Jennifer Kearns-Fox, Mary Lu Love, Lisa Van Thiel Institute for Community Inclusion

University of Massachusetts Boston

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Take a minute to write down any questions you have about Early Literacy Matters or OWL (Opening the World of Learning).

Post on the question board. After lunch we will respond to all of the

questions.

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◦Enhance language and literacy instruction

◦Enhance classroom environments◦Support implementation practices through

coaching◦Foster family literacy◦Enhance knowledge and skills: Scientifically-Based Reading Research

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Student & Environmental Outcomes

Student growth in literacy skills:

•Phonological awareness

•Alphabet knowledge

•Concepts of print

•Student writing

Student oral language development:

•Expressive

•Receptive

Instructional environment:

•Literacy matters

•Literacy usage

Professional Development

High-quality teacher training

Weekly in-class literacy coaching

System for continuous monitoring of implementation fidelity

System for continuous evaluation of outcomes to identify areas for teacher improvement

Instruction Implementation

Instructionally sound delivery model

Focus on critical literacy and oral language components

Evidence based

Appropriate for preschool population

Maintain students’ interest and relevance

Reading Readiness

theory: Children need a

certain “maturity” to learn to read.

Read first, then learn to write.

Emergent Literacy theory: Children learn skills

over time; reading is an accumulation of multiple skills.

Learning to write informs learning to read, and vice versa.

Songs, Word Play & Letters; Phonological Awareness

Multiple Shared Readings

Small Groups, Progress Monitoring

Let’s Find Out About It; Let’s Talk About It

Writing Across the Curriculum

Center Time, Conversations with Children

Multiple Shared Readings Small Group

◦ Progress monitoring Songs, Word & Letter Play - Phonemic

Awareness Writing Across the Curriculum Let’s Find Out About It

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New vocabulary Concepts of print Letter/sound

correspondence Story

reconstruction

Children talk with the teacher about pictures and story.

Teacher systematically scaffolds adult-child language interactions around storybook reading.

Teacher engages children before, during, and after reading text through explicit interactive techniques.

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Zone of Proximal

Development(ZPD)

What the child can learn to do

independently

What the child can do with support

What the child can do

independently now

Of 50 children having trouble learning to read in kindergarten, 44 of them will still be having trouble in third grade.

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Choose quality books Read the book

yourself first Identify new

vocabulary

Take turns in a conversation about the story.

Encourage children to become the storytellers over time.

Engage small group of children in repeating, restating, and expanding language around a story.

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Enjoying the story• Overall sense of the book• Supply information about meanings of words• Interpretation of key events• Informally assess children’s prior knowledge

Engaging the child in the story• Work with children to reconstruct the story• Revisit vocabulary words• Point to pictures, use voice or gestures to engage

students• Connect story to children’s personal lives

Guided reconstruction of story◦ Chime in◦ Repeat key phrases◦ Respond to “What happens next?”◦ Define key vocabulary◦ Make connections between parts of story◦ Look for specifics: Rhyming words Words that start with specific letters

Engage children in retelling story

Role play Flannel board Movement Using new vocabulary words

Purpose Strategies for reading each story Key vocabulary Progress monitoring Suggestions

◦ English language learners◦ Extending the book

Regularly scheduled component of the day

4-6 children work with a teacher

Intentionally planned activity and progress monitoring

• Preparation of materials• Efficient transitions to and from Small Group• Timing that fits instructional goals• Clearly defined roles for teachers, teaching partners, and children

Divide into 4 small groups of 3-4 people per group.

Each group will be given a problem to solve in the next 10 minutes.

Each group will be asked to report out their answer.

You have three boxes of fruit. One contains just apples, one contains just oranges, and one contains a mixture of both. Each box is labeled -- one says "apples," one says "oranges," and one says "apples and oranges." However, it is known that none of the boxes are labeled correctly. How can you label the boxes correctly if you are only allowed to take and look at just one piece of fruit from just one of the boxes?

At a family reunion were the following people: one grandfather, one grandmother, two fathers, two mothers, four children, three grandchildren, one brother, two sisters, two sons, two daughters, one father-in-law, one mother-in-law, and one daughter-in-law. But not as many people attended as it sounds. How many were there, and who were they?

Three men stay at a hotel for the night. The innkeeper charges thirty dollars per room per night. The men rent one room; each pays ten dollars. The bellhop leads the men to their room. Later, the innkeeper discovers he has overcharged the men and asks the bellhop to return five dollars to them. On the way upstairs, the bellhop realizes that five dollars can't be evenly split among three men, so he decides to keep two dollars for himself and return one dollar to each man. At this point, the men have paid nine dollars each, totaling 27. The bellhop has two, which adds up to 29. Where did the thirtieth dollar go?

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE-SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF-IC STUDY COMBINED WITHTHE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

Cooperation in small groups promotes

achievement and productivity and yields

strong social and attitudinal benefits. - Yager, Johnson and Johnson (1985)

Increases oral interactions between and among students

Fosters child-to-child interactions

Increases the number of interactive dialogues between adults and children

Results in improved comprehension

• Pre-reading or sharing books to model reading behaviors

• Talking about letters by name and sound• Modeling the use of print in the environment• Modeling writing (recording dictations)• Engaging playing with sounds and words• Introducing literacy-related play activities and

games to occur in center time• Supporting and scaffolding responses to

children’s representation and writing

◦What children know◦What children can do◦What children can do with support

◦Children’s strengths◦Children’s learning preferences

Watch the video clip List the language and literacy

skills observed Be prepared to participate in

whole-group discussion

Using ongoing assessment information to guideinstructional decisions is a primary purpose of early childhood assessment and should be acomponent of a high-quality early childhood program.

- NAEYC & NAECS/SDE (2003)

Songs, Word Play and Letters (SWPL)

Stand up and form a lineStand up and form a line First person turns and says a word to First person turns and says a word to

person behind herperson behind her Second person hears word and turns to Second person hears word and turns to

person behind and says a rhyming wordperson behind and says a rhyming word Have fun! Have fun! Now let try alliteration; then, last sound Now let try alliteration; then, last sound

becomes first sound of next word!becomes first sound of next word!

……the understanding that oral language can the understanding that oral language can be be

broken up into individual words, words into broken up into individual words, words into syllables, and syllables into individual syllables, and syllables into individual

sounds, or sounds, or phonemes.phonemes.

Skills include rhyme, syllable-awareness, and Skills include rhyme, syllable-awareness, and phonemic awareness.phonemic awareness.

- - Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998

pp o pp

1 Word baseball

2 Syllables base / ball

Intrasyllabic Units: Onset and Rime

b-ase b-all

6 Phonemes /b/-/ā/-/s /- /b/-/ă/-/l/

Listening

Phonological Awareness

Phonemic Awareness

LettersPhonics

Supports learning how words are represented Supports learning how words are represented in print.in print.

Allows children to notice the number and/or Allows children to notice the number and/or order of sounds in words.order of sounds in words.

Requires understanding how to use phonemic Requires understanding how to use phonemic cues in identifying printed words.cues in identifying printed words.

Without it, children cannot understand the Without it, children cannot understand the strategy of “sounding out” words.strategy of “sounding out” words.

Children who are better at detecting and manipulating syllables, rhymes, or phonemes learn to read faster than children who cannot complete these tasks.

The lack of phonemic awareness is the most powerful determinant of the likelihood of failure to read.

Phonemic awareness is the most potent predictor of success in learning to read - more highly related to reading than tests of general intelligence, reading readiness, and listening comprehension.

Children with poor phonological processing skills: Children with poor phonological processing skills:

► have difficulty “cracking” the alphabetic code. have difficulty “cracking” the alphabetic code.

► tend to rely on contextual cues to guess the tend to rely on contextual cues to guess the unfamiliar word rather than knowledge of phonics unfamiliar word rather than knowledge of phonics to decode it.to decode it.

Phonological Awareness ContinuumAlliteration

andRhyme

Sentence Segmentation

Syllable Onsets and Rimes

Phonemes

AlliterationProducing groups of words that begin with the same initial sound

 Alliterationten tiny tadpoles 

Segmenting sentences into spoken words

Blending syllables to say words or segmenting spoken words into syllables

Blending or segmenting the initial consonant cluster (onset) and the vowel and consonant sounds spoken after it (rime)

Blending phonemes into words, segmenting words into individual phonemes, and manipulating phonemes in spoken words

Examples

Rhymecat, hat, bat, satRhymeMatching the ending sounds of words

The dog ran away. 1 2 3 4

/mag//net//pa/ /per/

 /m/ /ice//sh/ /ake/(onset) (rime)

/k/ /a/ /t//sh/ /i/ /p//s/ /t/ /o/ /p/

► Choose books to read aloud that focus on sounds: rhyming and alliteration.

► Invite children to make up new verses of familiar words or songs by changing the beginning sounds of words.

► Play games where children isolate the beginning sound in familiar words or generate rhyming words.

► Read rhyming stories and Read rhyming stories and poemspoems

► Guess what rhymes with….Guess what rhymes with….► Fill in the missing rhymeFill in the missing rhyme► Substitute new rhymes for Substitute new rhymes for

oldold► Generate name-and-word Generate name-and-word

pairspairs

Adapted from Gillon, 2004, Hohmann, Adapted from Gillon, 2004, Hohmann, 20022002

Use the term “alliteration”Use alliterative phrases in everyday

conversationIdentify alliteration in books, poems,

tongue twisters, songsFill in missing alliterationsSubstitute new alliterations for oldMake up name-based alliterationsAlliterative “I Spy”

Adapted from Hohmann, 2002

Record children’s examples of rhyming, alliteration, or nonsense sequences in a class-made big book, and read them aloud over and over!

lionslionslionslions

longinglylonginglylazylazy

lovely

lielie

lickinglicking

“To match the right skill with the child, you need to know what each child can do phonologically”

• Identify phonological skills• Decide when and where to implement• Focus on how you might identify a child’s ability to:

IdentifyManipulateProduceUse phonological terms

Authentic Opportunities for Writing

Individually Look at the document. Identify the language you are reading.As a group Determine what the document says. List the strategies you used to determine

the meaning. List the clues that informed your

conclusions.We will discuss as a whole group.

French: Tu me manques

Japanese: 逃しなさい

Russian: Вы мисс

Spanish: Te extraño...

Portuguese: Saudades de você...

English: I miss you

Function Directionality Graphic Writing system Alphabetic or syllabication

principles Visual hypotheses

Share information (show children how to write)

Business transactions (writing a bill at a restaurant, waiting for a turn, or writing a message)

Organizing or brainstorming activities (generating a list or planning a party)

To show ownership (lunch box, cubby, paper)

“The process of writing helps children focus closely on the features that distinguish each letter from the others. To the extent that writing their names sensitizes children to the unique qualities of each letter’s shape, the process of writing may increase children’s awareness of differences among letters and facilitate their learning of the letters’ names, particularly the names of the letters in their own names.”

Clay (2001), Change Over Time in Children’s Literacy Development

both mechanics of writing and the reason to write.

Meaningful Purpose

At your table, sort the stages of writing along a developmental continuum as a group.

As you do so, discuss why you have placed each stage in its position.

As a group, we will reflect on the writing continuum.

Scribbling Letter-like symbols Strings of letters Beginning sounds emerge Consonants represent words Initial, middle, and final

sounds Transitional phase Standard spelling

Scribbling

is to writing

as babbling

is to speaking.

Write down child’s exact words Encourage all attempts Ask questions to extend language Make sure child can see you write Read dictation back to child,

following print with your finger Encourage child to reread

dictation, either on their own or to friends or family members

Stories have a sequence. Stories have characters, actions, and

settings. Stories have a beginning, a middle,

and an end. We read words from the top of the

page to the bottom. There is a one-to-one correspondence

between written and spoken words.

M

Providing each child with two opportunities daily

Scaffolding to support children’s writing Engaging children in fine motor activities Supporting ALL children in attempts to write

their name

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Engaging in conversations with children to foster higher order thinking skills

Builds students' background knowledge using information from nonfiction texts and hands-on experiences.

“Let's Talk About It!” addresses topics of social and emotional importance to children and teachers.

Deepen your background knowledge Use academic language in intentionally

planned activities Promote children’s higher order thinking

skills (HOTS) and concept development Promote posing and/or responding to

children’s questions Provide opportunities to share thinking with

others

Multiple turn-taking by all parties

Mutual interest and investment in the topic and conversation

Listening Building upon answers from

others Striving for understanding

(includes questioning and reflection)

“Vocabulary, language skills, and knowledge about the world are acquired during interesting conversations with responsive adults. Talking about books, about daily happenings, or even about what happened in day care or at work, not only contributes to children’s vocabularies, but also increases their ability to understand stories and explanations and increases their understanding of how things work – all skills that will be important in early reading.”

Burns, M.S., Griffin, P. & Snow, C.E. (1999)

Multiple turns within in the conversation

Develop mutual interest and investment in the topic

Promote attentive listening Build upon the answers or

responses from others (different perspectives) and promote understanding, questions, and reflection

Analyzing

Is not Memorizing facts Repeating something

exactly as it was told to you.

Understanding facts Inferring from prior

knowledge Making connections to

other facts and concepts Categorizing Manipulating Putting ideas together in

new ways Applying prior knowledge

to new situations

Is

Higher order thinking takes thinking to higher levels than restating facts and requires students to DO something with the facts:• Understand them• Infer from them• Connect them to other facts and concepts• Categorize them• Manipulate them• Put them together in new or novel ways• Apply them to seek new solutions to new problems

Adapted from Reading Rockets, Thomas & Thorne, 2009

Promote children’s understanding of HOT Explicitly teach the BIG IDEA Guide students in naming key concepts Tell and show Move from concrete to abstract and back Expand discussions at home Connect concepts Teach inference

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What is one take-away from today’s professional development that you will use in the classroom immediately?