Early Literacy

     Early Literacy has become one of my favorite things about Kindergarten. Students are assessed in the beginning of the year, and again at the middle and end of the year.  The results of the Early Literacy Screening help the teacher to determine the needs, and the placement, of each individual child into an EL group.

     Students are placed into four flexible groups.  The initial placement is usually  based on the results of the Letter Identification portion of the Early Literacy Screening.  Adjustments can be made after the teacher becomes more familiar with each child and his/her reading abilities/needs.

     The groups are led by the classroom teacher, a reading teacher, and two instructional assistants.  The group leaders rotate groups every 3-4 weeks.  This helps to guarantee that the teacher works with and gets to know each child in the small group setting, as well as exposes the children to a variety of teaching styles.  The goal is to have no more than six students in each group. 

     The Early Literacy program involves a 4-day plan with specific lessons for each day.  This plan is modified to fit the children's needs as the year progresses.  Students practice reading the same book each day of the week.  Then, on Thursday, they are assessed for fluency on that book.  This running record gives the teacher one-on-one time with each child to assess and provide feedback.  

Day 1:  In the beginning, the plan focuses mainly on letter ID and CAP skills.  Students are given copied books that they can color and write on.  At the start of every lesson, we reread our familiar book (last week's book) to further build fluency.  
     The group leader then introduces the students to the new book.  The students take a picture walk and discuss what they see and how these pictures relate to what they will read.  They look for and circle or highlight the target letter.  They may circle each word and count how many words on the page. 
     Finally the teacher reads the book to model as the students follow along with their "reading finger."  The students then choral read the book together.  The "reading finger" is very important at this stage to help ensure that the students are looking at the words that they are reading.  Students are also encouraged to look at the pictures for clues.  Early in the year students do memorize the easy text, but they are learning the strategy of using the picture for a clue to figure out unfamiliar words.

               

   

     As students' reading skills develop, the focus moves more from letter ID, into word recognition and comprehension.  As students learn most of their letters and sounds, they move into "real books," which are leveled based on difficulty and predictability of the text. 
   As skills increase, so do confidence levels.  Often they tend to want to skip the picture walk, and jump right into debugging the book.  However, the picture walk should still be encouraged to help build anticipation and allow the students to make predictions about what they think will happen, so that they are making sense of what they . 
    After making predictions, students will read the book twice -- either two choral readings, or one choral read and one individual/partner read.  We usually play "Popcorn" where each child reads a page and then chooses someone else to read the next page.

Day 2.  After rereading the familiar book and choral/individual reading of the new book, the focus for the second day is Word Work.*
*Word Work can be done any day that there is time! 
    The teacher selects a target word from the book.  This is usually a sight word, but can also be a word that lends itself to the generation of new words.  All, or some, of the following activities (depending on time) are included during this lesson:

  • "Make and Break" - Students are given magnetic letters and dry erase boards to "Make and Break" the target word. 

  • "Taking Words to Fluency" - Students write the target word three times on their dry erase boards.  Then we race against the clock to see how many times we can write the word in one minute.  At the end of the minute, we count to see how many we wrote, erase, and race again to beat our previous score. 

  • "Generating" (onset & rime) - using magnetic letters or dry erase boards, students learn to change the beginning sound to make new words (ex. went, sent, tent, etc.)

  • Making new words - with the letters in the target word (ex. came --> am, cat, at, cart = helps students to see the different vowel sounds)

  • Systematic Sequential Phonics - The kids LOVE this!  This is a book by Patricia Cunningham.  Once the students are competent with letter sounds, I introduce this.  Each lesson uses about five letters.  Students follow the directions given in the lessons and use their letters to make words.  It is very fast-paced, and the first child who makes the word correctly gets to turn his board around for the others to see and correct their own.  They love to race to be the first one.  It really forces them to apply what they know about letter sounds and "chunks."  At the end of the lesson is a "secret word."   The students have to use all of their letters to try and make (and read!) the "secret word." 

After working with words, students dictate a sentence that they will cut up and write in their journals on Day 3.  This is usually a sentence from the book, and the target word is used in the sentence.  The teacher writes this sentence on a sentence strip for the next day.

(For those students who need further work with letters/sounds/CAP skills, we do letter activities, such as finding and circling/highlighting letters in a poem.)

Day 3.  Familiar reread and individual/partner read new book.

The focus for this day is journal writing.  Our journals are bound just for use during Early Literacy -- with blank pages - no lines.  The teacher gives the student his/her sentence strip (from the previous day) and cuts it up in front of them.  We start out just cutting between the words (straight cuts, so that students aren't just piecing them back together -- they have to READ!).  As the year progresses, we start cutting up the target words, or cutting off endings (-ed, -ing).  The students put these back together, leaving two fingerspaces in between words, just as they would if they were writing it.  After reading it to the teacher, they put these in an envelope with the sentence written on the outside.  These will be taken home for them save and to use again another day at home.

    We write on two pages of the journal.  One is our "practice page;" the other is the "perfect page."  Students practice writing their sentence on the "practice page" using their best "Kidwriting."  The teacher gives feedback about spacing, letter formation, spelling, etc.  Then the student rewrites the sentence on the "perfect page" using what was discussed on the "practice page."

Day 4.  Reread familiar book.  "Running Record Day"

     Students are given an independent activity to work on quietly while the teacher conducts running records with each child in the group.  The children love this day because this is their day to "shine."  As the child reads, the teacher records on the running record form what the child is reading, using checkmarks when words are read correctly, or writing what they child says when an error is made.  At the end of the running record, the teacher and student discuss.  The teacher should always point out at least one positive thing observed, and then give the student something  to work on in the future. 

     If the student reads with at least 85% accuracy, he/she takes the book home to read and brings it back on Friday.  If the student makes too many errors, he/she is allowed to take home the book from the previous week, as this week's book was too difficult.  If the child continues to read below 85%, or well below others in his group, then he may need to move back to another group.  Likewise, if one child is reading with 100% accuracy while others in the group are struggling, it may be time to move that child up, and/or choose a lower leveled book for that group.

On Fridays, the Early Literacy team meets during the classroom teacher's planning time to review the week, to discuss student progress, and make recommendations.  During our scheduled EL time, we do some type of cooking/art/motor activity that relates to what we have learned this week.

It's all about meeting the individual needs of every child! 

         

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Toni Thomas July 1, 2004