MODULE 6

Assessing preschoolers’ emergent literacy skills in English and Spanish with the Get Ready to Read! Screening Tool

By JoAnn M. Farver, Jonathan, Nakamoto and Christopher J. Lonigan

 

Closing the Gap Early: Implementing a Literacy Intervention for At-Risk Kindergartners in Urban Schools

By Colleen MacDonald, Lauren Figueredo

 

Theme One: The Importance of Early Literacy Skills

Both articles focused on the importance of exposing children to different forms of activities that will enhance their literacy skills; that will benefits students throughout their early years. According to (Figueredo & MacDonald 2010), students who have early difficulties in oral language are at risk for later reading problems.  In the article, “Closing the Gap Early: Implementing a Literacy Intervention for At-Risk Kindergartners in Urban Schools” it was mentioned that kindergarten years are a critical period of growth for students’ emergent-literacy, and oral language. Both articles emphasize the importance of having children emerge in lessons that will enhance children’s literacy skills. Having children expose to literacy activities at an early age is correlated to their level of literacy during their elementary school years.

Theme Two: Early Intervention

Interventions placed during the course of the kindergarten school year give students an additional source of support at a critical time in their development; more importantly, research showed that a tutoring program is a key component of successful oral-language interventions (Figueredo & MacDonald 2010). There is strong evidence to suggest that the problems children experience in learning to read during the elementary school years and beyond are related to the emergent literacy skills they bring with them from the preschool and kindergarten period (Lonigan & Nakamoto 2007). Also, the article mentioned the success of early intervention support the importance of early literacy skills for helping struggling readers and preventing reading disabilities.

Research Poster: Literacy & Play

Orlando's Case

Graphic Organizer

Graphic organizers are a great way to have a child put his ideas or information into an organized manner and see it all at once.  A graphic organizer can be used in many different forms; such as, to sequence a story, stating story elements (characters, setting, and plot) and, comparing and contrasting characters or settings. Graphic organizers are a great way for students to use as cues to recall different components of a story. A graphic organizer can also be used during tests for students with an I.E.P. or a student who is struggling. Graphic organizers can be used independently or together with a group. Teachers need to model how to fill out a graphic organizer and model how to use it. Once a child has been using a graphic organizer independently and able to identify story elements in their reading comprehension, gradually fade them out of using the graphic organizer.  The following are some examples of graphic organizers that can be use with students when they read a story.

 

 

Repeated Reading

Rereading a story is a great way for students to recall different events in a story. Students can reread a story in order to recall or answer questions they might have forgotten about the story.  Also, a great way to enhance a child’s reading fluency is by rereading a sentence with a word the child does not understand. It teaches students to find cues within the sentence or paragraph in order to figure out the meaning of a word. Also, rereading a story helps the students understand the story more in depth and grasp things they might have missed the first time. Repeated reading can be done as a whole class activity or in partners. If done in partners is important to choose the reading level lower between the two students. The higher level reader can go first and model reading for the lower level reader. Also, is important to have word walls in order for the students to connect the words they read and use it in their writing.

 

 

Comprehension

Comprehension is an important aspect in reading; students need to understand what they are reading in order to put text into meaning. Prediction is a great way to begin a read aloud, teachers sometime do a picture walk or focus on the title and the title page in order to spark interest and get the students thinking and guessing. Also, summarizing is a good comprehension skill that helps students identify the main idea of a story. Also, with summarizing comes retelling, which is a great skill and helps students retain information.  If a student has great comprehension skills, that student will be good at asking and answering questions.

 

Orlando’s Case

A graphic organizer as well as repeated reading will help Orlando achieve the goal of being able to read a passage and retell the main events as well as retell the main components of a story. The graphic organizer will help Orlando use as a cue to recall and retain information pertaining to the stories he reads. Also, using comprehension strategies; such as, predicting and summarizing will enhance Orlando’s ability to identify the main idea and events of stories. A great example of a graphic organizer that can be used to help Orlando with his reading comprehension is as follow:

These organizers may be used to summarize the main events in the story “The Three Little Pigs”.

 If you want to isolate a certain character and know a bit more about a specific character this graphic organizer would be suitable.

Summarizing, or putting in a story in sequential order, this graphic organizer would be great.

 

 If you want to compare and contrast events, characters, or anything else this organizer will help Orlando.