). Toward a theory of continuous improvement and the

            learning curve.  Management Science, 44(7) 910-920.

Effective Teaching and Learning Through Implementation of Class-Wide and Systemic Action Research

It is not enough to want change or to need to change, we must experience change!  Although this profound truth can be stated in manner ways, to attain related goals this axiom clearly supports the need for vision and purpose that is followed by right action.  Ideally, those goals are honorable and the purpose of the desired change is to make better possible.  "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds.' Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds" (James 2:17-18). 

As part of educational improvement processes, the impact of a specific instructional practice on student learning can be measured based on data collection and analysis.  The results then form the basis for educational planning, innovation, and effective decision-making.  Action research is a process in which teachers systematically investigate instructional practices and techniques to improve their teaching and student learning.  The impact of a specific instructional practice on student learning is measured.  The resulting data becomes the basis for further educational planning and decision-making.

However, action research can also be utilized for promoting continual professional development and providing a direct route for systemic teaching and learning improvement (Calhoun, 2002).  Respective of the correlates of Effective Schools Research (Lezotte & Snyder, 2011) and tenets of Invitational Theory and Practice (Shaw, Siegel, & Schoenlein, 2013), using effective leadership to encourage action research with the collection and analysis of data to monitor and adjust programs, policies, people, places, and processes, facilitates school-wide change.  Thus, systemic action research offers the opportunity to transform the school’s climate and level of educational effectiveness. 

When the effective educational leader begins to investigate the practicality of implementing action research school-wide, the following questions should be addressed:

• What does the disaggregated classroom data reflect about student and teacher learning?
• What do teachers need to learn in order to impact specific student learning needs?
• How is the school going to support teacher learning to ensure student achievement?
• How will teachers and the school evaluate classroom instruction and professional learning? What evaluation tools will be used?
• How will teachers and the school use the information collected through the evaluation to make specific and targeted decisions regarding research-based instructional strategies?
  
  

Through utilization of action research as a systemic process, the educational leader increases development of the disciplines required to promote a learning organization.  The five primary disciplines of a learning organization were identified by Senge (1990) as: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning.  By utilizing these disciplines, facilitating the learning of teachers and students, and transforming itself as part of a continuous improvement process, a school will thereby begin to exhibit the essential features of a learning organization.  In addition to Senge’s (1990) systems model, Steiner's (1998) organizational learning model garnered a lot of attention. 

An effective change leader’s new role and additional responsibilities would be to support staff transitions throughout the change process.  This is optimized by helping build resiliency during change.  It is also essential for the change leader to willingly destabilize the system to promote innovation, provide workplace balance, and thereby create a learning organization.  Since this requires a change in the educational leader’s primary purpose, the creation of organizational structure that encourages a culture of learning (Senge, Kleinder, Roberts, Ross, and Smith, 1994) requires the right people becoming part of the organization.  Therefore, the role of an educational change leader needs to be much more proactive, inclusive, trusting, supportive and trustworthy.  Being proactive will mitigate reacting to or worrying about conditions over which the educational leader has little or no control. 

As a result, the proactive educational change leader is better able to focus time and energy on what can be controlled.  Covey (1989) identified the importance of allowing problems, challenges, and opportunities to fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.  Proficiency in this area allows the educational change leader to attend to the appropriate details within his or her sphere (Senge et al., 1994).  Ideally, the result can then be a school that is a learning organization prepared to promote the learning for all mission!

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (July 31, 2017) Effective teaching and learning through implementation of class-wide

and system action research.  [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/





References

Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New

                York: Free Press

Lezotte, L. W., & Snyder, K. M. (2011). What effective schools do: Re-envisioning the correlates.

Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Purkey, W. (1992). An invitation to invitational theory. Journal of Invitational Theory and

Practice, 1(1), 5-15.

Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline. London ENG: Century Business

Senge, P. M., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., & Smith, B. J. (1994). The fifth discipline

                fieldbook: Strategies and tools for building a learning organization. New York:

                Doubleday.

Shaw, D., Siegel, B., & Schoenlein, A. (2013). The basic tenets of invitational theory and

practice: An invitational glossary. Journal of Invitational Theory and Practice, 19, 30-42

 

 

A Coherent Network of Student Assessment Contributes to Attaining the Mission of Learning for All

Effective classroom assessment requires a systemic rather than a singular approach.  Such an approach requires a change in mindset whereby assessment is not as a single test but rather as an articulate system of metrics.  A coherent system will be comprised of “valid measures of learning and be horizontally, developmentally, and vertically aligned to serve classroom, school, and district improvement’ (Herman, 2010, p. 1). 

Although a multiple choice test can be efficiently administered it cannot reliably measure the range of annual learning standards.  However, a systemic mindset encourages utilization of multiple measures that can evaluate both the depth and breadth of student learning and development.  Therefore, a systemic approach that embraces multiple and diverse forms of evaluation provides the opportunity to analyze a more thorough exhibition of student learning.  

Systemic approaches that utilize diverse evaluations allow all stakeholders a better opportunity to make decisions based on holistic data.  Diverse data analysis offers the opportunity to more reliably monitor and adjust plans for student, classroom, and school-wide improvement.  This systemic approach provides an opportunity that is not reliably possible through analysis of a solitary, end-of-year test.  The latter “simply cannot provide sufficient formative information to guide teaching and learning throughout the year (Herman, 2010, p 3).

As noted by Herman, the National Research Council (NRC, 2001), advocates for coherence that begins “with a clear specification of the goal(s) to be measured.  Next, assessment tasks are specially designed or selected to reflect the learning goal(s).  Finally, an appropriate interpretation framework is applied to student responses to reach valid conclusions about student learning—for example, a score of “proficient” on a state test or an inference about the source of a student’s misunderstandings in teachers’ formative practice” (2010, p. 3).

A systemic approach promotes coherence.  Through-course exams complement end-of-year assessments.  “More extended, performance-oriented assessments conducted during the course of instruction provide rich opportunities to assess students’ thinking and reasoning as well as their ability to apply and communicate their knowledge and skills in solving complex problems” (Herman, 2010, p. 6).  Models of effective teaching utilize performance assessments to support authentic instruction and student learning. 

An assessment system promoting a coherent network provides the opportunity to develop, implement, and utilize a data-based accountability system that supports educational reform.  Holistic data-based analysis monitors instruction, identifies areas for improvement, and adjusts implementation to optimize learning for all students.  Therefore, every student becomes prepared for post-secondary education or training that can result in a successful life.  Learning for all must be the mission.  A coherent, data-based accountability system is identified as a correlate of Effective Schools Research (Lezotte & Snyder, 2011).  Therefore, any educator that supports learning for all willingly embraces the concept of a coherent system of student assessment.  

  

To cite: 

Anderson, C.J. (October 30, 2016) A coherent network of student assessment contributes to attaining the mission of learning for all. [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

References:

Herman, J. L. (2010). Coherence: Key to next generation assessment success (AACC Report). Los Angeles, CA: University of California.

Lezotte, L. W., & Snyder, K. M. (2011). What effective schools do: Re-envisioning the correlates. Bloomington, IN:Solution Tree Press.

 

An Effective Response to Intervention System Requires Highly Effective Teachers

Using a crosswalk between the correlates of Effective Schools Research and tenets of an effective Response to Intervention (RTI) program will allow a multidimensional team of stakeholders that includes parents or guardians, to create an efficient and effective RTI system.  Such a system promotes equity in quality within schools committed to the pursuit of learning for all.  Subsequent alignment of the district's non-negotiable goals with individual school needs and experiences (Marzano & Waters, 2009) should expand rather than limit the district's clearinghouse of research-based and success-proven strategies and interventions.  

While there is a danger to prescribing interventions in a limiting fashion, collecting and archiving RTI anthologies have the potential for providing a clearinghouse of research-based and success-proven strategies and interventions.  Promoting such a clearinghouse of identified successes ensures professional development is available to optimize access, review, and implementation of a range of interventions.  Thus, RTI can actually enrich the highly effective  teacher’s professional practice through defined autonomy.

A core competency required for effective implementation of RTI interventions is the ability to correctly collect, analyze, and utilize data.  Frequent monitoring of student progress, and adjusting as indicated by results, is a correlate of continuous school improvement within Effective Schools.  This correlate requires teacher competency in collecting data, evaluating results, and being an honest consumer of the resulting data.  

Both pre-service and in-service teachers openly admit to the difficulty of monitoring student progress to inform instructional decisions.  The inter-relationship between the identified core principles makes the pursuit of a hierarchy subjective at best and futile at worst.  The correlate of frequent monitoring and subsequent adjustment drives the core principles for implementing RTI.  The ability to collect data, evaluate results, and be an honest consumer of the resulting data promotes the correlate of frequent monitoring and subsequent adjustment.  Teacher proficiency with data must therefore become a professional competency. 

When teachers identify and prescribe an intervention, they often have difficulty accepting the need to change (adjust) if the prescribed intervention proves ineffective.  Too often the failure of the intervention is perceived a personal failure of the initial prescription, which can then delay the necessary adjustment.  For this reason, a district and school is well-advised to consider the following six ideas for successful development of an effective RTI system: 

• Encourage participation by key stakeholders during planning and implementation.
• Elicit strong administrative support in staff development, instructional integrity, and data collection.
• Provide in-depth staff development with mentoring, modeling, and coaching.
• Begin follow-up trainings at the beginning of each school year.
•  Distribute a manual outlining procedures and materials.
•  Build Problem Solving Models including RTI into school schedules and the student improvement process (Lau, Sieler, Muyskens, et al, 2006).

Additionally, Schools of Education and Alternate Route Teacher Preparation Programs need to ensure graduates are able to collect data, evaluate results, and be an honest consumer of the resulting data.  There needs to be an expectations for utilizing statistics and data analysis during coursework for prospective teachers.  Effective districts also need to complement this evolution through in-service professional development on collecting data, evaluating results, and being an honest consumer of the resulting data.

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (August 31, 2016) aA effective response to intervention system requires highly effective

teachers.  [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

Reference:

Edmonds, R. (1979). Effective Schools for the urban poor. Educational Leadership, 37,

15-24.

Lau, Sieler, Muyskens, Canter, VanKeuren, & Marston (2006).  Perspectives on the use of the

            Problem-Solving Model from the viewpoint of school psychologist, administrator, and

            teacher. Psychology in the Schools, 43 (1), 117-127.

Marzano, R. & Waters, T.(2009).  District leadership that works. Bloomington, In: Solution

                Tree Press

Response to Intervention: Phonemic and Phonological Awareness

            As noted in the September 30, 2015 blog post, the core competency required for effective implementation of Response to Interventions (RTI) is the ability to correctly collect, analyze, and utilize data.  The correlate of frequent monitoring and subsequent adjustment drives the core principles for implementing RTI.  The ability to collect data, evaluate results, and be an honest consumer of the resulting data promotes the correlate of frequent monitoring and subsequent adjustment.  Teacher proficiency with data must therefore become a professional competency

            Frequent monitoring of student progress, and adjusting instruction or interventions based on results, is a correlate of continuous school improvement within Effective Schools.  This correlate requires teacher competency in collecting data, evaluating results, and effectively consuming the data.  When teachers identify and prescribe an intervention, they often have difficulty accepting the need to adjust when the prescribed intervention proves ineffective. Too often, a teacher erroneously perceives the intervention’s failure as a personal failure of the teacher’s initial prescription.  Thus, defensiveness rather than professional awareness delays the necessary adjustment.  For this reason, teacher preparation programs as well as districts or schools need to consider the following six ideas for successful development of an effective RTI system:

1.      Encourage participation by key stakeholders during planning and implementation.

2.      Elicit strong administrative support in staff development, instructional integrity, and data collection.

3.      Provide in-depth staff development with mentoring, modeling, and coaching.

4.      Begin follow-up trainings at the beginning of each school year.

5.      Distribute a manual outlining procedures and materials.

6.      Build Problem Solving Models including RTI into school schedules and the student improvement process (Lau, Sieler, Muyskens, et al, 2006).

            Increased awareness optimizes the opportunity for effective implementation of the RTI system.  However, potential problems will be omnipresent without administrative support and ongoing professional development.  The following identify the essential eight core principles for implementing RTI.  

1.      Effectively teach each and every student.

2.      Provide early intervention.

3.      Use a multi-tier model of service delivery.

4.      Use a problem-solving method to make decisions within the multi-tier model.,

5.      Use research-based validated interventions/instruction.

6.      Monitor student progress to inform instruction.

7.      Use data to make decisions.

8.      Use assessment for three purposes: screening, diagnostics, and progress monitoring.

           

RTI has been proven effective for improving reading, writing, Mathematics, and school culture related to behavior management.  The most popular areas for RTI addressed academic expectations or behavioral concerns.  One widely utilized, albeit controversial, program is Reading First.  Another highly successful program has been Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS).  These initiatives utilize the RTI framework as displayed in Table 1 below. 

Table 1: 

The balance of this post will discuss phonemic and phonological awareness, which is an essential competency for emergent literacy. Phonemic and phonological awareness is now typically introduced during Pre-Kindergarten programs.  This emphasizes the need for universal Pre-K since foundational emergent literacy concepts are being introduced and then reinforced during the Kindergarten year.  When such learning opportunities are missed or ineffective, a child might find him/herself in First Grade and in need of a Tier 2 or 3 intervention to develop the phonemic and phonological awareness exhibited by same-age/grade peers.    

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992). Phonemic awareness is essential to learning to read in an alphabetic writing system, because letters represent sounds or phonemes.  Without phonemic awareness, phonics makes little sense.  Phonemic awareness is fundamental to mapping speech to print.  For instance, if a child cannot hear that "man" and "moon“ begin with the same sound or is unable to blend the sounds /rrrrrruuuuuunnnnn/ into the word "run",  then he or she may have great difficulty connecting sounds with their written symbols or blending sounds to make a word.

A phoneme is a speech sound.  A phoneme is the smallest unit of spoken language and has no inherent meaning (National Reading Panel, 2000).  Phonemic awareness involves hearing language at the phoneme level.

Phonemic awareness is not phonics.  Phonemic awareness is auditory and does not involve words in print.  Phonemic awareness is important because it teaches students to attend to sounds. Phonemic awareness primes the connection of sound to print.  Phonemic awareness gives students a way to approach reading new words.  Phonemic awareness helps students understand the alphabetic principle whereby letters in words are systematically represented by sounds.

Phonics, is the use of the code (sound-symbol relationships to recognize words.  Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of language. This is an encompassing term that involves working with the sounds of language at the word, syllable, and phoneme level.

Phonemic and phonological awareness is difficult because although the English language includes 26 letters, there are approximately 40 phonemes.  Sounds are represented in 250 different spellings.  For instance, /f/ as in ph, f, gh, ff.  Research has established that children lacking phonemic and phonological awareness skills exhibit difficulty grouping words with similar and dissimilar sounds (mat, mug, sun), blending and splitting syllables (sun-ny), blending sounds into words (m_a_n), segmenting a word as a sequence of sounds (e.g., fish is made up of three phonemes, /f/ ,/i/, /sh/), detecting and manipulating sounds within words (change “r” in “run” to “s” to make “sun”), (Kame'enui, et al., 1997).

Most research-based reading intervention programs utilize a phonemic and phonological awareness approach as the foundation for their model of reading intervention.  Many of these programs are recommended for utilization as Tier 3 (Intensive) RTI.  Next month's blog post will review the tenets of some of the most popular Tier 3 reading intervention programs.

References;
Big Ideas in Beginning Reading (2009) University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning

Retrieved from:  http://reading.uoregon.edu/resources/bibr_pa_concepts.pdf

Davenport, P., & Anderson, G. (2002). Closing the achievement gap: No excuses. Houston, TX:
            APQC.
Lezotte, L. W. (1991) Correlates of Effective Schools: The First and Second Generation.
            Retrieved from: http://www.effectiveschools.com/images/stories/escorrelates.pdf
Kame'enui, E. J., Simmons, D. C., Baker, S., Chard, D. J., Dickson, S. V., Gunn, B., Smith, S. B.,

Sprick, M., & Lin, S. J. (1997). Effective strategies for teaching beginning reading. In E. 
J. Kame'enui, & D. W. Carnine (Eds.), Effective Teaching Strategies That 
Accommodate Diverse Learners. Columbus, OH: Merrill.

Moats, L. C. (1999). Teaching reading is rocket science: What expert teachers of reading

should know and be able to do. Washington, D. C.: American Federation of Teachers.

Lyon, G. R. (1995). Toward a definition of dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 45, 3-27.
National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of

the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction

[online]. Retrieved from: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/smallbook.htm.

Shaywitz. S. (2003). Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for

Reading problems at any level. New York: Knopf.

Smith S. B., Simmons, D. C., & Kame'enui, E. J. (1998). Phonological awareness: Research

bases. In D. C. Simmons & E. J. Kame'enui (eds.), What reading research tells us 
about children with diverse learning needs: Bases and basics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence 
Erlbaum Associates.

Yopp, H. K. (1992). Developing Phonemic Awareness in Young Children. Reading Teacher,

45(9), 696-703.

Zangwill, W.I. & Kantor, P. B. (1998). Toward a theory of continuous improvement and the
            learning curve.  Management Science, 44(7) 910-920.

To cite:

Anderson, C.J. (January 28. 2016) Response to intervention: Phonemic and phonological  awareness.

[Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

Invitational Education Theory, Invitational Leadership, and the "Five P" Framework

          To evaluate elements of Invitational Education (IE) Theory when investigating school climate, Schmidt (2007) considered structures for applying and measuring the IE Theory’s principles and concepts.  Schmidt’s meta-analysis identified three sets of structure.  The first set: people, places, policies, programs, and processes- the Five Ps- provides the factors forming a framework for evaluating inviting practices.  The structural framework comprising the Five Ps will be the focus of this month’s post. 

       Purkey and Siegel (2003, 2013) reinforced the specific framework for schools to become “invitational” by concentrating on five areas contributing to school success or failure.  These “five powerful factors–people, places, policies, programs, and processes (the five P’s)–are highly significant for their separate and combined influence on Invitational Leadership” (Purkey & Siegel, 2003, p. 104).  In combination, “these five P’s offers an almost limitless number of opportunities for the Invitational Leader, for they address the total culture or ecosystem of almost any organization” (p. 104).  Through inclusion of the five P’s the invitational leadership model becomes a unique and holistic model of leadership (Stillion & Siegel, 2005).

The five P’s contribute to the creation of a positive school climate and ultimately a healthy and successful organization (Purkey & Siegel, 2013).  In the invitational leadership model, people provide the most important element for leaders developing a successful school (Purkey & Siegel, 2013).  “Investment in people results in effective change” (Hansen, 1998, p.17)   Involving and empowering people “help individuals become part of an effective team” (Burns & Martin, 2010, p, 34).  “In the new organization the worker is no longer a cog…but is an intelligent part of the overall process.” (Gates, 1999, p. 289).  “Empowering leadership had a stronger positive effect on followers who were high on the need for autonomy, and directive leadership had a stronger negative effect on followers who were high on the need for autonomy (Seokhwa, Cox, & Sims, 2006, p. 374).  People within a success-minded organization need relationships (Bruffee, 1999; Katzenbach & Smith, 2003; Lencioni, 2002).  “The overall ambiance of the school and quality of instruction are enhanced as the school develops a 'concordant relationship' among the students, parents, teachers, and administrators” (Kelly et al. (1998, p. 62).  Therefore, the formation of positive relationships and relationship management becomes an essential element of creating and sustaining school success 

In the invitational leadership model, perceptions of a place contributes to school success or failure.  Observers can almost immediately notice the personality of a place, differentiating between a sterile, empty, and lifeless environment compared to a place seen as “warm, exciting, and filled with the personalities of all those who inhabit that space” (Burns & Martin, 2010, p, 33).  As the most visible element within an environment, “Places are the easiest to change” (Purkey, 1992, p. 7).  Therefore, in the invitational leadership model, places, and the perceptions of those that come into them, contribute to the school’s success or failure

In the invitational leadership model, policies also contribute to school success or failure.  Policies of successful schools create a positive school culture that seeks win/win results, which advances a mindset that seeks to provide mutual benefits in all human interactions (Covey, 1989).  An organization’s policies either restricts, confines, and squelches individuality or, by contrast, they empower positive and productive opportunities within the organization, thereby creating a cooperative, rather than a competitive environment (Fowler, 2004).

In the invitational leadership model, attractive programs contribute to school success or failure.  Because they always perceive themselves as overlooked, students often feel “disinvited in school” (Hansen, 1998, p.14).  In such situations, “these students suffered from a caring disability; not enough educators cared to invite them to participate in school life” (Hansen, 1998, p. 16).  By contrast, a school with a positive culture provides creative and attractive programs (Witcher, 1993) whereby academic courses taught by outstanding faculty increase the effectiveness of the curriculum while raising the standards for academic achievement and rigor (Edmonds, 1979; McCombs & Whisler, 1997).

In the invitational leadership model, processes contribute to school success or failure (Day, Harris & Hadfield, 2001; Purkey & Siegel, 2013; Stillion & Siegel, 2005).  To the detriment of an inviting environment, many school leaders establish the presumption that they are “in charge” (Cleveland, 2002, p.1).  By contrast, leaders can establish a successful school culture through “awareness of the need to include all stakeholders in as many of the decision making processes as possible” (Burns & Martin, 2010, p, 33).  When schools possess a positive school climate, they exhibit an environment that encourages “decision making characterized by participation, cooperation, and collaboration (Hansen, 1998, p. 17). 

Subsequent posts will explore the other two sets of structure identified by Schmidt’s (2007) meta-analysis.  The second set: empowerment, encouragement, enlistment, enjoyment, equity, and expectation-the Six E’s-guides the investigation of the Five Ps in relation to different stakeholder groups.  The third set identifies four areas of invitation: “Inviting Oneself Personally, Inviting Oneself Professionally, Inviting Others Personally, and Inviting Others Professionally” (Schmidt, 2007, p. 16).  Considered holistically, Schmidt posits the three sets of structure provide an understandable language with useable concepts to explain school climate based on Invitational Education Theory. 

The International Alliance for Invitational Education (IAIE) will hold its 32nd Annual World Conference in Nashville, TN from October 29-November 1, 2014.  This unique international gathering will focus upon how to use Invitational Theory as a framework for creating positive climates.  CLICK HERE to download the complete IAIE Conference Brochure and Registration Form.  CLICK HERE for Online Registration and additional information on the IAIE. 

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To Cite:

Anderson, C.J. (September 8, 2014) Invitational education theory, invitational leadership, and the five P

               framework.  [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/