Literacy

The Situation  20-25% of children do not learn the alphabetic principle (relationship between letters and sounds) (Tunmer & Chapman, 2003).  If the relationship between letters and sounds is not made by the age of nine, 75% of these children will continue to have reading difficulties.

What makes them different?  Older poor readers have less phonological skills than younger readers. They rely on logographic reading (use of a visual stimulus) causing their phonological skills to decrease (Greaney & Ryder, 2005).  Use ineffective strategies.

Matthew Effects (Stanovich, 1986)  When students fall behind in reading, their peers are improving exponentially. By reading, vocabulary, knowledge of syntax, semantics and discourse improves naturally. The poor readers get left behind.  The good readers are able to participate in other subjects with success, while the poor readers are stuck.  The poor get poorer and the rich get richer.  After years of failure our students begin to lose motivation.

Where are they at?  To simply know a student is failing is like having a fever and not knowing the cause or cure (Valencia & Buly, 2004).  Find out exactly what these students are doing to give you some idea of where to start.  Decoding and spelling test.

Everyday Strategies  Our low level students generally need letter- sound correspondences explicitly and systematically taught (Ehri & McCormak, 1998).  We need to draw these students’ attention to the inner workings of words and give them strategies to use.  Count phonemes (sounds)  Word Walls – groups to investigate a sound /ee/  Onset + Rime  Root Words – Prefix + Suffix  Analogy – similar words, words within words

Everyday Strategies  Teach vocabulary as it arises. Use mature vocabulary (Disney & Anderson,2006).

Reading - Make texts accessible.  Stating the obvious…but…  Text choice/Book Lists  Pre-reading/During Reading/After Reading  Level Three Questions  Purpose for reading - KWL  SSR – collection of short stories, recent newspaper articles. Throw a ball and discuss. Not too daunting.  Library Time – read out loud, talk about reading strategies (metacognition).

Writing  Journal writing = no pressure, non competitive. (Juicy writing).  Focused feedback – one thing to work on.  Skills focus, not grade focused.  Exemplars and scaffolded.

Motivation – Attribution Retraining  Specific teacher feedback aimed at improving self-esteem is used alongside skills training.  Specific Feedback referring to the correct use of strategies, effort and the confirmation that the student has the ability.  When difficulties are encountered the feedback should be focused on the inefficient use of a strategy, not enough effort, and again that the student is actually able to do it.

Motivation  When a student has a strategy they are confident to use, and believe will allow them success, they will be confident when approaching an unseen text (Tunmer & Chapman, 2003).  - Reciprocal Reading.  Good readers check understanding, re-read, clarify, ask questions.  Model it.  Metacognition - Students to write steps.  Continuum of effort

Non-Competitive Classrooms  Students in non-competitive classrooms are more committed and interested in school (Pressley, 2006).

 Instruction centred on concepts, or themes, rather than skills is encouraged with connections being made between texts.  Use of numerous texts in different forms.  Texts and tasks should be slightly challenging for students.  The choice of text also needs to be interesting and contain content that will ‘grab’ the students.  Book lists and recommendations and books being read aloud are encouraged.  Co-operative activities (reciprocal reading), one-on-one and home-school communication.

Comprehension  PAR = Preparation Assistance Reflection  Word Webs - Vocabulary  Emotional Thermometer - Vocabulary  I Chart  Sensory Imagery Systems  Story Grammar Systems (time, setting, characters, exposition, climax, resolution)  Reciprocal Reading – model, monitor, used independently.  Tic Tac Toe