Early Literacy Fundamentals

• These notes cover early literacy, effective instruction, assessments, phonological awareness, reading relationships, phases of word reading, legislation, standards, and language development

The 5 Pillars of Early Literacy

• Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words, focusing on phonemes.
• Phonemic awareness is critical for learning to read, helping children understand that words are made of sounds and predicting future reading success.
• Phonics involves the relationship between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) in written language.
• Phonics teaches children to read by correlating sounds with letters, essential for word recognition and spelling.
• Fluency is the ability to read accurately, quickly, and with appropriate expression (prosody).
• Fluency is important because fluent readers can focus on comprehension rather than decoding words.
• Vocabulary involves knowledge of word meanings, including understanding and using a range of words effectively, enhancing comprehension and communication.
• Vocabulary development is crucial for spoken and written language.
• Comprehension is the ability to understand and gain meaning from reading, demonstrated through interaction with the text and answering questions.
• Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, supported by phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and vocabulary.
• Motivation refers to a student's internal drive to engage with texts.
• Motivated students are more likely to read independently, leading to improved literacy outcomes.
• Together, these pillars create a comprehensive literacy program that supports students' reading and writing development.

Relationships Between Literacy Elements

• Fluent readers can focus on understanding text instead of decoding individual words.
• Low fluency leads to excessive cognitive energy spent on decoding, negatively impacting comprehension.
• Fluency serves as a bridge to comprehension.
• Phonics teaches children to decode words by sounding them out.
• Vocabulary grows as children decode more words, supporting comprehension and improving language use.
• Phonics helps children decode unfamiliar words, while vocabulary helps them understand the meaning of those words.

Features of Effective Literacy Instruction

• Explicit instruction involves clear, direct teaching with step-by-step explanations, often referred to as "I do," where the teacher models.
• Explicit instruction requires teachers model desired skills and frequently check for student comprehension using clear language, visual aids, and concrete objects.
• Explicit instruction ensures students understand the process and can replicate it.
• Systematic instruction involves teaching skills logically with temporary support until students can work independently, often referred to as "We do," where teacher and students work together.
• Systematic instruction includes gradual removal of support as students gain competence, building confidence and independence.
• Frequent opportunities for practice involve students practicing new skills in varied contexts to reinforce learning, referred to as "You do," where students practice skills independently.
• Regular practice solidifies knowledge and skills, moving them into long-term memory.
• Immediate corrective and affirmative feedback involves prompt and specific guidance to improve.
• Immediate corrective and affirmative feedback helps students correct mistakes before they become ingrained and reinforces successful strategies.
• Ongoing progress monitoring involves continuous assessment of students' learning.
• Teachers adjust instruction based on data collected through informal observations or formal tools, such as oral reading fluency assessments.
• Ongoing progress monitoring ensures students are making progress, allowing for timely interventions if needed.

Formal and Informal Assessments

• Informal assessments are classroom-based evaluations through observations, interviews, quizzes, questions, and discussions.
• Informal assessments help determine whether students understand instruction and how to modify or reteach concepts.
• An example of this is asking students to show thumbs up/down to assess comprehension.
• Formal assessments are structured, standardized tests that compare student performance, given in a standard way with the same directions, time, and conditions.
• Formal assessment scores can be compared from one student to the next such as standardized reading tests like DIBELS or state reading exams.

Types of Formal Assessments

• Universal screening assessments identify students at risk for reading difficulties and determine who needs closer monitoring.
• Progress monitoring tracks progress over time to adjust instruction, closely monitoring student learning to catch struggling students and change instruction.
• Diagnostic assessments pinpoint specific reading skills students struggle with.
• Outcome evaluations measure learning over an extended period, providing outcome data for groups such as classes, schools, districts, or the nation.

Phonological Awareness vs. Phonemic Awareness

• Phonological awareness is a broad skill involving recognizing work with words, syllables, and sounds.
• An eample is clapping syllables in "cowboy" (cow-boy).
• Phonemic awareness is a specific ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in words.
• An example is seThe word "cat" is segmented into /k/ /a/ /t/.
• Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness, focusing on smaller sound units (phonemes), and both are essential for decoding and reading development.

Phonics, Decoding, and Word Reading

• Phonics is an instructional method teaching letter-sound relationships.
• Decoding is the application of phonics knowledge to read words by sounding them out, translating written text into spoken language by recognizing letters and their sounds.
• Word reading is a broader skill of recognizing words through decoding or sight word recognition.
• Phonics builds decoding skills, necessary for fluent word reading, and strong decoding skills lead to better reading fluency, which supports comprehension.

Relationship Between Decoding/Word Reading and Comprehension

• Decoding enables students to sound out and recognize words.
• Fluent word reading allows students to focus on meaning rather than decoding.
• Strong decoding and fluent word reading free up cognitive resources for understanding text, allowing readers to focus on meaning rather than struggling with pronunciation.
• Better decoding equals better word reading.

Phases of Word Reading

• Pre-alphabetic Phase (Pre-K-K): Recognizing words by sight, with no letter-sound knowledge.
• Partial-alphabetic Phase (K-1): Understanding some letter-sound relationships. Students know some letter names and they start to become aware of individual sounds in words.
• Full-alphabetic Phase (K-2): Using complete phoneme-grapheme knowledge to decode words, applying the alphabetic principle.
• Consolidated-alphabetic Phase (1-2): Recognizing chunks (e.g., syllables, patterns) for faster word reading, increasing vocabulary by seeing more complex academic words.
• (Graphomorphemic Phase) Automatic Phase (1-3): Fluent, automatic word recognition.

Developmental Milestones of Phonics Skill Development

• Learning basic sound-letter relationships.
• Combining sounds to form words.
• Identifying digraphs (e.g., "sh") and blends (e.g., "bl").
• Breaking down longer words.
• Instantly recognizing high-frequency words.

Federal Legislation Focused on Literacy

• Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (1965): Established federal funding for schools to support reading and literacy programs, especially for disadvantaged students.
• ESEA established Title I funding, supporting reading and literacy programs in underprivileged schools and helping millions of students access better literacy instruction.
• Reading Excellence Act (1998): Promoted scientific research in reading instruction and provided grants to states to improve reading skills and instruction of teachers, based on scientifically based reading research.
• No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2002): Improved accountability by requiring annual assessments in literacy and math, aiming for all students to read on grade level by the end of third grade by 2014.
• Schools faced penalties if students did not make adequate yearly progress under NCLB.
• Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA): Replaced NCLB, giving states more flexibility while holding schools accountable and focusing on early intervention to ensure all students receive support.

Two Types of Standards and Depth of Knowledge (DOK)

• Content standards define what students should know and be able to do, describing the content students will learn by the end of a school year or grade level.
• Performance standards define how well students need to perform, describing how deeply they will engage with the content and apply their knowledge.

DOK Levels

• Level 1: Recall facts (e.g., identifying main ideas), requiring basic recall of facts, definitions, or procedures such as tasks idenfifying letters and defining vocabulary words.
• Level 2: Basic skills and concepts (e.g., explaining story differences), applying knowledge and using reasoning beyond memorization, involving summarization, comparing, and relating.
• Level 3: Planning and strategic thinking (e.g., analyzing characters), requiring reasoning, planning, and using evidence to justify responses, analyzing, drawing conclusions, and solving multi-step problems.
• Level 4: Extended thinking with multiple resources (e.g., research projects), synthesizing information, conducting investigations, and applying concepts over time, involving research projects, designing experiments, and connecting multiple ideas.

Early Learning Language and Literacy Standards

• Early learning language standards develop speaking, listening, and communication skills in young children through meaningful interactions.
• Conversations, storytelling, and play are used to build language skills.
• After 1 year of preschool, entering kindergarten the following year, children expected to:
  • Listen and follow two-step oral directions
  • Use language to communicate needs and express thoughts and feelings
  • Ask questions for clarification and to seek help
  • Engage in conversations and provide information
  • Demonstrate understanding of words used in the classroom for instruction
  • Use words to describe people, places, things, or actions
  • Perceive differences in similar-sounding words
  • Speak in complete sentences using four or more words and correct grammar
  • Use sentences with more than one phrase and idea
  • Combine sentences that include details about a topic and clearly communicate the intended meaning
• Early learning literacy standards develop basic literacy skills like phonemic awareness and letter recognition through activities that promote early reading and writing development.
• Common outcomes include: Engaging in pre-reading activities and asking and responding to questions about text read aloud

Other Skills

• Retell a familiar story
• Use information to describe, categorize, compare, and contrast
• Make inferences and predictions
• Develop alphabetic knowledge
• Develop phonological awareness
• Identify print concepts
• Separate four-word sentences into individual words
• Blend and segment syllables in familiar words
• Identify and produce beginning sounds in familiar words
• Name some or most lowercase and uppercase alphabet letters
• Recognize sound-symbol correspondences
• Intentionally use marks, letter-like symbols, or letters to share ideas and convey meaning
• Share ideas and/or tell stories associated with marks on paper

Book Concept and Print Concept

• Book concept is understanding how books work such as turning pages and recognizing the front/back.
  • This can be taught by pointing out the front cover and explaining the author's role during read-alouds.
• Print concept is understanding that printed words carry meaning and are read left to right.
  • This can be taught by pointing to words as you read and showing how text flows on a page.

Strategies to Facilitate Early Language Development

• Modeling: Use rich language to introduce new vocabulary.
  • If a child says, "The dog is fast," model by saying, "Yes, the dog is running quickly."
• Interactive Conversations: Ask open-ended questions to promote back-and-forth dialogue.
  • After reading a book, ask, "Why do you think the character felt that way?"
• Scaffolding: Provide support when introducing new words, gradually removing help as children become more confident.
• Prompt: Encourage a response by giving a cue or question (questions, completion prompts, and comments).
• What happened in the story?”
• Utterance: A child's spoken word or sentence.
• Elaboration: Add details to a child's utterance to expand their language.
  • Child says, “Dog run," adult responds, “Yes, the dog is running fast in the yard."
• Expansion: Expand a child's simple sentence by adding information.
  • Child says, “I eat,” adult says, “You ate an apple for snack.”
• Model: Demonstrate correct language use for imitation.
  • Child says, “I goed," adult says, “You went to the store."
• Narrative: Tell a story or event to help children understand sequencing.
  • Narrate what a child is doing to model the words that help a child acquire the language to talk about what he or she is doing, hearing, or seeing.
  • “First, we went to the park. Then, we played on the swings.”

Critical Components of Interactive Reading Aloud

• Engagement: Encourage participation by asking questions and making comments.
• Modeling Fluent Reading: Read with expression to show what fluent reading sounds like.
• Discussion: Engage children in post-reading discussions to deepen comprehension.