• Comprehensive Approach-approach to instruction that adheres to the belief that teachers need to possess a strong knowledge of multiple methods for teaching reading, so they can create the appropriate balance of methods needed for the children they teach
• Units of Language-categories of written language, ranging from the smallest unit, letters, to the largest unit, the whole text selection, that are emphasized for instructional purposes

Instructional Approaches

• Basal Reading Approach-a major approach to reading that occupies the central and broadest position on the instructional continuum.  Built on scope and sequence foundations and traditionally associated with bottom-up theory, basal programs have been modified in recent years with the inclusion of language experience and literature activities.  It can be considered a bottom-up approach, where skills are taught in sequence, or an interactive program, featuring unedited children’s literature selections, strategy instruction and writing opportunities
  • Scope and Sequence-general plan in basal reading programs for the introduction of skills in sequential or vertical arrangement
• Language-Experience Approach (LEA)-a major approach to reading, located on the holistic side of the instructional continuum, tied closely to interactive or top-down theory.  Often considered a beginning reading approach, connections between reading and writing are becoming more prevalent in classrooms.  More prevalent in 4K and Kindergarten classrooms.  Uses recording the language of children on chart paper and using what they say as the basis for reading instruction
• Integrated Language Arts-an instructional approach in which reading, writing, listening, speaking and viewing activities are connected through the use of literature.  Language arts support one another and are connected through the use of informative and imaginative literature
• Literature-Based Instruction-a major approach to reading that encourages students to select their own trade books, with the sessions followed by teacher-student conferences at which students may be asked to read aloud from their selections; used by teachers who want to provide for individual student differences in reading abilities while focusing on meaning, interest and enjoyment.  Teachers encourage their students to select their own trade books, where literature is used as springboards for writing
• Technology-Based Instruction-an instructional approach that utilizes computers and their many capabilities.  Web-based applications allow students to access and retrieve information immediately, construct their own texts, and interact with others using computers. 
• Individualizing Instruction-providing differentiated instruction to students. It reflects the accumulation of previous knowledge and direct experiences reading classrooms.  Can be individualized procedures are one part of the total program or parts of individualized reading are integrated into another reading approach

Approaches and Strategies in Comprehensive Instruction

• Instructional Scaffolding-providing enough instructional guidance and support for students so that they will be successful in their use of reading strategies.  Scaffolds serve as supports, lifting up workers so that they can reach areas they could not otherwise reach.  It allows teachers to support literacy learning by showing student show to use skills and strategies that will lead to independent learning
• Explicit Strategy Instruction-instruction that makes clear the what, why, when and how of skill and strategy use.  Use minilessons where they can be short, unanticipated interchange between the teacher and students lasting a minute or two.  Or it can be a planned lesson that make take 5-10 minutes to complete.   It allows teachers to share insights and knowledge that students might otherwise never encounter.

Classroom Application: This chapter has taught me the relationship between comprehensive instruction and beliefs about reading and how beliefs are connected to different theoretical models of reading.  I also discovered that curriculum differences between the bottom-up model of reading and the top-down model or reading.  The biggest and most important thing that I learned in this chapter, that is crucial to know for my future instruction, is the different types of instructional approaches in teaching reading to students and what it means to achieve a comprehensive program.  As an educator, it is important that I analyze my beliefs, connecting my practice with what I know and believe, I am better able to understand what I do and why I do it.  Overall, I learned that when teaching reading, I should enact curricula in varied and complex ways, based on the reading curriculum, the particular context in what I teach and the desire to achieve a complete literacy program.

Source: Vacca, J. L., Vacca, R.T., & Gove, M K. (2012). Reading and Learning to Read (8th ed.). New York: Longman.

• How teachers come to know and develop beliefs about reading and learning to read is the subject of this chapter
• Belief system-represents a teacher’s informed philosophy of reading and learning to read (through personal experiences, practical experiences/knowledge and professional study)
• Best practice-or effective literacy practice, requires teachers to use multiple perspectives as they plan and enact literacy instruction in their classrooms
• Literacy event-any powerful, authentic instance of the use of language to convey meaning and understanding between a writer and reader
• New literacies-the knowledge, skills, strategies and dispositions needed to use and adapt to the constantly changing information and communication technologies

How Teachers Come to Know about Reading and Learning to Read

• Constructing Personal Knowledge
  • It grows out of a teacher’s history as a reader and writer (people that have shaped them, books, letters and process of reading and writing)
  • The development of autobiographical narrative-an instructional strategy to help students and teachers reflect upon personal knowledge
• Constructing Practical Knowledge
  • The more you work with and observe students the more you develop theories about what practice is best for the readers and writers
• Constructing Professional Knowledge and Expertise
  • Professional Knowledge-is knowledge acquired from an ongoing study of the practice of teaching
  • Literacy coach-an individual who provides professional development opportunities and resources, in-class coaching and support provide a variety of professional development activities while in a nonevaluative role (see box 1.4)

Cognitive Insights into Reading and Learning to Read

• Alphabetic Principle-principle suggesting that letters in the alphabet map to phonemes, the minimal sound units represented in written language
  • Suggests that there is a correspondence between letters (graphemes), which are the basic units of writing, and sounds (phonemes).
• Orthographic Knowledge-knowledge of common letter patterns that skilled readers use rapidly and accurately to associate with sounds
• Schemata (schema)-is the mental frameworks that humans use to organize and construct meaning. Also reflect the prior knowledge, experiences, conceptual understanding, attitudes, values, skills, and procedures a reader brings to a reading situation.  It is called “the building blocks of cognition” and “a cognitive map to the world”
  • Schemata influences reading comprehension and learning.  For comprehension to happen, readers must activate or build a schema that fits with information from a text. 
  • 1^st-schema provides a framework that allows reader to organize text information efficiently and effectively
  • 2^nd-Schema allows readers to make inferences about what happens or is likely to happen in a text
  • 3^rd-Schema helps readers elaborate on the material
• Metacognition-refers to knowledge about and regulation of some form of cognitive activity.  The awareness of one’s own cognitive processes, including self-knowledge, task knowledge and self-monitoring
  • Self-Knowledge-children know what they are reading, know what the reader’s role is, know their options, aware of their strengths, when readers are aware of self in relation to text
  • Task Knowledge-strategic readers, know how to analyze a task, reflect on what they know or don’t know, establish purposes and plans for reading, comprehension
  • Self-Monitoring-reading becomes second nature, readers operate on ‘automatic pilot’
• Implicit-based on unstated assumptions in conjunction with given information.  Which is a message to the reader that reading is supposed to make sense
• Explicit-based on stated information. Which is associated with explicit instruction (modeling, demonstrating, explaining, reflecting, etc.)

Reading from a Language Perspective

• Jean Piaget (1973) spent most of his life observing children and their interactions with their environment.  His theory of cognitive development helps explain that language acquisition is influenced by more general cognitive attainments.  As children explore their environment, they interpret and give meaning to the events they experience. The child’s need to interact with immediate surroundings and to manipulate objects is critical to language development.  Language reflects thought and does not necessarily shape it
• Lev Vygotsky (1962, 1978), acclaimed Russian psychologist, viewed children as active participants in their own learning.  However, in children’s early development, they begin to acquire language competence; as they do so, language stimulates cognitive development.  Gradually Vygotsky believe, they begin to regulate their own problem-solving activities through the mediation of egocentric speech.  Children carry on external dialogues with themselves.  Eventually external dialogue gives way to inner speech
• Children must be actively involved in order to grow and learn

Psycholinguistics and Reading

• Graphophonemic System-the print itself provides readers with a major source of information: the graphic symbols or marks on the page represent speech sounds.  The more experience readers have with written language, the more they learn about regular and irregular letter-sound relationships.  Experienced readers acquire enough knowledge of sounds associated with letter symbols that they do not have to use all the available graphic information in a word in order to decode or recognize it
• Syntactic System-readers possess knowledge about how language works.  Syntactic information is provided by the grammatical relationship within sentence patterns (readers use their knowledge of the meaningful arrangement of words in sentences to construct meaning from text materials).  The order of words provides important information cues during reading
• Sematic System-stores the schemata that readers bring to a text in terms of background knowledge, experiences, conceptual understandings, attitudes, beliefs and values

Four Steps of Literacy

• 1 Text Intent-children expect written language to be meaningful.  Their encounters with text support the expectation that they will be able to re-create and construct an author’s message
• 2 Negotiability-because children expect print to make sense, they use whatever knowledge and resources they possess to negotiate meaning-to create a meaningful message.  Negotiation suggests that reading is a give-and-take process between reader and author
• 3 Risk-Taking-children experiment with how written language works.  They take risks.  They make hypotheses and then test them out.  Risk-taking situations permit children to grow as language users
• 4 Fine-tuning-an encounter with a written language becomes a resource for subsequent literacy events and situations.  The more children interact with authors and texts, the better they get at constructing meaning

Models of Reading

• Bottom-Up Models of Reading-assume that the process of translating print to meaning begins with the print.  The process is initiated by decoding graphic symbols into sounds.  The readers first identifies features of letters; links these features together to recognize letters; combines letters to recognize spelling patterns; links spelling patterns to recognize words; and then proceeds to sentence, paragraph and text-level processing
• Top-Down Models of Reading-assume that the process of translating print to meaning begins with the reader’s prior knowledge.  The process is initiated by making predictions or ‘educated guesses’ about the meaning of some unit of print.  Readers decode graphic symbols into sounds to ‘check out’ hypotheses about meaning
• Interactive Models of Reading-assume that the process of translating print to meaning involves making sue of both prior knowledge and print
  • (see figure 1.5 and 1.6)

RTI for Struggling Readers

• Response to Intervention (RTI) is a systematic approach to identification and instruction of struggling readers.  The identification process for learning disabilities shifts from a focus on discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability to the emphasis of early support and intervention.
• Three Tier Approach
  • Tier 1-all students are provided research-based instruction differentiated to meet each student’s needs. Intervention is considered preventive and proactive
  • Tier 2-more intensive work is provided to learners who have not been successful in traditional classroom learning situation.  More focused small group interventions are implemented with frequent monitoring to measure progress
  • Tier 3-learners receive intensive, individualized intervention targeting specific deficits and problem areas.  Special educators and literacy specialists are responsible for the intervention and assessment processes

Classroom Application: This chapter has taught me a lot of things about the knowledge and beliefs about reading.  One is how beliefs about literacy learning influence instructional decisions and practices.  Secondly, how teachers use and construct personal, professional, and practical knowledge about literacy learning.  Next, how language, social and psychological perspectives on reading inform knowledge and beliefs about literacy learning.  Lastly, how different theoretical models of the reading process describes what humans do when they are engaged in reading.   It gave me a better understanding of how it would look in my future classroom and how my belief systems that focuses and clarifies my instructional decisions and practices.  Beliefs systems bring into focus what I know, believe and value, not only about my role in the classroom but with how I teach reading, readers, curriculum, instruction and new literacies.  It is important that I engage in reflection and inquiry because asking myself questions and observing what goes on in my classroom will better my instruction, but might influence my belief systems.

Source: Vacca, J. L., Vacca, R.T., & Gove, M K. (2012). Reading and Learning to Read (8th ed.). New York: Longman.

The following blog posts are for ENGED 370 Summer class.

Kira

Learning Tools

• Reading and writing are learning tools because reading has a powerful impact on writing and vice versa.  Making connections is important when students are learning content area information because of the added challenges that unfamiliar topics, text complexity and technical vocabulary presents.
• Trade Books-a published book that isn’t a textbook; the type of books in bookstores and libraries
• Reading to Learn-a wide variety of high-quality picture books and chapter books are available today for teachers to use in teaching thematic units.  They have engaging writing styles, keep readers interests, relevant and a way to build background knowledge
  • Text Sets-teachers collect text sets of books and other reading materials on topics to use in teaching thematic units.  Materials for text sets are carefully chosen to include different genres, range of reading levels and multimedia resources.
  • Mentor Texts-teachers use stories, nonfiction books and poems that students are familiar with to model the writer’s craft.  Picture books are especially useful mentor texts because they are short enough to be reread quickly.  Teachers begin by rereading a mentors text and pointing out a specific feature (like changing the tone by placing adjectives after nouns), then students imitate the feature in compositions in their own writing and have opportunities to experiment    with literary devices
• Writing to Learn-students use writing as a tool for learning during thematic units to take notes, categorize ideas, draw graphic organizers and write summaries.  The focus is on using writing to help students think and learn, not on spelling every word correctly
  • Learning Logs-students use to record and react to what they are learning to social studies, science or other content areas.  They are ‘a place to think on paper’.  They write in the journals to discover gaps in their knowledge and explore relationships between what they are learning and their past experiences
  • Double-Entry Journals-students divide their journal pages into 2 parts and write different types of information in each one.  Example-write important facts in one column and their reactions in the other column, or questions about the topic in one column and answers in the other column
  • Simulated Journals-the author (or student) assumes the role of a character and writes a series of diary entries from his or her point of view.  They are rich with historical details, the book’s language and sentence structure. 
  • Quick Writing-they write on a topic for 5-10 minutes, letting thoughts flow from their minds to their pencils without focusing on mechanics ore revisions.  Some draw pictures or use drawing and writing to explore their ideas

Demonstrating Learning

• Students research topics and then use writing to demonstrate their learning.  This is more formal and students apply their knowledge of the writing process to revise and edit their writing before making the final copy.  There are 4 ways students demonstrate learning by…
  • 1. Reports-are the best known type of writing to demonstrate learning; students write many types of reports, from posters, to “All About…” books, to alphabet books, class collaborations (which include writing collaborative books) and individual reports
  • 2. Essays-students write essays to explain, analyze and persuade to readers.  They are short and no longer than two pages.  Sometimes use the 5-paragraph essay; introduction, 3 body paragraphs and conclusion.
  • 3. Poems-students often write poems as projects after reading books and to demonstrate content area learning as part of thematic units.  They write formula poems by beginning each line or stansa with a word or line, they create free-form poems and they follow the structure of model poems.  Different types of poems-“I Am..” poems, poems for two voices and found poems.
  • 4. Multi-genre Projects-they combine content area study with writing in significant and meaningful ways.  A benefit is that each genre offers ways of learning and understanding that the others don’t.

Content Area Textbooks

• Are usually unappealing and too difficult for students to read and understand, they cover too many topics and teachers need to make content area textbooks more comprehensible and supplement students’ learning with other reading and writing activities
• Making Textbooks More Comprehensible-teachers use a variety of activities during each stage of the reading process to make content area textbooks more user friendly and to improve students’ comprehension of what they have read
  • Stage 1-Prereading
    • Anticipation Guides-teachers introduce a set of statements on the topic of the chapter, students agree or disagree with each statement and then they read the assignment to see if they were right
    • Prereading Plan-teachers introduce the big ideas in a chapter and they present an idea discussed in the chapter, then they have students brainstorm words and ideas related to it
    • Question-Answer Relationships-students learn how to understand how to answer questions written at the end of content area textbooks chapters and they become aware of whether they are likely to find the answer to a question ‘right there’ on the page, between the lines or beyond the information provided in the text
  • Stage 2-Reading
  • Stage 3-Responding
  • Stage 4-Exploring
    • Sematic Feature Analysis-to focus on the big ideas, students make data charts to record information according to the big ideas or create a SFA chart to classify important information
    • Word Sorts-students post technical words on word walls or make posters to study their meaning and do word sorts to emphasize the relationships among the big ideas
  • Stage 5-Applying       (see image 12-6 below)

• Learn How to Study-it is more effective to use strategies that require students to think critically and to elaborate ideas…
  • Restate the big ideas in their own words
  • Make connections among the big ideas
  • Add details to each of the big ideas
  • Ask questions about the importance of the ideas
  • Monitor whether they understand the ideas
  • Taking notes-can make outlines, bulleted lists, draw flow charts, graphic organizers or make double-entry journals
  • Question-Answer Relationships
  • The SQ4R Study Strategy-a six-step technique in which students survey, questions, read, recite, relate and review as they study a content area reading assignment.  It incorporates before, during, and after reading components. 

Thematic Units

• Thematic Units are interdisciplinary units that integrate reading and writing with social studies, science and other curricular areas.  Students are involved in planning, identifying some questions they want to explore and activities that interest them
• How to Develop a Unit
  • 1-Determine the focus
  • 2-Collect a text set
  • 3-Coordinate textbook readings
  • 4-Locate digital and multimedia materials
  • 5-Plan instructional activities
  • 6-Identify minilesson topics
  • 7-Plan ways to differentiate instruction
  • 8-Brainstorm possible projects
  • 9-Plan for assessment
• Alternative Assessment-by use of observing students, asking them questions, interactions with them, talking with them, drawing pictures/graphic organizers and portfolios that include students’ work samples.

Classroom Application: This chapter has taught me how to integrate literacy instruction with content area study.  It is important that I, as a teacher, develop thematic units in which students read both nonfiction and content area textbooks and participate in a combination of ‘writing to learn’ and ‘writing to demonstrate learning’ activities. To be an effective teacher, I will integrate reading and writing instruction with all content areas, teach minilessons to ensure that students learn how to comprehend nonfiction books and content area textbooks, how to use reading and writing as tools for learning and to demonstrate new knowledge.  Overall, I should follow the guidelines presented in this chapter, to teach students to use reading and writing as learning tools, have students use writing to demonstrate what they have learned, teach students to use content area textbooks effectively and to focus on the big ideas in thematic units.

Source: Tompkins, Gail E. (2017). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7^th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Ways to Differentiate Instruction

• Differentiated instruction-is based on this understanding that students differ in important ways, it means shaking up what goes on in the classroom so that students have multiple options for takin in information, making sense of ideas and expressing what they learn
• Student’s achievement levels differ, and their interests and preferred way of learning vary, teachers modify their instructional programs so that all students can be successful.  Heacox characterizes differentiated instruction as…
  • Rigorous-teachers provide challenging instruction that encourages students’ active engagement in learning
  • Relevant-teachers address literacy standards to assure that students learn essential knowledge, strategies and skills
  • Flexible-teachers use a variety of instructional procedures and grouping techniques to support students
  • Complex-teachers engage students in thinking deeply about books they are reading, compositions they are writing and concepts they are learning
• Teachers modify instruction in 3 ways-differentiating the content, differentiating the process and differentiating the product
  • Differentiating the Content-the content is the ‘what’ of teaching, literacy knowledge, strategies and skills that students are expected to learn at each grade level.  Teachers concentrate on teaching the essential content, meet students’ needs, provide more instruction and practice for some students.
  • Differentiating the Process-the process is the ‘how’ of teaching, the instruction that teachers provide, materials they use and activities students are involved in to ensure that they are successful.  Teachers group students for instruction, choose reading materials at appropriate levels of difficult, make decisions about involving students in activities that allow them to apply what they are learning through oral, written or visual means
  • Differentiating the Product-the product is the result of learning; it demonstrates what students understand and how well they can apply what they have learned.  Students usually create projects, and teachers often vary the complexity of the projects they ask students to create by changing the level of thinking that is required to complete the project
• Grouping for Instruction-teachers use group patterns, like, students work together as a whole class, they work in small groups or individually.  The type of grouping to use depends on the teacher’s purpose, the complexity of the activity and student’s specific learning needs (see figure 11-1 for grouping patterns)

• Tiered Activities-teachers create several tiered or related activities that focus on the same essential knowledge but vary in complexity.  They are alternative ways of reaching the same goal, they benefit on-grade-level students, support struggling readers and challenge advanced students. 
• Literacy Centers-contain meaningful, purposeful literacy activities that students can work at in small groups, students practice phonics skills, vocabulary and listen to books, etc. (see figure 11-2 below)

• Differentiated Projects-students often create project at the end of a unit to apply what they have learned and to bring closure to the unit.  Possible projects include charts, murals, other visual representations, poems, essays, power point reports, readers theatre projections, websites or community-based projects, that reflect students’ synthesis of the big ideas and high-quality workmanship.

Struggling Readers and Writers

• Struggling Readers-it is crucial to identify students at risk for reading problems early so these problems can be addressed quickly.  Some factors that predict early reading difficulty in Kindergarten or 1^st grade are…
  • Difficulty developing concepts about written language, phonemic awareness, letter names and phoneme-grapheme correspondences
  • Slower to respond than classmates when asked to identify words
  • Behavior that deviates from school norms
  • See figure 11-3

• Struggling Writers-it is easy to notice some of their problems when you examine their compositions…
  • Difficulty developing and organizing ideas
  • Struggle with word choice and writing complete sentences and effective transitions
  • Others have problems with spelling, capitalization, punctuation and grammar skills
  • Struggle with the writing process, using writing strategies effectively, may be unsure about what writers do as they develop and refine their compositions
  • See figure 11-4

• High-Quality Instruction-struggling students have significant difficulty learning to read and write.  The best way to help students is by providing high-quality classroom instruction and adding an intervention if needed.  Use a balanced approach that combines explicated instruction to apply what they are learning.  Teachers should address these 4 components to enhance the literacy development
  • Personalizing Instruction-teachers adjust their instructional programs to match students’ needs using flexible grouping, tiered activities and respectful tasks.  Results of ongoing assessment are used to vary instructional content, process and assignments according to students’ developmental levels, interest and learning styles
  • Using Appropriate instructional Materials-finding appropriate books for struggling readers can be difficult.  Using a single text with the whole class only 25% of the time because students need more opportunities to read books at their level. 
  • Expanding Teachers’ Expertise-teachers continue to grow professionally during their careers ant these stretch their knowledge and teaching expertise (see figure 11-5)

• Collaborating with Literacy Coaches-which are experienced teachers with special expertise in working with struggling readers and writers.  They support teachers by working alongside them in their classrooms, demonstrating instructional procedures, evaluation techniques and collaborate with teachers to design instruction to address students’ needs. 
• Interventions-programs to address low-achieving students’ reading and writing difficulties and accelerate their literacy learning.  They are used to build on effective classroom instruction, not as a replacement.  During interventions, teachers diagnose, provide intensive, expert instruction and scaffold individuals of students (see figure 11-6)

• Early Interventions-now we focus on early intervention for at-risk children should begin early and persist throughout some students’ lives.  3 types of interventions for 4K-1^st graders
  • 1-preventive programs to create more effective early-childhood programs
  • 2-family-focused programs to develop young children’s awareness of literacy, parents’ literacy and parenting skills
  • 3-early interventions to resolve reading and writing problems and accelerate literacy development for low-achieving K-3 students
  • Reading Recovery-is the most widely known intervention for the lowest-achieving 1^st graders.  Involves 30-minute daily one-on-one tutoring by trained teachers.  It consists of…
    • Rereading familiar books
    • Independent reading the book introduced in the previous lesson
    • Learning decoding and comprehension strategies
    • Writing sentences
    • Reading a new book with teacher support
  • Response to Intervention-RTI is a schoolwide initiative to identify struggling students quickly, promote high-quality classroom instruction, provide effective interventions and increase likelihood that students will be successful.  3 Tiers are…
    • Tier 1-Screening and Prevention-teachers provide high-quality instruction, screen students to identify those at risk and monitor their progress.  If they don’t’ make adequate progress towards meeting grade-level standards, they move to Tier 2
    • Tier 2-Early Intervention-trained reading teachers provide enhanced, individualized instruction targeting students’ specific areas of difficulty.  If it is successful and the problems are resolved they return to Tier 1, if they don’t show improvement they move to Tier 3
    • Tier 3-Intensive Intervention-special education teachers provide more intensive intervention to individual students more frequent progress mentoring
  • Interventions for Older Students-In most upper aged classrooms reading instruction does not consist of reading, it consists of literature.  It is recommended that teachers design intervention programs that include these components…
    • High-Quality Instruction-provide appropriate literacy instruction that is tailored to student’s needs, decoding is a strength for most struggling readers and instructional time is better spend on vocabulary and comprehension
    • Instructional-Level Reading Materials-teach reading using books at students’ instructional levels, so selecting appropriate reading materials is important for students who read below their grade level
    • More Time for Reading-increase the amount of time students spends reading independent level books each day (see figure 11-7)

Classroom Application: This chapter has taught me more about differentiating instruction.  To be an effective teacher it is important that I modify the content and topics that I teach, the process and instructional procedures and the product, the project that students create.  It is also crucial to demonstrate my responsibility and commitment to teaching all students effectively by personalizing instruction using the guidelines presented in this chapter. I should use a balanced approach to teach struggling students that incorporates effective instruction, materials at students’ reading levels and extra time for reading and writing.  Understanding how to address those students who are struggling readers or writers is vital to provide them with the correct solutions.  Some of those solutions might include interventions, from early interventions, to reading recover or RTI’s. Interventions are used to build on effective classroom instruction, not as a replacement for it.  Overall, I learned in this chapter that I, as a future teacher, know that my students vary-in their interests and motivation, their background knowledge and prior experiences, their culture and language proficiency as well as their reading and writing achievement-so it is important to take these individual differences into account as I plan for instruction. 

Source: Tompkins, Gail E. (2017). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7^th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Conducting Guided Reading Lessons

• Teachers use guided reading to teach reading to small groups of 4-6 kids who read at the same level.  They use books written at the student’s instructional level and support their application of reading strategies.
  • Components-guided reading lessons last around 20 minutes, first students reread individually or with a partner, then teachers introduce new books, do book walks, students read the entire book while teacher provides assistance, then they share ideas, make connections and ask questions.  Teachers can also use interactive writing during this time also. 

Teaching with Basal Reading Programs

• Basal Reading Overview (image below)

• Materials in Basal Reading Programs: (figure 10-1)

Teaching with Literature Focus Units

• Literature Focus Units Overview (image below)

Steps in Developing a Literature Focus Unit

• Step 1: Select the Literature
• Step 2: Set Goals
• Step 3: Develop a Unit Plan
• Step 4: Coordinate Grouping Patterns with Activities
• Step 5: Create a Time Schedule
• Step 6: Assess Students

Units Feature a Picture Book

• Featuring picture books, younger children read predictable picture books or books with very little text.  Teachers use the same 6-step approach for developing units feature a picture book for younger and older students

Units Feature a Novel

• Difference between picture books and novels is the length, and when teachers plan for a novel, they need to decide how to schedule the reading of the book.  It is important for the teachers to reread the book, note the length of chapters, identify key points and how students will present their ideas

Units Featuring a Genre

• Students learn about the characteristics of a particular genre, such as folktales, science fiction or biographies.  They read several books, participate in a variety of activities and sometimes apply what they learn through a project

Units Featuring an Author

• Students learn about an author’s life and read one or more books he or she has written.  As students learn about author’s they develop a concept of author; it important so students will think of them as real people and they view reading in a more personal way, this awareness also carries over to their writing

Orchestrating Literature Circles

• One of the best ways to nurture students’ love of reading and ensure they become lifelong readers is through literature circles—they are small, student-led book discussion groups that meet regularly in the classroom (sometimes called book clubs)

Key Features of Literature Circles

• Choice-students make many choices in literature circles, they choose the books, the groups they participate in, help set the schedule for reading and discussion book and how they share the book with classmates
• Literature-the books chosen for literature circles should be interesting and at students’ reading level.  Choose shorter books or picture books at first then move into longer fiction and nonfiction books
• Response-students meet several times during a literature circle to discuss the book.  During these discussions, students summarize their reading, make connections, learn vocabulary, explore the author’s use of text features and learn that comprehension develops in layers

Types of Talk During Literature Circle Discussions

• (see figure 10-4 below)

Roles Students Play in Literature Circles

• (see figure 10-5 below)

Implementing Literature Circles

• For literature circles to be successful, classrooms need to become communities for learners.  Teachers need to ensure that students can work collaboratively with classmates, they learn to be responsible for their own learning and are supportive of group members (see overview of instructional approach picture below)
  • Step 1-Select Books
  • Step 2-Form Literature Circles
  • Step 3-Read the Book
  • Step 4-Participate in a Discussion
  • Step 5-Teach Mini lessons
  • Step 6-Share with the Class
  • Step 7-Assess Learning

Applying the Reading Process

• Prereading-teachers give book talks, students choose books to read and make schedules and roles
• Reading-students read the book independently or with partner, and prepare for group meeting
• Responding-students talk about the book and take responsibility to come to the discussion prepared and participate actively
• Exploring-teachers teach mini lessons during which students rehearse literature circle procedures, learn comprehension strategies and examine text factors
• Applying-students give brief presentations to the class about books they have read

Activities in Literature Circles

• Mini lessons-taught to develop more positive relationships among group members and build more effective discussion skills
• Videotapes-videotape students participating in literature circles, then view it with the group so they are aware of their behavior and how it affects the discussion
• Book-teachers reconsider the books they chose and look at books that might better relate to students
• Coaching-teachers became coaches to guide students in becoming more effective participants

Implementing Reading and Writing Workshop

• Students are involved in authentic reading and writing projects during reading and writing workshops.  It involves 3 key characteristics: time, choice and response.  Students have large chunks of time and opportunity to read and write where it becomes the core of the literacy curriculum. Workshops can be used as the primary instructional approach or it can be used along with guided reading or another instructional approach.

Reading Workshop

• Students read books that they choose themselves and respond to books through writing in reading logs and conferencing with teachers and classmates.  Reading workshop is an individualized reading program.  They usually contain 5 components: reading, responding, sharing, teaching mini lessons and reading aloud to students.
  • Reading-students spend 30-60 minutes independently reading books, they choose the books they read, often using recommendations from classmates.  They also choose books on their favorite topics.  Students should use the “Three Bears” model for choosing books (see figure 10-8 below)

• Responding-students usually keep reading logs where they write their initial responses.  Responses demonstrate students’ use of reading strategies and offer insights into their thinking about literature.  Classified students’ written responses to stories they are reading into 3 categories (see figure 10-9)

• Sharing-for the last 15 minutes of reading workshop, the class gathers together to discuss books they have finished, they talk about the book and why they liked it
  • Teaching Mini Lessons-teacher spends 5-15 minutes teaching mini lessons on reading workshop procedure, comprehension strategies and text factors, can be done with the whole class or small groups
  • Reading Aloud to Students-teachers use interactive read-aloud procedure to rad picture books and chapter books to the class as part of reading workshop

Applying the Reading Process

• Prereading-students choose books at their reading levels to read and activate background knowledge as they look at the cover and think about the title
• Reading-students read the books they have selected independently at their own pace
• Responding-students talk about the books they are reading when they conference with the teacher and write responses in reading logs
• Exploring-teachers teach students about text factors, authors and comprehension strategies through mini lessons
• Applying-students give book talks to their classmates about the books they have finished reading

Sustained Silent Reading

• SSR is an independent reading time set aside during the school day for students in one class to silently read self-selected books.  It is used to increase the amount of reading students do and to encourage them to develop the habit of daily reading.  Reading workshop and SSR are similar.  But reading workshop has 5 components where SSR only has one—reading!!

Writing Workshop

• Writing workshop is the best way to complement the writing process.  Students write on topics that they choose themselves and assume ownership of their writing and learning. The classroom becomes a community of writers who write and share their writing
  • Writing- students spend 30-45 minutes or longer working independently on writing projects. Students work at their own pace on writing projects they have chosen themselves
  • Sharing-for the last 10-15 minutes the class gathers together to share their new publications, they take turns sitting in the special author’s chair to read their compositions aloud.
  • Teaching Mini Lessons-during 5-30 minute period, teachers provide mini lessons on writing workshop procedures, the writer’s craft and writing strategies and skills, like organizing ideas, proofreading and using quotation marks.

Applying the Writing Process

• Writers workshop is the best way for students to apply the writing process: Teachers teach students how to complete the activities during each stage, then students practice what they have learned during writing workshops
  • Prewriting-students choose topics and set their own purposes for writing, then they gather and organize ideas, often drawing pictures, making graphic organizer or talking out ideas with classmate
  • Drafting-students work independently to write their rough drafts
  • Revising-students participate in revising groups to share their rough drafts and get feedback to help them revise their writing
  • Editing-students work with classmates to proofread and correct mechanical errors in their writing, also meet with the teacher for final editing
  • Publishing-they prepare a final copy of their writing and sit in the author’s chair to read it to classmates

Managing a Workshop Classroom

• It takes time to establish a workshop approach because students need to develop new ways of working and learning, and they have to form a community of readers and writers in the classroom.  Teachers establish the workshop environment in their classroom, they provide time for students to read and write and teach them how to respond to books and classmates’ writing.  Teachers develop a schedule for reading and writing workshops with time allocated for each component.  They teach workshop procedures and continue to model until students become comfortable with the routines.  Can use a classroom chart to monitor students work.  Teachers take time to monitor during reading and writing workshops to observe as students’ work. 

Classroom Application: This chapter has taught me about the five ways to organize literacy instruction.  I should use a combination of guided reading, basal readers, literature focus units, literature circles, reading and writing workshops and other approaches to create a balanced literacy program.  To teach effectively in my future classroom, I must ensure that students’ can read grade-level texts and meet reading and writing standards.  I should use leveled books to teach reading in guided reading lessons, supplement basal reading programs with authentic reading and writing activities, present literature focus-units to teach students’ about award-winning books, incorporate choice, literature and response into literature circles and lastly, provide opportunities for students’ to read self-selected books during reading workshops and write on self-selected topics during writing workshops. 

Source: Tompkins, Gail E. (2017). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7^th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Overview

• What readers know and do during reading has a tremendous impact on how well they comprehend, but comprehension involves more than just reader factors: it includes text factors, stories, nonfiction books, poems…3 types of text factors are the most important…
  • 1-Genres-three broad categories of literature-stories, informational books/nonfiction and poetry
  • 2-Text Structures-authors use text structures to organize tests and emphasize the most important ideas-sequence, comparison and cause and effect are three internal patterns in nonfiction texts
  • 3-Text Features-authors use text features to achieve a particular effect in their writing, literary devices and conventions include symbolism, tone in stories, headings and indexes or page layout

Text Factors of Stories

• Stories are narratives about character trying to overcome problems or deal with difficulties.  Children develop an understanding of what constitutes a story beginning in preschool years when parent’s read aloud to them.  They refine and expand their understanding of stories through literacy instruction and learn about subgenres of stories
• Formats of Stories-stories are available in picture-book and chapter-book formats. 
• Narrative Genres-stories can be categorized in different ways, one is according to genres (see figure 9-1)

• Elements of Story Structure-stories have unique structural elements that distinguish them from other genres—most important are plot, characters, setting, point of view and theme
  • Plot-is the sequence of event involving characters in conflict situations; based on the goals of one or more characters and the processes they go through to attain them.  Conflict is the tension or opposition between forces in the plot and it is what interests’ readers enough to continue reading the story in 4 ways—Between a Character and Nature, Between a Character and Society, Between Characters and Within a Character.
  • Characters-are the people or personified animals in the story.  Character develop in 4 ways—Appearance, Action, Dialogue and Monologue.
  • Setting-is generally thought of as the location where the story takes place, but that’s only one aspect.  It has 4 dimensions—location, weather, time period and time.
  • Point of View-stories are written from a particular viewpoint and this perspective determines to a great extent reader’s understanding of the characters and event of the story.  Points of view are—First-Person Viewpoint (uses pronoun I), Omniscient Viewpoint (author is godlike, seeing and knowing all), Limited Omniscient Viewpoint (is used so readers know the thoughts of one character, third person) and Objective Viewpoint (readers are eyewitnesses to the story and confined to the immediate scene)
  • Theme-is the underlying meaning of a story; it embodies general truths about human nature
• Narrative Devices-are used to make their writing more vivid and memorable (see figure 9-4)

Text Factors of Nonfiction

• Stories have been the principal genre for reading and writing in instruction in the primary grades because it’s been assumed that constructing stories in the mind is a fundamental way of learning
• Nonfiction Genres-provide facts on just about any topic you can think of
  • Alphabet Books-are designed for young children who are learning to identify the letters of the alphabet
  • Biographies-read to learn about a person’s life
  • Reference Books-use almanacs, dictionaries and atlases to track down information and research topics
• Expository Text Structures-nonfiction books are organized in particular ways.  There are patterns, presents sample passages and cue words that signal use of each patter and the most common expository text structures are…. (see figure 9-5)

• Nonfiction Features-have unique text features that stories and poems normally don’t have.  They often include—headings and subheadings to direct reader’s attention to the big ideas, photos and drawing to illustrate the big ideas, figures, maps and table to provide diagrams, margin notes that provide supplemental information, highlighted vocabulary words to identify key terms, glossary to assist readers, review sections/charts at end of the chapter, and index to assist reader in locating information

Text Factors of Poetry

• It is easy to recognize a poem because the text looks different than a page from a story or nonfiction book.  Layout is an important text factor.
• Formats of Poetry Books for Children-Picture-Book Versions of Single Poems, Specialized Collections and Comprehensive Anthologies-each line or stanza is presented and illustrated on a page or related to a single theme
• Formats of Poetry for Middle/Upper Grades-Verse Novels-which are stories that are told through poems rather than prose, some are long and some are short.
• Poetic Forms-poets write for students who employ a variety of poetic forms-rhymed verse is the most common, some tell a story, some is free verse.  They key to successful poetry is poetic formulas which serve as scaffolds, or temporary frameworks so students can focus on ideas rather than on the rhyme scheme.
  • Acrostics-use a key word to structure acrostic poems, choose a word and write it vertically and the they create lines from the beginning letter
  • Apology Poems-they write apology poems in which they apologize for something they are secretly glad they did
  • Bilingual Poems-they write free verse poems and insert words from another language into their poem-words that are written in a second language are key words
  • Color Poems-write color poems by beginning each line or stanza with a color word (ex. Black is the spooky night sky)
  • Concrete Poems-words and lines are arranged on the page to help convey the meaning.  They form a picture or outline they objects they describe, called shape poems
  • Found Poems-by clipping key words and phrases from stories, newspaper, Internet or magazine articles to make a poem
  • Haiku-is a Japanese poetic form that contains just 17 syllables, in lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables.  They normally deal with nature.
  • Odes-celebrate everyday objects, especially those things that aren’t usually appreciated, unrhymed poem written directly to that object, it tells what is good about that thing and why it’s valued
  • Poems for Two Voices-students write poems in two side-by-side columns that two readers read simultaneously; the poem then sounds like a duet
• Poetic Devices

Teaching About Text Factors

• Mini lessons-teachers teach students about text factors directly through mini lessons.  They highlight a genre, explain its characteristics and read aloud, modeling their thinking about text factors
• Comprehension Strategies-the goals for students is to have them actually use what they learn about text factors when they are reading and writing.  Use noticing text factors; which involves considering genre, recognizing text structure and attending to literary devices.  Teachers can use think-alouds by demonstrating how they apply the strategy as they read books aloud
• Assessing Text Factors

Classroom Application: This chapter has helped me learn about the text factors in stories, nonfiction and poetry and how they affect students’’ comprehension.  There are three types of text factors; genres, structural elements and literary devices.  To become an effective teacher, I must teach students to use their knowledge of genres, structural elements and literary devices to increase their comprehension of complex texts using the information that was presented in this chapter, like teaching students’ that stories have unique text factors like narrative genres, story elements and narrative devices.  I should also teach students’ that nonfiction books have unique text factors like nonfiction genres, expository text structures and nonfiction features.  Poems also have unique text factors like book formats, poetic forms and poetic devices.  Overall, it is important that students learn about all the different types of text factors and the role they play in comprehension.

Source: Tompkins, Gail E. (2017). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7^th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

What Is Comprehension?

• Comprehension-is a creative, multifaceted thinking process in which students engage with the text.  A process is more complicated than a single action; it involves a series of behaviors that occur over time
• Reader and Text Factors-readers are actively engaged with the text they’re reading; they think about many things as they comprehend the text-—(activate prior knowledge, examine the text to uncover its organization, make predictions, connect ot their own experiences, create mental images, draw inferences, notice symbols and other literary devices and monitor their understanding)
• Text Complexity-is a new way of examining comprehension to determine the cognitive demands of books, or more specifically how well readers can complete an assigned task with a particular text
  • Qualitative Dimensions-teachers make informed judgments about a book’s grade appropriateness by examining its layout, structure, language features, purpose/meaning and background knowledge needed. 
  • Quantitative Measures-teachers use readability formulas or other scores to determine a book’s grade appropriateness by calculating word length, word frequency, word difficulty, sentence length, text length and other quantitative features.
  • Reader and Task Considerations-teachers reflect on how they expect students to interact with the book, student’s literacy knowledge and strategy use as well as their motivation and interests
• Prerequisites for Comprehension-for students to comprehend a text, they must have adequate background knowledge, understand most words in a text and be able to read fluently
  • Background Knowledge-having both world knowledge and literary knowledge is a prerequisite because they provide a bridge to a new text
  • Vocabulary-students’ knowledge of words plays a tremendous role in comprehension because it’s difficult to comprehend a text that’s loaded with unknown words
  • Reading Fluency-fluent readers red quickly and efficiently because they recognize most words automatically, their cognitive resources aren’t’ depleted by decoding unfamiliar words and they can devote their attention to comprehension

Comprehension Strategies

• Comprehension Strategies-are thoughtful behaviors that students use to facilitate their understanding as they read.  Some strategies are cognitive-they involve thinking; others are metacognitive-students reflect on their thinking.  Students learn to use a variety of cognitive and metacognitive strategies including predicting, drawing inferences and monitoring to ensure that they comprehend what they are reading (see figure 8-2)

• Activating Background Knowledge-readers bring their background knowledge to every reading experiences, in fact, they read a text differently depending on their prior experiences.  Teachers use a variety of prereading activities to scaffold students as they learn to activate their background knowledge—anticipation guides, exclusion brainstorming, graphic organizers, KWL charts and prereading plans
  • Connecting-readers make 3 types of connections between the text and their background knowledge-text-to-self, text-to-world and text-to-text.Text-to-self connections, students link the ideas they’re reading about to events in their own lives (personal connections).  Text-to-world connections, students relate what they’re reading to their ‘world’ knowledge, learned both in and out of school.  Text-to-text connections, students link the text or an element of it to another text, film or TV program that they are familiar with
  • Determining Importance-readers sift through the text to identify the important ideas as they read because it isn’t possible to remember everything.  Students learn to distinguish the big ideas and the details and to recognize what’s important as they read and talk about the books they have read.  This important because students need to be able to identify the big ideas in order to summarize
  • Drawing Inferences-readers seem to ‘read between the lines’ to draw inferences, but what they actually do is synthesize their background knowledge with the author’s clues to ask questions that point toward inferences.  Four steps for drawing inferences (see figure 8-3)
    • 1-activate background knowledge about topics related to the text
    • 2-look for the author’s clues as you read
    • 3-ask questions, tying together background knowledge and the author’s clues
    • 4-draw inferences by answering the questions

• Evaluating-readers reflect on their reading experiences and evaluate the text and what they’re learning.  They include these aspects—their ease in reading the text, adequacy of their background knowledge, use of comprehension strategies, how they solved reading problems, and their interest and attention during reading. They also consider the text—whether they like it, opinions about the author, the world knowledge they gain and how they will use what they are learning
  • Monitoring-readers monitor their understanding as they read, monitoring as the inner conversation that students carry on in their heads with the text
  • Predicting-readers make thoughtful ‘guesses’ or predictions about what will happen or what they’ll learn in the book they are reading
  • Questioning-readers ask themselves questions about the text as they read, ask self-questions out of curiosity and they become more engaged with the text
• Students use comprehension strategies at every stage in the reading process, but their activities vary from stage to stage, depending on the strategy being used (see figure 8-4)

• Comprehension Skills-these skills are related to strategies, but the big difference is that skills involve literal thinking; there are like questions to which there is one correct answer.  One group of skills focuses on main ideas and details and another is related to evaluating strategy

Teaching Students About Reading Factors

• Comprehension instruction involves teaching students how to understand what they are reading.  Use explicit instruction, reading and writing to develop students’ understanding of fiction and nonfiction texts.  Teachers create an expectation of comprehension in these ways…involving students in authentic reading activities every day, providing access to well-stocked classroom libraries, teaching students to use comprehension strategies, ensure that students are fluent readers, providing opportunities for students to talk about books they have read and linking vocabulary instruction to underlying concepts
• How do I teach Reading Factors?
  • Key Ideas and Details-students demonstrate their understanding of a text, ask and answer both literal and inferential questions and explain relationships among ideas
  • Integration of Knowledge and Ideas-students analyze visual and multimedia elements, use reasons and evidence to support ideas and make comparisons between two texts
  • Range of Reading-students read and understand grade-level fiction and nonfiction texts independently and proficiently
  • Level of Text Complexity-students learn how to read increasingly challenging texts
• Explicit Instruction
  • Comprehension is an invisible mental process makes it difficult to teach; but through explicit instruction, teachers can make comprehension more visible.  They explain what comprehension is and why it is important and they model how to use strategies by thinking aloud
  • Teaching Strategies-teach individual comprehension strategies simultaneously.  Introduce each comprehension strategy in a series of minilessons, model it for students as they read aloud, use it collaboratively with students and provide opportunities for guided and independent practice (See figure 8-5)

Nurturing English Learners

• Assessing Reader Factors
  • Teachers use the integrated instruction-assessment cycle to ensure that students are growing in their ability to understand complex texts and use increasingly more sophisticated strategies to deepen their understanding of grade-level text.  Use diagnostic tests with struggling readers… (look at photo below)

Motivation

• Motivation is intrinsic, the innate curiosity that makes us want to figure things out.  It involves felling self-confident, believing you’ll succeed and viewing the activity as pleasurable—see image below of the teacher’s role and student’s role in motivation (figure 8-6)

• How to Engage Students-students express their own ideas and opinions, they choose topics for writing and books for reading, they talk about books they are reading, they share their writing with classmates and they pursue authentic activities (NOT worksheets) using reading, writing, listening and talking
• Assessing Motivation-because student’s motivation and engagement affect their success in reading as well as writing, it is important that teachers learn about their students and work to ensure that they’re motivated and have positive attitudes about literacy.  Observe students, conference with them, learn about their hobbies and interests and use surveys
• Comparing Capable and Less Capable Students
  • (see figure 8-7)

Classroom Application: In this chapter, I have learned about how students learn to apply predicting, connecting, visualizing, monitoring, evaluating and other types of comprehension strategies to understand complex texts.  These strategies, listed above, are important because they help readers to engage and think about what they are reading. To be an effective teacher I must facilitate my future students’ comprehension when they address reading factors and to emphasize that comprehension is a process involving both reader factors and text factors.  Students should use their learned comprehension strategies to direct their reading, monitor their understanding and troubleshoot problems when they occur.  I should also teach students how to apply comprehension strategies to support their understanding of texts and to also nurture students’’ motivation and engagement in literacy activities.

Source: Tompkins, Gail E. (2017). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7^th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Overview

This chapter teaches how to expand students’ academic vocabulary and to develop their word consciousness (their interest in learning words).  Teachers use a 3-tier system to categorize words and identify the most important words to teach and also teach word-learning strategies. 

Academic Vocabulary

• Academic Vocabulary-words that are frequently used in language arts, social studies, science and math are called this.  These words are found in books/textbooks that students read, used in minilessons, discussion and assignments. 
• Three Tiers of Words-used to assist teachers in identifying academic vocabulary and choosing which words to study
  • Tier 1: Basic Words-common words are used socially in formal conversations at home and on the playground (Ex. animal, clean, laughing)
  • Tier 2: Academic Vocabulary-these words have a wide application in school are used more frequently in written than oral language, related to literacy concepts or found in literature
  • Tier 3: Specialized Terms-technical words which are content-specific and abstract.  They aren’t used frequently enough to devote time to teaching them when in a lesson
• Nurturing English Learners….(see photo below)

Levels of Word Knowledge

• Students develop knowledge about a word gradually, through repeated oral and written exposure to it.  Levels are…
  • Unknown Word (students don’t recognize the word)
  • Initial Recognition (have seen or heard the word or can pronounce it, but don’t know the meaning)
  • Partial Word Knowledge (know one meaning of the word and use it in a sentence)
  • Full Word Knowledge (know more than one meaning of the word and use it in several ways)

Word Consciousness

• Which is students’ interest in leaning and using words.  It increases students’ word knowledge and their interest in learning academic vocabulary.  It is important because vocabulary knowledge is generative and enhances students’ learning of other words.   Teachers promote wordplay by sharing riddles, jokes, songs and poems and encourage students to experiment with them by using…
  • Alliteration-repeat words with same beginning consonant or vowel sounds in words (ex. Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers)
  • Eponyms-recognize that people’s names can become words (ex. teddy bear, Ferris Wheel)
  • Hyperbole-create exaggerated statements (ex. I almost died laughing)
  • Onomatopoeia-use words that imitate sounds (tick-toc)
  • Oxymorons-combine two normally contradictory words to create a paradoxical image (ex. jumbo shrimp, pretty ugly)
  • Palindromes-notice words and phrases that read the same forward and backward (ex. mom and civic)
  • Personification-endow inanimate objects with human traits or abilities (ex. fear knocked on the door)
  • Portmanteau-commonly use words that were created by fusing two words to combine meaning of both (ex. spork, brunch)
  • Spoonerisms-switch sounds in words with a humorous effect (ex. save the whales)

Word-Study Concepts

• It isn’t enough to have students memorize one definition of a word; to develop full word knowledge they need to learn more about a word.  As students learn about a word, they acquire a wide range of information. 
• Multiple Meanings of Words-many words have more than one meaning.  For some words, multiple meanings develop for the noun and verb forms, but sometimes additional meaning develop through wordplay and figurative language (ex. bank- snow bank or bank of money). 
• Synonyms: Words with Similar Meanings-words that have nearly the same meaning as other words.  Teachers should focus on teaching concepts and related words, not just provide single-word definitions
• Antonyms: Words that Mean the Opposite-words that express opposite meanings (ex. loud—soft, quite or silent)
• Homonyms: Words that Confuse-because even though these words have different meanings, they are either pronounced or spelled the same as other words.  Homophones are words that sound alike but are spelled differently (ex. right-write, to-too-two).  Homographs are words with identical spellings but different meanings and pronunciations
• Root Words and Affixes-teaching students about root words and affixes shows them how words work, and many words come form a single root word; which relate to Latin words (ex. export, report, support).  Root words are free morphemes when they’re words.  Affixes are bound morphemes that are added to words: Prefixes are placed at the beginning and suffixes are located at the end of the word.
• Etymologies: Word Histories-glimpses into the history of English language offer fascinating information about word meanings and spellings.  English language began in A.D. 447 by the Anglo-Saxon English.  Students use etymological information in dictionaries to learn how particular words evolved and what the words mean.  It is included in brackets at the beginning or end of dictionary entries.
• Figurative Meanings-many words have both literal and figurative meanings-Literal meanings are the explicative, dictionary meanings while Figurative meanings are metaphorical or use figures of speech (ex. winter literal=winter is the coldest season of the year; figurative=winter has icy breath).  Idioms are groups of words such as “in hot water” that have a special meaning.  They must be interpreted figuratively.  Simile is a comparison signaled by the use of like or as. Metaphors compare two things by implying that one is the other, without using like or as.

Teaching Students to Unlock Word Meanings

• Vocabulary instruction plays an important role in balanced literacy classrooms because of the crucial role it plays in both reading and writing achievement.    Key vocab instruction should include…
  • Immerse students in words through listening, talking, reading and writing
  • Teach specific words through active involvement and multiple encounters with words
  • Teach word-learning strategies so students can figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words
  • Develop students’ word consciousness, their awareness of and interest in words
• Word Walls-teachers post word walls in the classroom which consist of interesting, confusing and important words representing all three tiers on the word wall
• Explicit Instruction-teachers explicitly teach students about academic vocabulary, usually Tier 2 words.  Provide multiple encounters with words, involve students in word-study activities so there are multiple opportunities to interact with words. Teachers also use minilessons to teach students about specific words
• Word-Study Activities-students examine new words and think more deeply about them as they participate in word-study activities.  Create visual representations or words, categorize words by using word posters, word maps, possible sentences (use a number of vocabulary words), dramatizing words, word sorts, word chains and semantic feature analysis (students learn the meanings of conceptually related words by examining their characteristics).
• Word-Learning Strategies-When students come across unfamiliar words while reading, they can do a variety of things-reread the sentence, analyze root words and affixes, check a dictionary, sound out the word, look for context clues, skip the word or ask the teacher or classmate. 
• Incidental Word Learning-students learn words incidentally all the time, because they learn so many words, so teachers know that they don’t have to teach the meaning of every unfamiliar word.  Students need time for independent reading, SSR-silent sustained reading, interactive read-aloud, reading to students and think-aloud.
• Assessing Students’ Vocabulary Knowledge
  • Step 1-Planning-teachers consider students’ current level of vocabulary knowledge, identify academic words they teach and plan minilessons and students can self-asses their familiarity with key vocabulary
  • Step 2-Monitoring-use informal assessment tools to monitor students’ progress from observations and conferences
  • Step 3-Evaluating-teachers often choose more authentic measures to evaluate student’s vocabulary knowledge because they provide more useful information than formal tests.  They use rubrics, quick writes, word sorts and visual representations.
  • Step 4: Reflecting-teachers take time at the end of the unit to reflect on their teaching, effectiveness of instruction and ask students to reflect on their growing word knowledge

Classroom Application: This chapter has helped me get a better understanding of how I can expand students’ academic vocabulary and to develop their word consciousness, meaning their interest in learning words.  In my future classroom I will use a three-tier system to categorize words and identify the most important words to teach, along with word-learning strategies and different types of instruction, like explicit instruction, word-study activities and reading.  To be an effective teacher, I must demonstrate my responsibility and commitment to ensuring that my students are successful when I teach academic vocabulary using all the guidelines listed above.   I should categorize unfamiliar words into basic words, academic vocabulary and specialized terms.  Then when I teach vocabulary concepts I need to teach students about multiple meanings, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, root words, affixes, etymologies and figurative language.  Lastly, in my future classroom when teaching academic vocabulary and word-learning strategies to students, I should do so in a variety of activities to keep students engaged.

Source: Tompkins, Gail E. (2017). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7^th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Overview

This chapter focuses on fluency; students’ ability to read and write accurately, quickly and with expression.  Primary grades develop their young students’ reading and writing fluency through instruction, guided practice and independent reading and writing. 

• Language Experience Approach-is a whole language approach that promotes reading and writing through the use of personal experiences and oral language. It can be used in tutorial or classroom settings. Beginning literacy learners relate their experiences to a teacher or aide, who transcribes them. These transcriptions are then used as the basis for other reading and writing activities.

Reading Fluency

• Is the ability to read quickly, accurately and with expression.  To read fluently, students must recognize most words automatically and be able to identify unfamiliar wards easily.  Reading fluency is a bridge between decoding and comprehension.  Fluent readers are better able to comprehend what they’re reading because they automatically recognize most of the words and apply word-identification strategies to read unfamiliar words.  Reading fluency involves these 3 components…
  • 1-Automatcity
  • 2-Speed                      (*see figure 6-1)
  • 3-Prosody (read sentences expressively with appropriate phrasing and intonation)

• Automatic Reading-through repeated reading and writing experiences, students develop automaticity, ability to identify words accurately and quickly when reading
  • High-frequency words-most common words that readers use again and again.  There are 24 common words that kindergartners learn to read (see picture below).  Teachers create word walls with high-frequency words and these words are tough to learn because they are difficult to decode or trying to sound out

• Teaching High-frequency words­-isn’t easy because many of them have little or no meaning when used in isolation, use a chant and clap procedure…
  • 1-See and hear the word-teacher points to new word and pronounces it as students look at it
  • 2-Say the word-students pronounce the word
  • 3-Spell the word-students spell the word aloud (clapping their hands as they say each letter)
  • 4-Spell the word again-repeat step 3
  • 5-Write the word-students write the word on a whiteboard or paper, making sure they spell it correctly
  • 6-Check the word-students hold up their whiteboard or paper and teacher can check the spelling
  • 7-Say the word again-students repeat step 2
• Word-Identification Strategies-students use four word-identification strategies to decode unfamiliar words: (see figure 6-3 below)
  • 1-Phonic Analysis-apply what they have learned about phoneme-grapheme correspondences and phonics rules to decode words
  • 2-Decoding by Analogy-use to identify words by associating them with words they already know
  • 3-Syllabic Analysis-divide longer words into syllables to identify them
  • 4-Morphemic Analysis-identify multisyllabic words by locating the root word by peeling off prefixes and suffixes

• Reading Speed-students develop an adequate reading speed or rate to have the cognitive resources available to focus on meaning.  There are factors that affect students’ reading speeds (background knowledge, knowledgeable about genre or text and speak English fluently).  Teachers should use a combination of teacher-guided and independent reading practice to increase reading volume by…
  • Choral Reading-work in small groups or together as a class, experiment with different ways to read poems and other short texts
  • Readers Theatre-practice reading a story script and then perform it
  • Listening Centers-read along in a book as their instructional reading level while listening to it being read aloud at listening center
  • Partner Reading-classmates read or reread books together
• Prosody-when students read expressively they use their voices to add meaning to their words.  Components include…Expression, Phrasing, Volume, Smoothness and Pacing
• Assessing Reading Fluency-teachers informally monitor students’ reading fluency by listening to them read aloud during guided reading lessons, reading workshops or other reading activities.  They check students…Automaticity, Speed and Prosody (as teachers listen, they judge whether students read with appropriate expression by using rubrics based on grade level) and (teachers use running records or informal reading inventories to document students’ reading fluency)

Writing Fluency

• Fluent writers spell words automatically and write quickly so that they can focus on developing their ideas.  Writing seems to flow effortlessly, it is distinctive, it sounds like it has ‘voice’.  Components are- Automaticity- Speed- Writer’s Voice (see figure 6-6)
  

• Automatic Writing-students need to be able to spell most high-frequency words and apply spelling strategies to write other words. To practice reading and writing them through these activities…students write the words and sentences they compose on whiteboards, use letter cards or magnetic letters to spell the words, write the words during interactive writing activities.
  • Writing Speed-students need their transcription of ideas onto paper must be automatics, by spelling most words, legible handwriting and know how to write/form letters.   Interactive Writingis a useful procedure for examining young children’s handwriting skills and demonstrating how to form letters legibly.  Use keyboarding skills for students to practice writing words and sentences on the computer.
  • Writer’s Voice-reflects the person doing the writing, it sounds natural, and students learn to vary their tone when writing to entertain, inform or persuade.  Have them keep personal journals or have them write in reading logs on topics they choose or on topics the teacher provides. 
• Assessing Writing Fluency-teachers assess writing fluency as they observe students writing and examine their compositions…consider these questions…
  • Do students spell most words automatically or do they stop to figure out how to spell many words?
  • Do students write quickly enough to complete the assignment or do they write slowly or try to avoid writing?
  • Is students’ writing legible?
  • Do students write easily or do they write laboriously, complaining that their hands hurt?

Dysfluent Students

• In some classrooms 10-15% of older students have difficulty recognizing words and more than half of the students read 2 or more years below grade level, have difficulty decoding words, reading at appropriate speed or reading expressively.  Many also continue to struggle to get their ideas down on paper, form letters legibly and spell common words correctly. 
• Older Dysfluent Readers-students in 4^th grade and beyond who aren’t fluent readers are dysfluent-they read hesitantly and without expression.  Figure 6-7 summarizes the characteristics of dysfluent readers…
• Older Dysfluent Writers- students in 4^th grade and beyond who aren’t fluent writers are dysfluent-can’t spell many high-frequency words, handwriting is hard to read and writing lacks voice or expressiveness.  Figure 6-7 summarizes the characteristics of dysfluent writers…

Obstacles to Fluency

• Students who struggle with fluency may have a single problem or they may face numerous obstacles in both reading and writing. Teachers need to intervene and help older student become more fluent readers so they can comprehend what they are reading and more fluent writers, so they can focus on creating meaning as they write. 
  • Obstacle 1-Lack of Automaticity-use explicit instruction to teach students to read and write high-frequency words
  • Obstacle 2-Unfamiliarity with Ward-Identification Strategies-include these components in their intervention programs to develop students’ ability to read and spell words
  • Obstacle 3- Slow Reading Speed-most important way teachers intervene is by providing daily practice opportunities to develop students’ reading speed and stamina
  • Obstacle 4-Slow Writing Speed-best way to improve students writing speed is through lots of writing, use quick-writing, reading logs, simulated journals and learning logs
  • Obstacle 5-Lack of Prosody-emphasize prosody by modeling expressive reading every time they read aloud and using the think-aloud procedure to reflect of how they varied their expression, chunked words into phrases, etc.
  • Obstacle 6-Voiceless Writing-doing lots of reading and writing helps dysfluent writers develop their voices

Classroom Application: This chapter has taught me the importance of fluency in the classroom when it comes to reading and writing.  Fluency is the how students are able to read and write accurately, quickly and with expression.  There are many ways that teachers can develop their students reading and writing fluency from specific instruction, guided practice and independent reading and writing.  It is my job, the teacher, to also monitor students’ fluency and see if they are developing like the are supposed to or if they needed extra guidance in reading, writing or both.  Students reading fluency should meet these standards, students know and apply grade-level phonics and word-analysis skills to decode words, read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension and use word-identification strategies to decode unfamiliar words. When it comes to reading fluency, there are three important components to look for, automaticity, speed and prosody.  For writing fluency, there are also three important components I must look for, automaticity, speed and voice.  When this is done, I am able to determine if students are developing in these areas or if they are struggling students’ when it comes to fluency of reading and/or writing. 

Source: Tompkins, Gail E. (2017). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7^th ed.). Boston: Pearson.