Mrs. Gaugler's Website

WLM Elementary School

Our Title One curriculum is driven by the DIBELS Assessment. The DIBELS assesses phonological awareness, alphabetic understanding, automaticity and fluency.  Each measure has been thoroughly researched.

Children need to learn how to rhyme and manipulate sounds before understanding the alphabetic principle.  Phonemic awareness needs to be learned first.  These are activities that you can do in the dark.  When you put a symbol in the equation, then it becomes alphabetic principle or phonics.  Reading is like building a basement.  The foundation needs to be strong to hold up the structure.  Whereas phonological awareness and alphabetic understanding is needed before fluency and comprehension can be strong.

The five Big Ideas in reading is an interesting website to go to find information about phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

The Florida Center for Reading Research has a great website for activites for teachers in all five areas of the Big Ideas in reading.

I hope these websites help you in finding ideas for your students.