Emergent Literacy within the Balanced Literacy Framework Definitions

Emergent Literacy within the Balanced Literacy Framework: Definitions, Stages, Strategies

Definition of Emergent Literacy: Marie Clay first used this term to describe literacy development during a stage in which children imitate and experiment with the forms and functions of print. Words Their Way, p. 86 Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston

Teaching the Emergent Reader within the Balanced Literacy Framework A primary theory behind the Balanced Literacy Framework is that children can learn. If they are not learning, the teaching needs to be evaluated and adjusted. Children need to learn to be strategic thinkers who have a repertoire of problem solving skills when encountering new vocabulary, syntax or ideas.

Balanced Literacy 1. Understanding the purpose of literacy 2. Hear written language 3. Become aware of the sounds of language 4. Have many experiences working with written symbols 5. Explore words and learn how words work 6. Learn the conventions of print and how books work 7. Read and write continuous text to expand their knowledge about letters, words, sounds, and language 8. Become a strategic reader Adapted from http: //www. primaryteachers. org/balanced_literacy. htm

Spelling Stages Emergent: Confuse words and drawings, use letterlike forms or random letters. Letter-Name: Substitute the letter of the alphabet that sounds the most like the sound. Within-Word: Confusing long vowel patterns but blends and diagraphs in place. Bear, D. , Invernizzi, M. , Templeton, S. Johnston , F. (2006). Words Their Way, Upper Saddle River: Pearson, Prentice Hall, pp. 11, 14, 16.

Reading Characteristics in the Prealphabetic Stage • Pre-alphabetic phase • “Read” books using picture cues • Recognize selective cues in words such as an initial consonant or OO in Look • Recognize logos such as Mc. Donald’s • Recognize own name • Semantically appropriate but orthographically inappropriate errors • Increasing knowledge of different kinds of texts Adapted from Words Their Way, p. 17 and Brown, K. (2003). “What do I say when they get stuck on a word? The Reading Teacher 56(8), 720 -723.

Reading and Writing Activities for the Emergent Stage • Read to students and encourage oral language activities. Model writing using dictations and charts • Encourage pretend reading and writing • Alphabet activities • Finger pointing to words • Encourage invented spelling • Rhymes, dictations, simple pattern books • Word Walls • Charts with schedules & names of kids • Teach high frequency words Adapted from Bear, D. , Invernezzi, M. , Templeton, S. & Johnston, F. (2008). Words Their Way. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, p. 22.

Reading Characteristics in the Partial Alphabetic Stage Also called early Letter-Name Alphabetic Use context clues and context clues Uses names of letters for spelling Need to vocalize when reading Understand idea of systematic matches between sound and letters • Overcame hurdle of matching stream of language to individual words and sounds • Orthographically incorrect errors • • • Adapted from Words Their Way, p. 17 and Brown, K. (2003). “What do I say when they get stuck on a word? The Reading Teacher 56(8), 720 -723.

Reading and Writing Activities in the Letter Name Stage • • Reading of lots of predictable text. Simple rhymes Record and re-read individual’s dictations Word sorts of word families Personal readers Personal word banks Word hunts in favorite books Label pictures and diagrams Bear, D. , Invernezzi, M. , Templeton, S. & Johnston, F. (2008). Words Their Way. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, p. 22.

List of Initial High Frequency Words for Kindergarten Readers • • Child’s name I come me To like up A see this Is the look In my at Am can on we and go here

Concepts of Print Advanced by Marie Clay Children need to grasp: Top to bottom and left to right Orientation of text The correct formation of letters Clusters are called words First letters and last letters in a word Uppercase and lowercase letters Spacing of words Punctuation marks Adapted from Joy Drzyzga, Aperil H. Sellers, Sam Simon from http: //www. coe. uga. edu/epltt/impaticas/concepts--print-script. pdf

Categorization Activity 1)Take the characteristics provided about three early stages of literacy of phonemic awareness and sort into three developmentally appropriate groups of emergent, beginning early and late early. Discuss. 2)Take the characteristics provided about three early stages of literacy of phonological awareness and sort into three developmentally appropriate groups of emergent, beginning early and late early. Discuss.

Mc. Gill-Franzen’s Adaptation of “Concepts of Print”

Emergence of Writing • The following four slides from Anne Mc. Gill. Franzen’s Kindergarten Literacy (2006) illustrate progressive growth in a child’s writing over the course of a year. It is important to document these efforts through samples for a portfolio. Mc. Gill-Franzen provide a rubric for scoring work: drawing, copied or random letters, name only, words, sentences, and text.

Evolution of Emergent Writing

Evolution to Words

Evolution to Sentences

Evolution to Text

Activity: Discuss whether the writing sample in Slide 13 “ Evolution to Text” demonstrates end of year proficiency. (From Dorn & Soffos) • Generates topic for writing with or without teacher assistance. • Uses ABC chart, letter book and name chart to support sound to letter match. • Uses spaces between words consistently. • Writes more letters with correct formation. • Edits by crossing out letters. • Hears and records most consonant letter sounds and some easy to hear vowels.

Changes over Time in Writing Behaviors from Dorn and Soffos Emergent Behaviors Beginning Early Late Early Generates topic with teacher assistance Generates topics across genres w/o teacher Demonstrates an understanding of author’s purpose Organizes ideas prior to drafting Draws pictures of key ideas Organizes ideas and on writing paper narrows focus Plans writing by drawing pictures or symbols in journal that represents an event or several loosely linked events Plans simple recount by drawing pictures to represent key ideas Uses a writing guide Plans recount by using words or phrases Plans informational writing by drawing pictures or symbols Plans informational explanatory writing by drawing pictures Plans and sorts information into categories Plans persuasive piece by drawing pictures or symbols Plans persuasive piece by drawing and discussing opinion on an idea or topic Plans persuasive piece by taking a stance on an idea or topic Rehearse message orally with teacher Rehearses message orally with teacher or peer Rehearses message orally

Key Components of Balanced Literacy • • Running records--evaluate, evaluate Independent reading Guided Reading Group Leveled Books Word Sorts Holistic approach to the teaching of writing Teach strategic thinking about reading

Example of a Running Record

Leveled Texts A key component of Balanced Literacy in the Anderson County elementary setting is the use of leveled texts. Students progress through the texts as they gain more and more strategies for reading independently. Kindergarten students begin at a Level A (few words inferred by pictures) and progress to Level B (phrases heavily repeated and strong support from the illustrations) usually by the end of the year. See following slide (Mc. Gill. Franzen, p. 106).

Emergent to Fluent Reading Process Behaviors Directions: Categorize the characteristics in the envelope into three groups: Level A-C Level D-E Level F-G

Word Sorts Students categorize words with similar orthographic or conceptual features into groups. Advantages of active learning, synthetic approach, and increased exposure to the number of examples of words from the same family. Picture and concept sorts useful for the emergent stage. Bear, D. , Invernezzi, M. , Templeton, S. & Johnston, F. (2008). Words Their Way. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall

Mini-Lessons Barrentine describes successful mini-lessons as having the following characteristics: relevance and timeliness, time limited, child-centered materials, quality of teacher talk. The mini-lesson should be pertinent to what the students need to know in order to become more effective readers. The mini-lesson should be a regular part of the classroom routine and should be short, no more than seven minutes. The discussion should be based on examples from a few books that the children appreciated. The teacher should use the mini-lesson to clearly describe the purpose of the lesson, demonstrate the procedure or strategy, and link the information to the student’s work. Barrentine, S. (1995). Reading mini-lessons: An instructional practice for meaning centered reading programs. Insights into Open Education 27 (1), 1 -12. Retrieved from http: //www. eric. ed. gov/PDFS/ED 386702. pdf

Guided Reading Children are grouped flexibly based on strengths. A running record is taken of one child every day to monitor progress. Groups change often in response to skill acquisition.

Other benefits of guided reading: • Reading strategies are strengthened as the students are engaged in a particular story. • As the teacher introduces the story children learn about cueing, predicting, and monitoring. • Younger students learn about tracking — following the print word-by-word and left to right. • Assessing prior knowledge strengthens comprehension. • Students can practice recognizing sight words. • Students learn the skill of predicting and inferring meaning. • Capitalization and punctuation concepts are reinforced. • Students learn about sequencing of the story — the setting, characters, and beginning, middle and the end of the text. • Students have the opportunity to practice self-correction. From http: //www. k 12 reader. com/guided-reading-a-snapshot/

Steps to Effective Guided Reading • What are the elements of a guided reading lesson? • You introduce the text to the students in a brief conversation about the meaning, language, and features of the text. During this conversation you clarify some of the language or provide other vital information students will need to process the text with understanding, explain a few difficult words or concepts, and help the children notice a few important words. You then turn the text over to the students to read for themselves. Each student reads the text (or a unified part of the text) softly or silently to himself or herself. You "listen in" to individuals and sometimes interact to support reading. After reading, you and the students discuss the meaning of the text and revisit the text as necessary. You may have explicit teaching points based on what you observed as students processed the text. (Optional) You may wish to extend students' understanding of the text through writing, drawing, diagrams (graphic organizers), extended discussion, partner discussion, readers theater, etc. (Optional) You may want to engage children in one or two minutes of preplanned "word work" using magnetic letters, individual whiteboards, writing paper, a chart, or other ways of displaying and illustrating principles. This work builds automaticity and flexibility in solving words and word parts. • • • http: //www. fpblog. heinemann. com/category/balanced-literacy. aspx

Teacher Prompts for Strategic Reading • Point to first letter and ask “Sound? ”. • With blends, “Say it fast!” or “Keep your motor running!” • Try another way. • Finish the sentence and guess the word. • Does that make sense? • Break the word into parts and pronounce each one. • Point to the parts of the word and ask the readers to decode each one. • What key word do you see? Adapted from Brown, K. (2003)“What do I say when they get stuck on a word? The Reading Teacher 56(8), 720 -723.

Reciprocal Reading and Teaching Reciprocal teaching can be used to teach students how to use the strategies of predicting, clarifying, generating questions, and summarizing. Phase 1: Introduce strategy. Phase 2: Fishbowl: some students engage in RTPG & teacher facilitates Phase 3: all students participate in RTPG groups & report responses to the teacher Phase 4: Independent practice http: //www. readingrockets. org/article/40008/

Repeated Reading for Fluency With this strategy, the student at the Letter Name Alphabetic stage or above reads a 100 word passage over until a certain level of predetermined proficiency is reached while the teacher is taking a running record of the errors. The text should be at the high end of the student’s instructional level (95 to 97% word recognition).

Other Fluency Techniques • Choral Reading: The class and teacher read together. (emergent) • Echo Reading: The students read a sentence after the teacher. (L/N) • Reader’s Theatre: Students take a role and practice it for rehearsal. (L/N)

More Fluency Techniques Fluency Oriented Reading Instruction: • Teacher reads and discusses. • Echo reading • Assign students to read at home • Read passage the next day with a partner Direct Teaching: • Similar except the teacher divides the passage into parts and assigns each student a part to practice to mastery. Stahl, S. (2003). No more “madfaces”: Motivation and fluency development with struggling readers. In N. Duke, V. Bennett-Armistead. & E. Roberts (Eds. ), Literacy and Young Children (pp. 195 -209). New York: The Guildford Press.

Convincing Struggling Readers Matthew Effect: The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. “When you ask struggling readers about why they are not succeeding, they are more likely to say they are “dumb” than that the task is difficult” (Stahl, p. 196). Children who are struggling to learn to read can develop a sense of failure and learned helplessness by as early as the middle of first grade even though as many as 44% of tested fourth graders could not read fluently according to the National Association of Educational Progress (NAEP, 1995). Stahl, S. (2003). No more “madfaces”: Motivation and fluency development with struggling readers. In N. Duke, V. Bennett-Armistead. & E. Roberts (Eds. ), Literacy and Young Children (pp. 195 -209). New York: The Guildford Press.

Convincing Struggling Readers Struggling readers need practice with challenging texts and powerful concepts and grade level vocabulary instead of work in easy, simplified materials (Stahl, p. 202). Teachers need to work to provide scaffolding for these students, so they can be successful (Stahl, p. 197).

Convincing Struggling Readers Another important means of empowering the struggling reader is through thematic units where a variety of texts are provided at different reading levels on a certain topic. The struggling readers can become familiar with the vocabulary through access to the simpler texts and then move on to the more challenging. They are included as members of the reading community, not isolated according to a pecking order (Stahl, p. 198). This is also called an “inquiry group. ”

Convincing Struggling Readers Graph on-going progress for students to see. Allow students to act as “Buddy Readers” for younger students (Stahl, p. 201). Use non-fiction of interest--especially to boys. Students don’t need to learn to read before encountering expository texts. Duke, N. , Bennett-Armistead, V. , & Roberts, E. (2003). Bridging the gap between learning to read and reading to learn. In N. Duke, V. Bennett-Armistead. & E. Roberts (Eds. ), Literacy and Young Children (pp. 195 -209). New York: The Guildford Press.

Further Resources http: //www. primaryteachers. org/balanced_literacy. htm http: //faculty. rcoe. appstate. edu/koppenhaverd/f 07/303 0/notes/class 5 info. pdf http: //www. coe. uga. edu/epltt/impaticas/concepts--print -script. pdf http: //www. k 12 reader. com/guided-reading-a-snapshot/ http: //www. fpblog. heinemann. com/category/balancedliteracy. aspx http: //www. readingrockets. org/article/40008/

Further Resources Bear, D. , Invernezzi, M. , Templeton, S. & Johnston, F. (2008). Words Their Way. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall Brown, K. (2003). “What do I say when they get stuck on a word? The Reading Teacher 56(8), 720 -723. Dorn, J. & Soffos, C. (2012). Interventions that Work. Boston: Pearson Education Inc. Duke, N. , Bennett-Armistead, V. , & Roberts, E. (2003). Bridging the gap between learning to read and reading to learn. In N. Duke, V. Bennett-Armistead. & E. Roberts (Eds. ), Literacy and Young Children (pp. 195209). New York: The Guildford Press.

Further Resources Mc. Gill-Franzen, Anne. (2006). Kindergarten Literacy. New York: Scholastic Inc. Stahl, S. (2003). No more “madfaces”: Motivation and fluency development with struggling readers. In N. Duke, V. Bennett. Armistead. & E. Roberts (Eds. ), Literacy and Young Children (pp. 195 -209). New York: The Guildford Press.