Competency 004

Literacy Development

The teacher understands that literacy develops over time, progressing from emergent to proficient stages and uses a variety of approaches to support the development of students’ literacy.

The Beginning Teacher:

• A. Understands and promotes students’ development of literary response and analysis, including teaching students the elements of literary analysis (e.g., story elements, features of different literary genres) and providing students with opportunities to apply comprehension skills to literature.
  • What does this mean?
    • Exposing children to literature by reading to them is the start of their literacy development. Continuing my showing them the parts of a book, what’s inside the book, and that books have messages nourishes literacy development and encourages students to read for many different means. 
  • How do you apply this?
    • Show students that books have words, pictures, and other elements within them. Show them the front of the book and explain what the title is, what the author does, and what the illustrator does. Encourage them to ask questions about what they see and what they hear when the teacher reads. Questions such as “Why do you think-” or “What do you think will happen?” helps students think about what they see and hear in the story. 
• B. Understands that the developing reader has a growing awareness of print in the environment, the sounds in spoken words and the uses of print, in accordance with the STR.
  • What does this mean?
    • Students should be able to recognize that words are everywhere in their world; on street signs, above store entrances, and a myriad of other locations including in the home.
  • How do you apply this?
    • Often the first print that students will be exposed to are street signs, their favorite foods, and their favorite places. As an at home activity that can also have parents help, have students talk about the letters they see on food labels that they encounter while at the store, riding in the car, or that they see around the house. Encourage students to talk about what they found. 
• C. Selects and uses instructional strategies, materials and activities to assist students in distinguishing letter forms from number forms and text from pictures.
  • What does this mean?
    • Students are taught that letters and numbers can be written, however the fact that each letter and number is virtually a symbol may lead to confusion over which is which. The skill to distinguish between each is important, just as it is to distinguish text from pictures. Yes, both can convey a message, but text is written and can be read whereas pictures are meant to show.  
  • How do you apply this?
    • As a way to help students distinguish number forms from letter forms, have a card sort that has letters in one color and numbers in a different color. Just as well to help students distinguish text from pictures, have them describe each one. “Do the words have one color or alot? What do you see in the picture? Do you see the same things in the words that you see in the picture?”
• D. Understands the importance of students being able to differentiate words and spaces, first and last letters, left-right progression, and identification of basic punctuation, in accordance with the STR.
  • What does this mean?
    • Concepts of print is very important as it teaches how print works in books. Also as teachers read aloud from a book, they can show as they follow along by tracking their finger under the words as they read; showing the left-right progression as they go and reading in course with the corresponding punctuation marks.
  • How do you apply this?
    • One example is the aforementioned read aloud; showing students as you read where to start and where to end and asking questions about the punctuation. “I see a period at the end of the sentence. What does that mean I must do? There’s an exclamation point ending this sentence. What does that mean?”
• E. Understands that literacy development occurs in multiple contexts through reading, writing and the use of oral language.
  • What does this mean?
    • As stated in a previous sub competency, reading, writing, and speaking are all interconnected when it comes to a student’s development; writing what you’ve spoken and reading what you have written as well as speaking as you’ve read what has been written. All of this feeds into literacy development.
  • How do you apply this?
    • Encourage students to read aloud quietly if possible to help with reading and oral language development. Have students talk about something and have them write it down then share with a partner.
• F. Selects and uses instructional strategies, materials and activities that focus on functions of print and concepts about print, including concepts involving book handling, parts of a book, orientation, directionality and the relationships between written and spoken words, in accordance with the STR.
  • What does this mean?
    • Again referencing concepts of print, there are many elements that can be checked with Marie Clay’s concepts of print assessment. This assessment tests if the student can recognize the front and back of the book, where the title is, where one should start reading, and many other skills while the teacher reads the book aloud.
  • How do you apply this?
    • There are a few books specially made for assessing where the student is in this development. “Sand”, “Stones”, and “Follow Me Moon” by Marie Clay are some such examples.
• G. Demonstrates familiarity with literature and provides multiple opportunities for students to listen to, respond to and independently read literature in various genres and to interact with others about literature.
  • What does this mean?
    • The teacher should have a vast amount of literature of different genres for students to be able to access and listen to. This allows for students to be exposed to the many different styles of literature.
  • How do you apply this?
    • Reader’s circle allows for students to reflect with each other over literature and talk about what they liked or didn’t like about the literature or even how they feel about it. Students listening to the teacher read aloud allows for self reflection and internalized thinking.
• H. Selects and uses appropriate instructional strategies to inform students about authors, authors’ purposes for writing and author’s point of view in a variety of texts.
  • What does this mean?
    • Teachers should have a wide range of sample texts available to share with students and be able to demonstrate and explain what authors are, what they do, why they do it, and what literary point of view is.
  • How do you apply this?
    • Having a classroom library full of a range of books provided by the teacher is a start, however showing students that the school library is an excellent resource for books as well. Integrate a range of text within different lesson plans; this works for any subject. Talk about the author and their purpose before and during the text. Ask students what the point of view is and what clues helped them make that decision. 
• I. Selects and uses appropriate technology to teach students strategies for selecting books for independent reading.
  • What does this mean?
    • Teachers use running record assessments to determine a student’s independent, instructional, and frustrational reading level. Upon finding the independent level, the teacher then shows the student how to choose books for personal independent reading.
  • How do you apply this?
    • The Five Finger Rule is an excellent way for students to help themselves determine if a book is appropriate for their independent reading level.
• J. Understands how to foster collaboration with families and with other professionals to promote all students’ literacy. 
  • What does this mean?
    • Working with other professionals to brainstorm ideas that can creatively benefit students helps teachers bounce ideas off of each other and help see what can be improved about the idea. Thus lesson plans to help literacy development can change and improve. Collaborating with families brings the learning home to nourish literacy development outside the classroom.
  • How do you apply this?
    • Having parents read appropriate books aloud to their children at home and having members of families and the community come in to the classroom to read to the students is encouraging and helps students’ literacy development.

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Questions:

1. What sorts of books make for beneficial read alouds?
2. How often should books be sent home for at home reading?
3. What are some signs of delays in a student understanding the concepts of print?
4. At what age should a child know how to properly handle books?
5. How would one assess literacy development?
6. How often should running records be conducted?
7. At what age would it be acceptable to start teaching about punctuation?
8. How would one introduce author’s purpose to students?
9. At what age would one begin to teach about literary analysis?
10. How would one contact community members to come in and read to students?