(upbeat music) - Hi friends.

Welcome back to Teaching in Room Nine, our region's largest classroom.

My name is Julia, and I'm one of the second grade teachers at The Soulard School, but here for teaching in room nine I've had a lot of different roles.

I've taught reading for second through fourth graders, math for second graders.

And now I'm so excited to be back here with you and we're going to learn all about something called phonemic awareness.

So phonemic awareness, what is that?

Those are some really big words, right?

So phonemes are the unit of sound that letters make.

We're going to be talking about how letters have sounds and how they come together to make words.

Can I get a me too if you already knew that letters have different sounds that they make?

I had a feeling, a lot of my friends already had a good idea that letters come together to make words.

And each of those individual letters have their own sounds.

So we are going to be just like reading scientists.

So it's like, we are going to be dissecting words looking at all of those individual letters, the sounds that they make, and how they are put together in many different ways to make the words that we can say, read or write.

So this week friends I'm really excited to get started with you.

We're going to start with something called print awareness.

And what is that you ask?

I'd like to introduce you to a very special friend who's going to help us to learn all about print awareness.

So I'll swing you around this way.

All right, friends.

So as you can see, I've got my friend Bonita, the skeleton.

Can you guys say hi to Bonita the skeleton?

Hi Bonita.

Hi friends.

How are you today?

Bonita, as you can see, has a giant umbrella.

And on our giant umbrella, it says the word print.

So our print umbrella, what is that word print?

What does that mean?

Yeah I'm hearing some friends saying some really great answers.

Print is written text or words like in books, magazines, newspapers, internet articles, advertisements and more.

So print awareness is how comfortable you are with using books and other texts.

Think of it as the foundation of a house of reading.

So if you are trying to build a really strong solid house of reading, you need to build it on a really solid and strong foundation.

So Prince awareness is our foundation and then we will slowly build brick by brick adding more skills to our house of reading.

And we're going to end up with a really strong reading house.

So we have to learn all about print awareness first before we can start adding on those other skills and bricks to our house of reading.

So we have to understand our written word and print awareness.

So print awareness.

Think of it as this big umbrella here that is keeping Bonita dry from the rain.

So here is our Prince awareness and the three main rain drops that we're going to focus on that fall under that umbrella of print awareness, are this first one here book handling skills.

Before we can tackle reading those words we need to know how to use a book.

And have those different skills that we need before we can start reading those words on the pages.

Then under our umbrella of print awareness, we have concept of word.

Before we can start tackling reading words, we have to understand what is a word or what makes a word, a word.

And then lastly, our last umbrella or raindrop under our umbrella is attitudes towards reading and writing.

So hopefully we really want to build a positive relationship with reading and writing.

Because it's something that is all around us in our daily life.

It's something that we use every single day, all the time.

So we want to make sure that we start to develop that really positive relationship with reading and writing.

So our friend Bonita here has our print awareness umbrella and we've got these three main raindrops; book handling skills, concept of wording, attitudes towards reading and writing.

And that will help us to better understand print awareness.

All right, friends, go ahead and say goodbye to Bonita for right now.

Bye Bonita!

Bye friends.

Let's swing you guys back around this way.

All right, there we go.

Okay friends.

So when we are learning to read, the best thing that we can do is to look at lots of different books.

So what is the purpose of a book?

What do you guys think?

Yeah, I'm hearing some really great answers.

The purpose of a book is either to teach us something or to tell us a story.

This my dear is reading scientists is the difference between fiction and nonfiction.

Fiction books are fake or fantasy.

They tell us a story, take us on an adventure, maybe teach us a lesson.

And then if we want to learn facts about a topic then we're going to learn or read nonfiction.

So again, the purpose of a book is to tell a story and entertain us or it could be to teach us facts about a topic.

All right, my reading scientists let's get ready and start dissecting a book.

So I'm gonna bring you nice and close so you guys can see my parts of a book chart here.

All right.

So you can see this darling little girl here is holding a book.

And I can tell by looking at the letters here that they're facing the right way.

So I know she's got the book held the right way.

It's not upside down.

Now let's start looking at some of these different pieces of the book.

We've got on this side is the front cover.

Her front cover has all this different stuff on it.

And then on this side we have our back cover.

All right.

So on her front cover, that's the front part of the book.

The back cover is the back.

And it's held together by a spine.

Did you guys know that you also have a spine in your body?

Amazing.

If you didn't know, let's look over at my friend Bonita again, and we can look at her spine.

So here's Bonita and she has got this amazing spine here.

It starts all the way up at her head her skull here.

Goes down her neck, down her back, all the way to the bottom part of her body.

So you can tell without her spine here she would just fall apart and just be a bunch of bones.

We need our spine, which is in our backs in order to help keep us standing nice and straight and tall.

Thanks Bonita.

Let's come back this way, friends.

So the spine of a book is the exact same friends.

It holds our front and back cover here together.

So again, front cover, back cover, and it's held together with the spine of a book.

Then looking at our front cover, we have that title.

The title is the name of our book.

I made this book up.

So my made-up title is The School Day.

Then underneath the title, you can see that I've drawn a little apple here.

This is our illustration that comes on the front cover.

By looking at the title and the illustration, we can already start to make those predictions or those guesses in our brains for what we think we might be reading in this story.

And then at the bottom of the front cover you can see my meetup authors as by Emily Jones.

That is our author.

Emily Jones is the one who wrote this story, The School Day.

Underneath our author you will find our illustrator.

The illustrator is the person who drew and colored all of those beautiful pictures that you'll find in your book.

That says here pictures by Alan Peters.

So he's my made up illustrator.

Okay.

So parts of a book.

You've got your front cover your back cover, held together by a spine.

You've got your title, that's the name of the book.

You've got your author who wrote the book.

And then lastly, your illustrator, who did the pictures for where that book.

All right, friends, nicely done.

Hopefully this is just a review for you to kind of remind yourself, jog your memory what are those different parts of a book?

You did an amazing job reading scientists.

Now I written a song that helps us to review some of these different parts of the book and then what we'll find on the inside of those pages.

So my song that I wrote is the tune of the ants go marching.

Give me too if you've heard that song before.

I had a feeling a lot of my friends would probably know this tune.

So I try to pick something familiar for all of my friends to hopefully be able to sing along with me.

Would you like to hear my song?

All right.

♪ When we first learn how to read, ♪ ♪ We look at books.

♪ When we first learned how to read, ♪ ♪ We look at books ♪ We have the front and back covers ♪ ♪ And then you have a spine like mine ♪ ♪ The spine holds books together ♪ ♪ And keeps them straight and tall.

♪ ♪ Boom, boom, boom.

♪ On the front cover ♪ You'll find the author ♪ The author is who works so hard ♪ ♪ To write the book.

♪ Then the illustrator is the one who drew all the pictures ♪ ♪ And you have a title ♪ that is the name of a book ♪ Boom, boom, boom ♪ Between the covers of the book ♪ ♪ You'll find the pages ♪ On the pages ♪ Are the letters that make words ♪ ♪ The words then form the sentences ♪ ♪ That came straight from the authors mind ♪ ♪ They will tell a story ♪ Or teach us facts ♪ Imagine that ♪ Boom, boom, boom, boom Nicely done friends.

I hope you enjoyed that song.

We'll get to sing it together here again in just a brief moment.

So now reading scientists that were starting to feel a little bit more comfortable with what is a book?

Why would an author write a book?

And all of those different parts of a book that we just looked at and dissected in our chart right here.

And then we got to sing about it too.

So now we got to look at that second rain drop.

Our first rain drop was those book handling skills which we practiced and you did amazing.

Now our second rain drop is, concept of word.

All that means is understanding what is a word?

So you know that when you open a book and you see all those wonderful pages inside that you're going to find a lot of letters.

As we know, each letter is a symbol that represents its own different sounds.

So some letters might have only one sound And other letters might have many sounds.

Letters and their sounds then come together to make a word.

All right, friends I'm going to teach you something that I always love to do with my students.

It's called mirrors on.

So when I say mirrors on you're going to repeat everything that I say and do until I say mirrors off.

All right, let's go ahead and try it friends.

Mirrors on!

Letters come together to make a word.

A word has meaning.

Mirrors off!

Nicely done.

We're going to build on that now friends.

All right.

So we know that letters are made up of sounds and then letters come together to make a word.

And a word has to have meaning.

If I just took a bunch of letters together and I strung them together and I said, (indistinct) Am I saying something that has meaning?

Can you understand what I'm trying to tell you?

Absolutely not.

I sound like I'm speaking an alien language.

So we have to put the letters together in order to a word and that word has to have meaning.

I can't just string random letters together.

And another thing about a word is that words also have spaces before and after the word.

So you can see in my chart right over here, we're going to start practicing some examples.

And you can see this top one here says, "These are letters."

And between these three words, you can see spaces.

that shows me where each word starts and stops.

And then in the middle part here it says, "These are words."

Again with those spaces before and after those words.

And then you also have a sentence.

So are you ready friends?

We start with letters.

And those teeny, teeny, teeny teeny sounds that come in letters, those phonemes.

Then we take our letters we bring them together to make a word.

A word has to have meaning.

A word has spaces before and after.

And then you may bring words together to create a sentence.

And a sentence also has meaning.

I can't just say a ball car keys said there.

Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?

So even though those are all words that I just said, when I put them together it didn't have meaning.

It didn't make sense.

So I wasn't able to sort of tell the person that I am speaking to what it is that I need.

I just strong a bunch of words together.

The same way it didn't make sense when I took all those letters together and made that made up (indistinct).

All right, friends.

So we're going to practice this on the chart here.

We're going to do mirrors on again, okay?

Are you ready?

Mirrors on!

Letters come together to make a word.

A word has meaning.

Words then come together to make a sentence.

A sentence also has meaning.

A sentence starts with a capital.

It ends with a period.

This tells the reader that the sentence is over.

We always read from left to right.

Mirrors off!

You did such a wonderful job friends.

So we just kind of put all of that information that we just learned in our brains together and that mirrors on.

So again, we know that letters come together to make a word.

And we already know that letters have sounds.

So they come together to make a word.

A word has meaning.

Words have spaces before and after.

Words then come together to make a sentence.

And a sentence also has meaning.

A sentence starts with a capital.

That is our big letters.

Big letters are capital or uppercase letters.

A sentence always starts with those capital letters.

And then it ends with a period.

So all of these sentences here have periods to show us that the sentence is over.

And we always read from left to right.

From left to right.

From left to right.

All right friends, I'm going to hold up some examples and you're going to tell me if they are a letter, or a word, or a sound.

Are you ready?

Oh I'm sorry.

Or a sentence?

A sentence.

Are you ready my dears?

I'm going to mix them up a little bit.

So I really want to stretch your brains here.

All right.

What about this?

Is this a letter, a word or a sentence?

Nicely done.

I heard of someone saying that's a letter.

It's the letter C. C makes two sounds the hard C (makes C sound) and the soft C (makes C sound).

Nicely done.

Right next.

Is this a word, a letter, or a sentence?

Nicely done friends.

I heard someone say, this is a word.

You are absolutely right.

We see more than one letter there.

So it's not just one letter.

It is a word.

Sometimes words can be really short and just have two letters.

Just like this word.

This is the word me.

Are you ready for our next one?

What is this?

I can't trick my friends.

You are right.

This is a letter.

It's the letter E. E is a special letter because it is a vowel.

But we'll get into that more later.

All right.

Ready for your next one?

Nicely done.

This is not a letter.

It's made up of letters.

So we know it is a word.

Well done friends.

I'm going to try to trick you.

What is this?

Is this a letter, or a word, or a sentence?

I can't seem to trick your friends.

You are right.

This is the sentence.

I know that because it starts with the capital, it ends with that period.

It's made up of words.

Those words have spaces.

And it has meaning.

This sentence says, I like the cat.

All right.

Nicely done.

Next one.

You nailed it.

This as a letter.

A letter has sounds.

This is the letter W. W says (makes W sound).

All right, next one.

Is this a letter, a word, or a sentence?

You are absolutely correct.

It is a word.

It is two letters together to make the word to.

T-O, to.

Like, I'm going to go park.

Next one.

Let's see if I can trick you.

Is this a letter, a word or a sentence?

You are absolutely right.

It is a letter.

It's the letter A.

Also a vowel.

So it has more than one sound.

All right.

What about this one?

Is this a letter, a word or a sentence?

You are absolutely right friends.

This is a sentence.

It is made up of words.

And the words are made up of letters.

I know it's a sentence.

'Cause it has a capital.

A big upper case letter in the beginning.

And it ends within period.

Our words are in between.

There are spaces between our words.

And the sentence has meaning.

Let's read it together.

I see the ball.

So that sentence makes sense.

So it does indeed have meaning.

All right, friends, let's do a couple more.

What about this?

Is this a word, a letter or a sentence?

You are so good at this friends.

You are absolutely right.

This is a word.

It's made up of letters.

And it comes together in a way that makes sense or has meaning.

This is the word like.

Like.

All right.

What about, this?

Is this a letter, or a word or a sentence?

You are amazing friends.

This is indeed a letter.

It is just one.

So just say letter.

It's an uppercase letter.

It is an I.

So it is a special letter.

It is a vowel.

So it has more than one sound.

You are getting so good at this.

If this feels a little bit tricky for your brain or you're not getting everyone right, that's okay.

We're here to make mistakes and learn here together.

This is a safe space for us to really stretch our brains and grow.

All right.

Next one.

You are right friends.

This is indeed a word.

It's made up of three letters.

It is not a bunch of words together.

So it's not a sentence.

This is the word cat.

You guys did such a fabulous job with that reading scientists.

So now I'd like to sing our song together again but this time we're going to add on some of the information that we just learned.

All right.

So maybe you can sing along with me.

I'll try to go nice and slow so you can sing along Ready?

♪ When we first learn how to read ♪ ♪ We look at books ♪ When we first learn how to read ♪ ♪ We look at books ♪ We have the front and back covers ♪ ♪ And then you have a spine like mine ♪ ♪ The spine holds books together ♪ ♪ And keeps them straight and tall ♪ ♪ Boom, boom, boom.

♪ On the front cover ♪ You'll find the author ♪ The author is who works so hard ♪ ♪ To write the book ♪ Then the illustrator ♪ Is the one who drew all the pictures ♪ ♪ And you have a title ♪ That is the name of a book ♪ Boom, boom, boom.

♪ Between the covers of the book ♪ ♪ You'll find the pages ♪ On the pages are the letters that make words ♪ ♪ The words then form the sentences ♪ ♪ That come straight from the author's mind ♪ ♪ They will tell a story ♪ or two just facts.

♪ Imagine that ♪ Boom, boom, boom ♪ When we read we always go from left to right ♪ ♪ When we read we're always sure to touch each word.

♪ ♪ Each time we start at the capital letter ♪ ♪ At the beginning ♪ Reading each word ♪ Until we get to the end period ♪ ♪ Boom, boom, boom ♪ Once we read the book from front to back ♪ ♪ It's done ♪ But hold on just you wait there ♪ ♪ Is much more fun ♪ Let's talk about what we just read ♪ ♪ Do we understand the words?

♪ What was the author trying to say ♪ ♪ To us this day?

♪ Boom, boom, boom, boom Nicely done friends.

So we kind of added on to all of those parts of the book that my reading scientist friends helped me to dissect all of those different parts of the book.

And then we learned all about the differences between letters.

These are symbols that make their own sound.

Words are letters that come together to make sense or to make a meaning.

And they come together.

You bring these letters together to make a word.

And then you are able to string words together to create a sentence.

A sentence always starts with a capital.

It has spaces in between the words.

It ends with a period.

And it also has meaning.

And then we talked about the very last part of my song that it's important for us to understand what we read.

If the words are too hard for us to understand that's okay.

It's just not a just right book for us.

And we'll find a book that challenges us to really stretch our brain, but it isn't too hard that it makes us feel frustrated or angry.

We really want to make sure that we have positive attitudes about reading and writing, which was that last rain drop on Bonita's umbrella of print awareness.

It's really important for this friends because it is something that is all around us in our daily lives.

You read and write all day long, every single day.

And it is something that you use for the rest of your life.

There are so so many wonderful stories and adventures to go on and facts for you to learn.

So make sure that you find something that you would like to read that interests your heart and your brain.

Thank you so much for joining me today friends.

You did a wonderful job.

Thank you.

I'll see you next time.

Bye.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Teaching in Room Nine is made possible with support of Bank of America, Dana Brown Charitable Trust, Emerson, and viewers like you.

(upbeat music)