Transcript Literacy Intervention In The Classroom:

Three Explicit Teaching Strategies.
Victoria Cochrane
M.Ed.
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All Classroom Teachers Are
Interventionists, Aren’t They?
( Yes, when they have time!)
The importance of reflecting on one’s own teaching
and learning program cannot be overlooked.
What is missing from my program that seems
to not be meeting the needs of these
children?
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The difference between success and failure in
student outcomes is dependent on a highly
effective classroom teacher (Louden et. Al., 2005;
Hattie, 2003;National Reading Panel, 2000; Snow et. Al., 1998;).
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All other support and intervention programs
are supplementary and must be delivered in
conjunction and collaboration with the
classroom teacher (Clay, 1991; 2001; 2005; Westwood,
1997).
Support programs are merely icing on the cake.
Without the cake, icing cannot do it’s work
effectively , which is to complement the overall
presentation of the cake. The teacher, who can
be represented as the cake, is the main and most
important part of the whole.
In the same way, support programs cannot ever
be truly effective unless they are delivered in
support of the classroom program, not in
isolation from it.
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My Classroom Literacy programme was
based upon the research of Hill and
Crevola (1997) and the Flying Start
document (2002).
Students matched to text.
Students grouped in same ability groupings.
Same routine followed every day.
Ideally, two hours set aside for literacy.
Whole-group, small-group, teaching wholegroup model followed.
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Students work independently on follow-up or
consolidation tasks.
Use of visual timetables, visual task-boards,
class expectations and behaviour charts.
The building up of the class as a supportive,
learning community all assist in children being
able to work with minimum supervision (Gibbs,
2001)
Modelled, shared and guided reading; modelled,
shared, interactive and guided writing (First
Steps, 2003; Fountas and Pinnell, 2000;
Exploring Effective Teaching Strategies, 2002)
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One of four models of classroom literacy practice, in Hart and
Bridge 2002,Flying start; exploring effective literacy teaching
and learning. A Tasmanian perspective.
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My literacy program was not providing
enough scaffolding and support for
five children in my Grade One/Two
class in:
Spelling;
Phonological and Phonemic Awareness;
Recognition of sight words;
Decoding strategies;
Becoming independent and confident
learners.
This was evident due to their high dependency on support
and general lack of progress in these areas.
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The Strengths:
Provision of individual support for students.
Assessment of alphabetic and spelling knowledge.
Monitoring of progress.
Use of a spelling journal.
Inclusion of chunking sounds.
The Gaps
The predominant use of sight words (MIOUW 100
words, Reiter, 2004) as their spelling words (They
were not ready for whole-word processing).
Significant consonant and/or vowel confusions not
addressed explicitly.
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Difficulty with phonemic awareness (ability to hear
sounds in words) not addressed explicitly.
Writing words in whole sentences a requirement
beyond skill and confidence level.
The requirement of students to chunk words and
then use the L.S.C.W.C method to learn them. The
chunking activity was too difficult for target
students to manage independently.
Alphabetical Order/using the dictionary
independently; some of the students had not yet
consolidated alphabetic knowledge sufficiently.
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Guided Reading delivered twice a week.
Reading skills explicitly taught.
Regular running records and monitoring of progress in reading.
Graphic organisers and other thinking strategies used to aid
deeper comprehension of texts.
The Gaps in target students knowledge:
Lack of consolidation of alphabetic (basic phonological)
knowledge.
Poor letter/sound analysis.
Limited knowledge of concepts about print.
Very poor sight words recognition.
Lack of fluency.
Limited strategies for problem solving
text.
Inability to take words apart (chunk).
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The Strengths.
Quarter book writing, interactive writing and
handwriting being taught explicitly.
Modelled and guided writing used to scaffold
and support students.
Differentiated writing activities and
expectations.
The Gaps
Often not enough time for writing.
Letter confusions not addressed in
handwriting properly.
Students very dependent on teacher support.
Grade One/Two
Reading Levels August
40
1
35
2
3
30
4
25
5
6
20
7
15
8
9
10
10
5
11
12
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Grade One/Two
Reading Levels December
40
1
35
2
3
30
4
25
5
6
20
7
15
8
9
10
10
5
11
12
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Matt increased his sight word
knowledge by 34 words.
He went up 3 reading levels.
James increased his sight word
knowledge by 27 words.
He went up 6 reading levels.
Increased his sight words
knowledge by 21 words without ML.
He improved by 4 reading
levels (Began the research on level
0).
Daniel increased his sight
word knowledge by 29 words.
He went up 5 reading levels.
Sam increased his sight word
knowledge by 24 words.
He went up 6 reading levels.
Problem: Poor ability to hear sounds in words
(phonemic awareness).
 Remediation Strategy:
Elkonin Sound Boxes
(Clay, 2001)
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Research shows that ability to hear sounds in
words is the strongest indicator of spelling
success.
A child will not be able to see and represent
sounds in words until they can hear them (Clay,
2001). That is why children very rarely
represent vowels in their early writing
attempts.
•bogglesworldesl.com/elkonin_boxes.htm
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Elkonin
Elkonin Boxes is a Reading Recovery (Clay, 2001)
technique that encourages children to listen for
sounds in words away from letters.
Educator’s will be more effective in teaching young
children to read and write when they allow them to
begin with sounds and associate them to letters
rather than matching letters to sounds (Clay, 1991,
2001).
Teaching children to tune into sounds early may
avoid the need for remediation later on.
Problem: Very poor sight word
recognition.
 Remediation Strategy:
Mastery Learning (Bloom, 1994)
of Magic 100 (Reiter, 2004) words.
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One of the main reasons for students not
progressing in reading was an inability to
recognise common words appearing in the
first five reading levels (e.g. here, said,
come, look).
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Mastery learning proposes that all children
can learn when provided with the
appropriate learning conditions in the
classroom http://oaks.nvg.org, 2009).
The application of mastery learning is based
on Benjamin Bloom’s Learning for Mastery
model (1956, in Bloom, 1994). Using his
methods, the average student of Bloom’s
Mastery class passed at the 95th percentile
of traditionally taught classes
(http://oaks.nvg.org, 2009).
Mastery learning does not focus on content,
but on the process of mastering it. The
empowerment comes with being able to see
the progress being made (Westwood, 1997).
Celebrating successes
are an important part
of the learning
process.
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Problem:
Lack of confidence to write independently.
Poor ability to hear and represent sounds.
Remediation Strategy:
Quarter Book Writing.
Encompasses Language Experience (First
Steps, 2003) and Cut-Up Sentence (Clay,
2001). It can also include interactive writing
(Clay, 2001; Fountas and Pinnel, 2000).
Is teacher guided.
Links reading and writing.
Is relevant to the child.
Encourages independence.
Teaches reading and writing strategies.
Develops phonemic and phonological awareness.
Develops self-checking and accountability.
Shows progress over time for assessment
purposes.
Can incorporate interactive writing.
Quarter book keeps you very busy. Only do
it in small groups of 4 to 6 children !!
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Support students to:
Consolidate basic phonological knowledge.
Improve letter/sound analysis.
Take words apart and say the sounds
separately for easier decoding.
Sort out letter confusions interfering with
progress.
Improve handwriting and letter formation.
Structure a simple sentence.
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Spelling and Mastery Learning strategies were
completed before school began.
Parents, aides and supportive students helped to
supervise and administer mastery learning and
spelling.
Quiet reading times were used to listen to targeted
students read and/or to administer sound boxes.
Parent support was important. Involved parents were
trained to tutor their child at home in sound boxes
and reading strategies (Senechal and Young, 2009).
Needs were also targeted through other literacy
activities and small group work.
Not all strategies were used with all students.
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The mark of highly effective teachers include:
Direct, explicit teaching (Edwards-Groves,
2003.
Differentiated literacy programme to meet
diverse learning needs (Westwood, 1997).
Direct guidance of learning through
classroom interactions (Hattie, 2003).
Extra scaffolding for targeted students.
Provision of guided practice and re-teaching
where required (Westwood, 1997; Wallace and
Kauffman, 1973).
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Monitoring, assessment and feedback.
(Tasmanian English curriculum, 2007; Hattie,
2003;Westwood, 1997);
A classroom environment where students and
teacher build respect, warmth and rapport
(McDonald Connor et.al., 2009; Lewis et. al.,
2007; Louden et. al., 2005).
Teaching children how to learn and to become
engaged in the learning (Westwood, 1997).
An ability to be a reflective and flexible
practitioner (Edwards-Groves, 2003).
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The classroom teacher is ultimately responsible
for student outcomes (Snow et. Al., 1998;
National Reading Panel, 2004).
No amount of added intervention can replace an
excellent classroom literacy programme (Hattie,
2003; Snow et. al., 1998; Hill and Crevola, 1997;
Westwood, 1997; Clay, 1991,2001).
All teachers are interventionists; it is the timerestraints of the classroom that are often the
restricting and prohibitive factor that often
prevent all children receiving the individual
attention from the teacher that they need and
deserve (Edwards-Groves,2002; Westwood,
1997).
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Victoria Cochrane
Literacy Advisor
Association of Independent Schools Tasmania
[email protected]