RICA Competency 3, Phonological and Phonemic Awareness is to help students begin to

understand the role of phonological and phonemic awareness in reading development, helping
them develop phonological and phonemic awareness skills. This is done by having students
become familiar with the alphabetic principle; understand phonemes, the phonetic alphabet,
graphemes, vowels, consonants, onsets, and rimes. When a student has developed the
background knowledge of these main headers; that is when they can understand and develop the
skills of the role of phonological and phonemic awareness in reading development. (Zarrillo,
2011, pp. 24-25)
Connecting this to my preparation for tutoring session one, I used three different
assessments, two of which assessed the childs phonological and phonemic awareness. The first
one was the Phonemic Awareness Assessment and what I had to do was provide a quick lesson
on words that rhyme, words that begin with the same sound, blending onset/rime, phonemic
blending, phonemic segmentation, segmenting onset/rime, and phonemic substitution. I then had
the child provide me with words that work for each category. The second one was the Phonics
and Decoding Assessment and what I had to do was provide the child with a list of words
revealing only one row at a time. The top row was real words with short vowels, and the other
row was made up words. I would then check the words said correctly, and re-write the words
they said for the ones pronounced incorrectly. For tutoring session one, I re-administered the two
same assessments but this time on two tutees who were in the second grade. Due to not feeling
confident either of the two times I administered the assessments, my master teacher allowed me
to administer another assessment that assessed the childs phonological and phonemic awareness.
This assessment was used to place children into the right level of understanding, so that they

could be placed in groups with a teacher and students at the same level of understanding for
phonological and phonemic awareness.
TPE 9.6 Candidates use varied teaching methods to help students meet or exceed grade
level expectations (California Teaching Performance Expectations, 2013). Knowing that
students need the background knowledge of the alphabetic principle; understand phonemes, the
phonetic alphabet, graphemes, vowels, consonants, onsets, and rimes, I have to use various
teaching methods to ensure my students get the foundation laid down so that they can understand
and fully grasp , Phonological and Phonemic Awareness. With the variety of teaching methods I
have to use to ensure my students will meet or exceed grade level expectations, I have to also
strategically plan and schedule my instruction, while ensuring that students meet or exceed the
standards. (California Teaching Performance Expectations, 2013, TPE 1.2). With grade level
expectations and standards needing to be met or exceled, I have to also ensure that my teaching
practices are developmentally appropriate. Lev Vygotsky talks about each child having a zone of
proximal development that shows the difference between what students can do without help and
what they can do with help. Although there are grade level expectations and standards to be met,
the students needs have to be met first, and I can do that by implementing developmentally
appropriate practices. TPE 6.1 During teaching assignments Grades K-3, candidates for a
Multiple Subject Teaching Credential understand how to create a structured day with
opportunities for movement (California Teaching Performance Expectations, 2013). Having
movement, allows for children to grow in what they do without help, ultimately allowing them to
meet or excel grade level expectations and standards, but first we have to meet the students
where they are at.

I can apply RICA Competency 3, Phonological and Phonemic Awareness to the

classroom and tutoring environment by applying RICA Competency 1, Planning, Organizing,
and Managing Reading Instruction. I have to plan, organize, and manage my lesson plan around
Phonological and Phonemic Awareness. I then have to implement what I have planned and
organize in a way that the students or tutees that I am working with will understand. I not only
have to plan my lessons, but how I plan to assess them to know what they understood and didnt
understand, so that I can modify or make changes where need be. Above doing all of this, I want
my students and tutees to understand the importance of learning phonological and phonemic
awareness, in order for them to make connections. Acquisition of phonemic awareness is highly
predictive of success in learning to read (Zarrillo, 2011, p. 25). Reading is the foundation of
learning, and if students dont have the foundation of reading how can we expect them to reach
their fullest potential? Learning is like a staircase with a landing strip at each step, just like you
cant expect a baby to walk before it crawls, you cant expect a child to read without the
acquisition of phonemic awareness.

Works Cited
Commission on Teacher Credentialing. (2013). California teaching performance
Expectations. Retrieved from http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educatorprep/TPA-files/TPEs-Full Version.pdf
Zarrillo, J. J. (2011). Third Edition Ready for Revised RICA. Boston : Pearson .