Early Literacy Strategies

Bev Flückiger

Griffith University

Shared Philosophy

Quality Teaching

Point-in-time Support

TargetedIntervention

Whole school community

Few children

All staffSchool Literacy Strategy

All children

Some children

• We must avoid the push-down of teaching methods into Prep.

• We must ensure rigour across the Early Years.

View of Children Have a kitbag of resources Learn by acting and doing Strive to make meaning and be

successful Use strategies and tactics Enact agency and voice

Scaffolder of LearningScaffolder of Learning• listens and responds listens and responds

• builds understandingsbuilds understandings

• makes learning explicit and relevantmakes learning explicit and relevant

• builds connectionsbuilds connections

• investigates alternative ways investigates alternative ways

• discusses outcomes of choicesdiscusses outcomes of choices

• challenges thinkingchallenges thinking

• reduces support as independence growsreduces support as independence grows

Pathways to Prevention

Strong correlation between children’s language development, their behaviour and success in school.

38% receptive vocabulary difficulties

19% expressive vocabulary difficulties

44% language complexity difficulties

Homel et al. (2006).

Features of Conversation Two (or more) speakers cooperate. The speakers draw upon their knowledge of the world and their

ability to use language. Each speaker is supported by the listener through eye contact,

attention and encouraging, affirming utterances of ‘yes!’ ‘absolutely!’ ‘Uh-huh’ and so on.

A speaker ensures that the listener has understood and adapts the message accordingly.

The co-constructed message is genuinely negotiated. There is interest and engagement from both parties. In the best of conversations, the interaction occurs over a

minimum of five exchanges, from which both parties benefit, learn, and gain enjoyment.

Riley, J. (2006).

Implications

The most important aspect of children’s language experience is its amount.

The most important aspect in early years’ classrooms is the amount of talk actually going on, moment by moment, between children and their teachers.

Phonological awareness skills Word LevelWord Level - recognize how many words are in a sentence

Syllable LevelSyllable Level -segment and blend words of at least 3 syllables

Rhyme LevelRhyme Level - understand the concept of rhyming - recognize and generate rhyming words

Sound LevelSound Level - isolate the beginning or ending sound in words - segment and blend sounds in a word with three sounds - change a sound in a word to make a new word in familiar games and songs

“Without direct instructional support, almost one quarter of all children are unaware of phonemes” …..

which impacts on learning to read. (Adams, Foorman, Lundberg & Beeler,1998). 

Fourth Grade Slump

Lack comprehension strategies

Lack of fluency and automaticity (Chall, 1983, 1996; Stanovich, 1986)

Language gap (Hirsch, 2003)

“Because of the developmental nature of reading, the later one waits to strengthen weaknesses, the more difficult it is for the children to cope with the increasing literacy demands in the later grades.”

Chall & Jacobs, 2003.

Active comprehension strategies

Inferring

Predicting

Questioning the text

Making connections •Text-to-text•Text-to-self

Finding important information

Visualizing

Summarizing

Monitoring comprehension

Comprehension

Strategies at work

QUT Literacy Secretariat, 2009.

Building Comprehension Skills Read Alouds Page peeping Asking Questions Elbow partners -The Big Idea Concept mapping, story mapping Accountable talk Comic strips and picture strips Telling a friend – inside outside circles Pictures in the mind – drawing Did that make sense to me?

Principles that underpin comprehension

Fluency allows the mind to concentrate on comprehension

Breadth of vocabulary increases comprehension and facilitates further learning; and

Domain knowledge increases fluency, broadens vocabulary and enables deeper comprehension.

Hirsch, 2003

Word decoding

Comprehension

accu

racy

auto

mat

icity

Expressive

interpretation

To read fluently children require:

Accurate decoding of words in text;

Automaticity, or decoding words with

minimal use of attentional resources; and

Appropriate use of phrasing and

expression to convey meaning.

Strategies to develop fluency

Repeated oral reading practice Echo reading Choral reading Readers’ Theatre Paired reading Recorded reading Computer assisted reading Buddy reading (peer tutoring)

The Three Billy Goats Gruff Reader's Theatre

Seven Characters: Narrator1, Narrator 2, Narrator 3, Troll, Little Billy Goat, Seven Characters: Narrator1, Narrator 2, Narrator 3, Troll, Little Billy Goat, Middle-Sized Billy Goat, and Big Billy GoatMiddle-Sized Billy Goat, and Big Billy Goat

NARRATOR 1: Once upon a time there were three billy goat brothers NARRATOR 1: Once upon a time there were three billy goat brothers named Gruff. named Gruff.

NARRATOR 2: The three billy goats lived by a river. NARRATOR 2: The three billy goats lived by a river.

NARRATOR 3: Across the river was a meadow with tall green grass. NARRATOR 3: Across the river was a meadow with tall green grass.

NARRATOR 1: One day, the billy goats wanted to cross the river to eat the NARRATOR 1: One day, the billy goats wanted to cross the river to eat the grass. grass.

NARRATOR 2: But there was only one bridge across the river. NARRATOR 2: But there was only one bridge across the river.

NARRATOR 3: And under that bridge lived a mean, hungry troll. NARRATOR 3: And under that bridge lived a mean, hungry troll.

NARRATOR 1: The troll had eyes as big as saucers and a nose as long as NARRATOR 1: The troll had eyes as big as saucers and a nose as long as a poker. a poker.

Knowledge of Words and the World

• Emphasize oral comprehension

• Larger focus on expository text

• Systematically build word and world knowledge

teach decoding skills develop fluency develop automaticity teach vocabulary build word knowledge teach children to use active

comprehension strategies encourage students to monitor their

own comprehension

In the early years we need to:

Primary Classroom teaching

76% teacher centred (didactic) 16% subject centred 6% child centred Limited student engagement Borman (2005)

Teaching with rigour in the early years’

classroom

What does that look like?

Fullan, Hill & Crevola, 2006.

Personalization Puts each and every child at

the centre and provides an education that is tailored to the students’ learning and motivational needs at any given time

Fullan, Hill, & Crevola, 2006.

PrecisionPrecision To get something right. Precision is in the service of

personalization because it means to be uniquely accurate, that is precise to the learning needs of individuals.

Fullan, Hill, & Crevola, 2006

Reading Assessment• Oral language development

• Comprehension of texts

• Fluency

• Concepts about print

• Phonemic awareness

• Letter identification

• Phonics

• Word knowledge

• Vocabulary

Professional Learning Focused on-going learning for each and every teacher

Daily learning is needed individually and collectively

Schools need to work from the classroom outward - not centrally developed PD

Professional development works when it is school-based and embedded in the daily work of teachers

Fullan, Hill, & Crevola, 2006

Shared Philosophy

Quality Teaching

Point-in-time Support

TargetedIntervention

Whole school community

Few children

All staffSchool Literacy Strategy

All children

Some children

Teacher &

Child

ReferencesAdams, M., Foorman, B., Lundberg, L. & Beeler, T. (1998). The elusive phoneme: Why phonemic

awareness is so important and how to help children develop it. American Educator, 22, 18-29).Baumann, J. Ware, D. Carr Edwards, E. (2007). “Bumping into spicy, tasty words that catch your

tongue”: A formative experiment on vocabulary instruction. The Reading Teacher, 61(2), pp.108-122.

Borman, K. & Associates. (2005). Meaningful urban education reform. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Chall, J. (1983). Stages of reading development. New York: McGraw-Hill.Chall, J. (1996). Learning to read: The great debate (Third Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.Chall, J.S., & Jacobs, V.A. (2003). Poor children’s fourth-grade slump. American Educator, 27(1), 14–15, 44.Fullan, M. Hill, P. & Crevola, C. (2006). Breakthrough. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Gambrell, L. (2005). Reading literature, reading text, reading the internet: The times they are

a’changing’. The Reading Teacher 58(6), 588-591.Hirsch, E.D. (2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge of words and the world. American

Educator [retrieved online 20.03.09].Homel et al. (2006). The Pathways to Prevention Project: The First Five Years, 1099-2004. Sydney:

Mission Australia and the Key Centre for ethics, Law Justice & Governance.Hart, E. & Risley, T. (2003). The Early Catastrophe. American Educator. [Retrieved online 20.03.09].QUT Literacy Secretariat, (2009). Effective instruction in reading comprehension. Professional

learning series for classroom teachers. Queensland University of Technology.Rasinski, T. V. (2003). The fluent reader: Oral reading strategies for building word recognition, fluency

and comprehension. New York: Scholastic.Riley, J. (2006). Language and Literacy 3-7. London: Sage Publications.Stanovich, K.E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in

the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360 -407.