References

Traditional Print

Brown, C.S., (2014). Language and literacy development in the early years: foundational skills that support emergent readers.  The Language and Literacy Spectrum. 24, 35-49.  Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1034914.pdf

Brunn, M. (2002). Teaching Ideas: The Four-Square Strategy. The Reading Teacher, 55(6): 522-525.

Dahl, K.L. & Scharer P.L. (2000). Phonics teaching and learning in whole language classrooms: New evidence from research. The Reading Teacher. 53 (7), 584-594

Ehri, L.C. (2005). Learning to read words: Theory, findings, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(2), 167-188.

Flanigan, K & el. (2012). What’s in a Word? Using Content Vocabulary to Generate Growth in General Academic Vocabulary Knowledge. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(2): 132-140.

Greenwood, S. (2010). Content Area Readers: Helping Middle-Level Students Become Word Aware (and Enjoy It!). The Clearing House, 83: 223-229.

Hiebert, E. (2005). The effects of text difficulty on second graders’ fluency development. Reading Psychology, 26: 183-209.

Jamaludin, K.A., Alias, N., & Johari, R. (2014).Research and trends in the studies of phonological knowledge and reading development: a review on selected journals. The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Science. 2(2), 27-36. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1086237.pdf

Kieffer, M., & Lesaux, N. (2010). Morphing Into Adolescents: Active Word Learning for English-Language Learners and Their Classmates in Middle School. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(1): 47-56.

Kuhn,M. (2004). Helping students become accurate, expressive readers: Fluency instruction for small groups. The Reading Teacher, 58:338-344.

Lane, H.B. (2007). Phonological awareness: A sound beginning. 2nd Annual Struggling Reader Conference Athens, Georgia Retrieved December 2013, from http://curry.virginia.edu/reading-projects/

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teacher children to read: An evidence-based assessment of scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Rockville, MD: National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development. Retrieved from http://www.nationalreadingpanel.org/publications/summary.htm

Morrow, L.M., (2012). Literacy development in the early years: Helping children read and write. (7th Ed.) Rutgers, NJ: Pearson.

Schulz, M. (2009). Effective Writing Assessment and Instruction for Young English Language Learners. Early Childhood Education, 37: 57-62.

Stahl, S.A., Duffy-Hester, A.M., & Stahl, K.A. (1998). Everything you wanted to know about phonics (but were afraid to ask).  Reading Research Quarterly, 33(3), 338-355.

Yop, H.K.,& Yop, R.K. (2000). Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54(2), 130-143.

Websites

http://www.spellingcity.com

http://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/common-core-classroom/55272

http://www.readingrockets.org/reading-topics/fluencyhttp://

http://www.readingrockets.org/reading-topics/reading-comprehension

http://www.storylineonline.net

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/middle-school-vocabulary-development

http://www.cabarrus.k12.nc.us/cms/lib09/NC01910456/Centricity/Domain/2627/Leveled%20Comprehension%20Questions.pdf-

http://www.learner.org/workshops/teachreading35/pdf/Dev_Reading_Comprehension.pdf-

http://mrnussbaum.com/langcode/

http://educationnorthwest.org/traits/trait-definitions

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/teaching-writing-diverse-student-populations

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-diverse-learners

http://www.janrichardsonguidedreading.com/home

http://www.elltoolbox.com/words-their-way.html#.VyYoA2z5OP9

 

 

 

 

Fluency

Fluency is based on how quickly and accurately the reader is able to read a text. The use of proper expression is also taken into consideration. When a reader is considered to have read with fluency, there is better comprehension of the text.

Fluency instruction includes guided and repeated reading. Fluency should also be modeled.

The text used for teaching fluency should include very few unknown or new words. There should be words that are repeated throughout the text. If possible, there should also be only a few multisyllabic words (Hiebert, 2005).

The amount of reading that a student completes daily does have an impact on their reading achievement.

The goal of a fluent reader is for their reading to sound like spoken language. When a reader is able to show prosody, it is also an indicator of their comprehension. There needs to be an understanding of what is being read in order to properly show the elements of prosody (Kuhn 2004).

Resources:

http://www.storylineonline.net- This website has amazing stories being read with great examples of prosody by celebrities. It is a great resource to allow the students to pick a favorite book to be read to them. There are several new books added each year.

http://www.readingrockets.org/reading-topics/fluency- This website has great information for teachers and parents about fluency. There are videos, articles and other resources to assist with helping students with fluency.

 

 

Phonics

There are many different approaches to phonics instruction.  A review of research conducted by (Stahl, Duffy-Hester, & Shahl, 1998) describes several traditional and contemporary  phonics approaches. The authors note that phonics is only one part of reading instruction and stress the importance of teaching reading comprehension and other literacy related skills in addition to the teaching of phonics.

Here are a few approaches of phonics instruction to consider:

• Analogy-based
• Analytic
• Embedded
• Spelling-based
• Strategic
• Synthetic
• Systematic
• Whole Language

Education.com defines six approaches of phonics instruction and provides other related resources.

How can educators support English Language Learners to develop phonics skills?

A review of several research studies found that ESOL students that received phonics instruction also made growth in other areas of reading development.  The synthetic approach was a particularly effective approach to teaching phonics instruction to ESL students (Jamaludin, Alias, & Johari, 2014).

Other helpful tips for teaching ELLs

• Build in additional time for Systematic instruction
• Allow for wait time for processing information
• Encourage the use of think-aloud strategies to analyze and solve problems

To learn additional research related finding and suggestions to help parents and educators support their child’s phonological awareness, read this article.

Words Their Way is a program, which allows you to differentiate instruction based on each student’s knowledge of sound-symbol relationships.

Here is a helpful phonics website that provides management tips and activities when implementing the Words Their Way program.

This Reading Rockets.com lists 5 key components of reading instruction.  The section on phonics specifically addresses considerations educators should make when teaching ESL students.

Check out Jan Richardson’s website, which has many printable documents that you can use to enhance student learning.  Cynthia Columbo, one of the authors of the diverse literacy community blog has met and planned a lesson with Jan Richardson.  Cynthia has found her embedded approach to teaching phonics instruction to help her students achieve significant learning gains.  Jan Richardson’s website also provides direct links to research she conducted when working with students in diverse learning communities. This reading program aims to teach struggling readers in grades K-8.

Note: “The Next Steps in Guided Reading,” is not a phonics curriculum.  The program does use have a guided word study component, which helps teachers to match  phonics activities to their student’s instructional reading level.  These activities include word analogies, picture sorts, and, building and manipulating words using magnetic letters. All you have to do is scroll down to the word study section and click on the printable documents you desire!

 

 

 

 

Writing and Reading Comprehension

 

         

 

Writing Instruction for Diverse Learners

Research by Schulz (2009) indicates that teaching diverse learners in the area of writing should include the following:

• Be knowledgeable about students’ lives outside of school to aid in selecting developmentally appropriate writing instruction & assessment.
• Create a supportive learning environment that includes flexibility so all students can progress at their own pace.
• Teachers should focus on what “each individual student is capable of achieving instead of what the student cannot do.” (p.59)
• Be sure to select writing activities that are within their student’s zone of proximal development (Vygotsky 1978). Diverse learners have different starting points so teachers need to remain open-minded about appropriate progress throughout the school year.
• Include explicit and authentic writing instruction which includes academic conversations about the student’s learning.

6+1 Trait Writing Model of Instruction

This approach is effective in making writing accessible for students, inclusive of diverse learners. It breaks down the cognitive process in writing into six traits. The six traits are:

• Ideas–  the big or main idea. This includes supporting details.
• Organization–  the internal structure of the writing. This includes events occurring logically throughout piece, strong connections, and a conclusion.
• Voice– the tone of the author’s message. When the writer comes through in their choice of words.
• Word Choice- vocabulary that is used to give meaning to the message. This provides imagery, sensory, clarifies, and expands ideas within the writing.
• Sentence Fluency- the rhythm and flow of the language used in the piece. This includes sound of word patterns, cadence, power, rhythm, and movement.
• Conventions- the mechanics of the piece. This includes spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar/usage, and paraphrasing.
• Presentations- the visual and textual elements of the piece. It is how the writing actually looks on the page.

Please see examples of 6+1 rubric and writing chart below:

Click on the website below to read further on difficulties diverse learners may have concerning  knowledge, skill, and motivation in writing:

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/teaching-writing-diverse-student-populations

The following website showcases the “Getting Better Together Project” where a group of teachers implemented best practices of literacy instruction in their classroom. The goal for the project was to maximize all teachers in the room through use of small group instruction using stations. Students were given a survey to reflect on their own growth in mastering learning targets. Also, students used graphic organizers to assist in organizing their writing to cite textual evidence to support inferences within the novel. Finally, teachers debriefed with learners about strategies they chose to use during learning stations. https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-diverse-learners

Another useful site is the “Teacher’s College” website. This website offers a multitude of writing.  The writing resources include videos, assessments, and student work. The videos demonstrate lessons from Lucy Calkins’ units of study in grades K-8.  The student work samples that the website provides can be very helpful to show students examples and non examples of exemplary work. It can also be used to help teachers decipher what would be considered on grade level, below grade level, and above grade level student work.

Reading  Comprehension

Reading comprehension is a major part of becoming a good reader. There are many different strategies and skills included in comprehension.

• Predicting
• Connecting
• Questioning
• Visualizing
• Inferring
• Determining Importance
• Summarizing
• Synthesizing

We need to explicitly teach strategies that will assist the students with each of these areas. One way to teach comprehension is to use the student’s schema (organized knowledge of the world) to bring an understanding of the events within the story (Anderson ). The student’s background knowledge and culture will also impact their understanding of the story.

There is not one system or program that will work for every student. As teachers, we have to have a variety of resources available to support all students no matter what their comprehension level shows. The best lessons include teacher modeling, think alouds, scaffolding, guided practice, direct instruction and independent silent reading opportunities. Comprehension requires the student to continue to apply their skills and strategies because they are encountering new information that needs to be processed as the texts become more complicated. Although we teach many of the same strategies, they should look different at each grade level. (Block,C. & Lacina, J. 2009).

Jan uses many instructional strategies  that offer students various ways to practice comprehension of the texts they read.  Guided reading allows teachers to match students with texts that are on their instructional level and apply reading and writing skills within the context of what they are reading.  Jan Richardson also provides links to research that she collected from school’s (grades K-8) that she has worked with to improve student literacy learning.

Resources

http://mrnussbaum.com/langcode/- This website has a variety of passages for the kids to read and answer a variety of comprehension questions. Some passages allow the student to highlight information in the text. The passages vary in length and difficulty. It can be a great resource to find texts at different levels on subjects which is helpful to differentiate. There are also a variety of games that focus on a particular skill. They are grouped by suggested grade level. Parts of this website only become available through a subscription, but the reading comprehension passages and games are available for free.

http://www.readingrockets.org/reading-topics/reading-comprehension – This website has a variety of materials for teachers and parents. There are teaching videos, articles and other resources.

http://www.learner.org/workshops/teachreading35/pdf/Dev_Reading_Comprehension.pdf- This is an interesting article on comprehension.

http://www.cabarrus.k12.nc.us/cms/lib09/NC01910456/Centricity/Domain/2627/Leveled%20Comprehension%20Questions.pdf- This is a list of comprehension questions for all reading levels both fiction and non-fiction.

Other titles of professional books that are helpful for teaching comprehension:

                  

 

 

 

 

Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

What is the difference between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness?

Phonological awareness- The ability to identify and manipulate larger parts of spoken language.  These aspects of spoken language include whole words, syllables, initial consonants, and word chunks/onsets and rhymes.  (Morrow, 2012 p. 138)

Phonemic awareness- Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness and is the ability to recognize that words are made up of individual sounds. (Morrow, 2012 p.138)

Why should we teach Phonological and phonemic awareness?

Phonological awareness is often referred to as the umbrella term because it encompasses a multitude of sound related skills, which are imperative for reading development (Lane, 2007).  It has been found that phonemic awareness is the strongest indicator for a child’s success in learning to read (NICHD, 2000).

Some considerations for educators  when planning phonemic awareness activities:

Some research suggests that effective phonemic awareness instruction should be taught in the context of comprehensive reading instruction (Yop & Yop, 2000).

It is important for teachers to consider the stages of child development when introducing different phonemic awareness activities.  Some research indicates that children gain control over larger units of sound before they are able to gain control over smaller units of sound (Yop & Yop, 2000).

• What unit of sound are you trying to emphasize? 
• What type of operation or tasks should be performed with the units of sound being emphasized?
• Do you want the activities to be strictly oral?

Check out this great article by (Yop & Yop, 2000),  which lists a variety of books, songs, and game ideas to support the development of phonemic awareness skills.

Reading Rockets provides helpful research and instructional resources to teach phonemic awareness skills.

Reading Rockets also a wonderful resource for educators and parents that provides helpful phonemic awareness activities.

Readwritethink.org is another useful site that offers an assortment of phonological and phonemic awareness activities and lessons to support teachers. Lessons can be found that will also meet the learning needs of diverse learners. What is great about this site is that it provides classroom resources, lessons, and professional development articles.

Some other important terms related to phonological and phonemic awareness that influence a child’s early literacy skills:

Alphabetic knowledge– Ability to recognize that words are comprised of letters

Auditory discrimination– The ability to hear different similarities and differences in phonemes and words  Example: Say these sounds /f/ /b/.  Are they the same or different?

Phonetics– The study of the speech sounds occurring in languages

Phonics- Knowledge of sound-symbol relationships

Phoneme-The smallest unit of sound

How can educators support English Language Learners to develop phonological awareness skills?

• Be intentional when using visual models, gestures and manipulative when modeling lessons
• Involve ELLs in peer and cooperative learning
• Provide additional work on English phonemes that are not present in the students’ home language
• Provide individual support when possible
• Introduce highly engaging Children’s Literature

To learn specific ways parents and educators can support phonological awareness read this article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vocabulary

Why focus on Vocabulary?

Vocabulary are words that make up a  language. Students are expected to learn and apply  vocabulary knowledge in order to make meaning from their learning. Current research indicates that vocabulary knowledge influences other components of literacy instruction such as reading comprehension.  A student’s understanding of what they read is closely tied to their vocabulary knowledge. (Flanigan et al. 2012)

Effective Vocabulary Instruction

Word knowledge can be improved through implementing the following principles into vocabulary instruction:

Provide student choice when creating vocabulary lists- This will empower students and promote engagement in the learning process. One suggestion is to use a Vocabulary Rating Scale which provides student ownership in their learning through rating their knowledge of each meaning of the word.  Click on the following for examples of scales and template: Vocabulary Rating Scale  Vocab Rating Template Additionally, here is a link to view a video from the teaching channel to learn about how one teacher incorporates student choice during vocabulary development: https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/strategy-to-build-student-vocabulary

Give multiple exposures to new words- This will maximize a deep understanding of vocabulary and aids in retention of learned words. Learning the words in context is important as well as using specific strategies such as the Frayer Model- 4 square and  Concept Circles to further word knowledge. The Frayer model uses attributes and non-attributes for word learning. This strategy should be used with the most important vocabulary within a unit of study because it does take time to complete but students learn words thoroughly. Click here for template: Frayer-Four Square . Concept Circles is a strategy that allows for word flexibility and higher-order thinking when classifying and organizing academic vocabulary. Generally, it is quick and easy to implement compared with other vocabulary strategies. Click here for an example: Concept Circles Strategy

Explicit instruction of vocabulary  in context- When teaching explicitly, the goal is the make the thinking process “visible” to students so they can “see” how to think about word learning. Please review the following blog on how one 3rd grade teacher  shares how she teaches vocabulary using explicit instruction: http://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/common-core-classroom/55272

Provide opportunities for academic conversations-  Allow students to work in groups and have discussions using their academic vocabulary. This promotes active learning in students through identifying words/topics important in their own thinking, making connections, and practice using words in correct contexts. Click on the video from the teaching channel to learn how one teacher implements an interactive activity to promote interaction among students: https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/middle-school-vocabulary-development

Learn the connection between phonemic awareness,  the alphabetic principle, and  vocabulary knowledge –Some research has found evidence that phonemic awareness and knowledge of the alphabetic principle has the ability to influence children’s learning of new vocabulary words (Ehri, 2005).

Vocabulary for Diverse Learners

 Research by Flanigan et al. (2012) cites that approximately 70% of U.S. students in grades 4-12 struggle to read on grade level. This reveals that the majority of our students cannot read with “adequate accuracy, fluency, and comprehension” (p.132) at their grade level. In relation to vocabulary knowledge, these struggling readers may be thousands to ten thousands of words behind when compared to students in a general education setting. This vocabulary gap has staggering effects  on academic progress as students strive to succeed year after year. How best do we serve our diverse learners in building their vocabulary knowledge?

Use the vocabulary principles outlined above as well as the following:

• Consider teaching generative vocabulary instruction. See attached articles on ways to teach morphology: What’s in a Word article  Root Awakening article
• Research by Ebbers & Denton (20008) indicate that using context clues to support vocabulary knowledge is NOT an effective approach for diverse learners.
• Avoid having students look up words in a dictionary only. Relying on rote memorization is a “bankrupt proposition”, especially for diverse learners and students receiving special education services.

Other vocabulary related resources:

• Check out Tim Rasinski’s website  to learn more about reading vocabulary strategies to help retain and apply new words and meanings.

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• vocabulary spellingcity.com
• Brunn Article- Four-square strategy
• Morphing into Adolescents Arctile