Plenary from the Special Education Principal's Association of New Zealand (SEPANZ) conference 2011. This presentation will outline the rationale and principles underlying the balanced literacy approach. This approach ensures that schools provide children with daily opportunities to engage in four key areas of literacy learning: guided reading for vocabulary and language comprehension skills, word instruction for phonics and sight word skills, self-directed reading for learning to choose books and read for pleasure, and writing instruction for targeting written language skills. All of these are critical for children with disabilities to develop conventional reading and writing skills. Specific strategies and adaptations will be outlined. Multi-level activities, which can be implemented with all students in a classroom, will be highlighted, as will ideas for older students who are beginning readers. The authors will discuss their recent experiences with school-wide model literacy programs. All students, regardless of their abilities, have the right to an opportunity to learn to read and write. This presentation will demonstrate how you and your school can make that happen.

1. It Is Possible!
Positive Communication and
Literacy Outcomes for ALL
Children

2. Sally Clendon, PhD
Senior Lecturer
Speech and Language Therapy Programme
Massey University
Jane Farrall, MSpEd, MSPAA
Speech Language Therapist
Spectronics

3. A Traditional/Readiness
View of Literacy
• Literacy is learned in a predetermined
sequential manner that is linear, additive, and
unitary.
• Literacy learning is school-based.
• Literacy learning requires mastery of certain
prerequisite skills.
• Some children will never learn to read.

4. ing Wr
Read iting
Readiness
Skills
Speaking
Listening
Traditional Model of Literacy Learning (Erickson, 1999)

5. A Current/Emergent
View of Literacy
• Literacy is constructive, interactive, recursive,
and emergent.
• Literacy is a process that begins at birth and
perhaps before.
• Emergent literacy is “…the reading and
writing behaviors that precede and develop
into conventional literacy”.
• Emergent literacy is appropriate for all
children.

6. Augmentative
Communication/
Speaking
Reading Writing
Listening
Oral and Written Language Development
( Koppenhaver, Coleman, Kalman & Yoder, 1991. Adapted from Teale & Sulzby, 1989)

7. Emergent Literacy
• Emergent literacy behaviours are fleeting and
variable depending on text, task, and
environment.
• The functions of print are as integral to
literacy as the forms.

8. Means of Communication
and Interaction
Communication at any level,
intentional or not, must be
encouraged.

9. Silent Reading Comprehension
Word Language
Identification Comprehension
Print Processing
Beyond Word Identification
(Slide from Erickson and Koppenhaver, 2010)

10. The Four Blocks
• Guided Reading
• Self Selected Reading
• Writing
• Working with Words
• Created by Patricia Cunningham and Dorothy Hall
• http://www.four-blocks.com/

11. Guided Reading

12. Guided Reading
• Primary purposes are to assist students to:
– Understand that reading involves thinking and
meaning-making.
– Become more strategic in their own reading.
• Must use a wide variety of books and other print
materials.
• Listening comprehension is not a replacement
for the reading done in this block.

13. Purposes for Reading
• Developing readers have not learned to set
their own purposes for reading.
• If a purpose is not set, the implied purposes
are “read this to remember everything and
read this to guess what I am going to ask
you”
• Purposes should be broad enough to
motivate processing of entire text.

14. Guided Reading
• A book for guided reading is usually read and re-
read through the week.
• Different purposes for reading it are set each
day.
• Students can participate in the reading and in
setting these purposes as they become more
skilled.
• Build confidence.
• Help students become independent.

15. Three Part Guided Reading
• Before – background knowledge, personal
connection making and purpose setting.
• During – reading / listening for bulk of
allocated time.
• After – follow-up and feedback related to pre-
reading discussion. Also, related writing,
drama, singing, etc. Connecting new to
known.

17. Three Part Guided Reading
• Before – background knowledge, personal
connection making and purpose setting.
• During – reading / listening for bulk of
allocated time.
• After – follow-up and feedback related to pre-
reading discussion. Also, related writing,
drama, singing, etc. Connecting new to
known.

18. Guided Reading Books
• Those you already have
• Information from the www
• Created books on topics of interest in
PowerPoint, Clicker 5, Boardmaker Plus,
Boardmaker Studio
• Tar Heel Reader
• Start-to-Finish Books

19. Mr Potato Head's Big Adventure!
by Hgiunta

20. This is Mr Potato Head.

21. He used to have a girlfriend. Until he got
dumped.

22. He was so upset, he didn't know what to do.

23. He tried online dating, but that was
unsuccessful.

24. Then he decided to let off some steam by
going dancing.

25. He had too much fun and lost his nose, ears
and moustache!

26. He went shopping and all he could find was a
Transformers costume.

27. But a talent scout found him and decided to
put him in the new Transformers movie!

28. He starred in the movie, went to the premiere
and met lots of fabulous people!

29. He had become a movie-star and never
thought about his old girlfriend again!

31. Repetition with Variety
To learn a skill and generalise it across contexts,
instruction must provide repetition of the skill in a
variety of ways

32. Self-selected reading

33. Self-selected reading
• Primary purposes are to assist students to:
– Understand why they might want to learn.
– Become automatic in skill application.
– Choose to read after they learn how.
• It isn’t self-directed if you don’t choose it
yourself.
• You can’t get good at it if it is too difficult.

34. Self-selected reading for students with
disabilities
• Need to make books accessible to ALL
students
• Many children with disabilities have fewer
opportunities to practice than their peers and
when they do are often passive participants
(Koppenhaver and Yoder, 1992).

35. Creating custom books
• Books with familiar photos can be more
meaningful and motivating for many children
• You can make older content with simple text
• Students can get involved in book creation

36. Tar Heel Reader
• http://tarheelreader.org/
• Lots of simple books on a wide variety of
topics suitable for older students (and
students of all ages)

37. Created bookshelf in iBooks

38. Writing

39. Writing
• Students who write become better readers,
writers and thinkers.
• Writing without standards.
• Learn in classroom writing communities:
– Write for real reasons
– See others do so
– Interact with peers and teachers about written
content, use and form.

40. Writing and Reading
• Without a pencil writing doesn’t improve
• Without writing, reading development will be
limited
• If a student doesn’t have a pencil, you need
to find one!

41. Writing With Alternative Pencils CD
•
•
•
•

42. Developmental Spelling Stages
• Print has meaning (emergent writing) – scribble,
numbers, letter-like strings, letters
• Visual Cue – read/spell in environmental
context, tuned to distinctive visual features
• Phonetic Cue – sound it out, “glue to print” (initial
sound, initial + final, initial, medial + final)
• Transitional – rule based e.g. putting past tense
on every verb
• Conventional

43. Personal Connection
The power of starting from the things children
love the most!

44. Working with words

45. Working with Words
• Primary purpose is to help students become strategic
in reading words.
• Make words instruction:
– Words based
– Experience based
– Age-appropriate
• Should result in students who read and write
– More
– More successfully and independently
– With greater enjoyment

46. Successful early reading instruction
• Decoding (phonics) and sight word instruction
• Frequent opportunities to read and re-read
easy, interesting and motivating books.
• Frequent opportunities to write for personally
meaningful reasons using invented spelling
and no standards
• Frequent experiences reading a book with an
adult for enjoyment and understanding.

47. Word Wall
• Used to teach words that you don’t want
students to have to work to decode or spell
• Learning not exposure – about learning 5
words not being exposed to 20
• Need/want/use vs. curriculum driven direct-
instruction

49. Word Wall Content Basics
• High frequency words
• Generative patterns e.g. at, can
• High utility e.g. name, TV favourites
• Spelling demons I.e. words which are often
misspelt

50. Word Wall Use Basics
• 5 words a week
– Issue is deep, thorough knowledge
• Cumulative list
– On the wall until every kid consistently spells
word correctly without looking
• Introduce homophones in separate weeks,
not all at once
• Daily 10-minute activities

51. Daily Activities
• Mind Reader
– It’s on your word wall
– It’s a one beat word
– It begins with w
– It’s an action word
– It rhymes with bent

52. Making Words
• Cunningham and Cunningham (1992)
• Scaffolded program to encourage people to
become confident about making individual
words.
• Teaches students to look for spelling patterns
in words and recognise the differences that
result when a single letter is changed.

53. QRI3 Results

54. Willans Hill Four Blocks