I thought I would do a bit of a series of posts (as I get time of course) about the aspects of Science of Literacy and how they are enacted in my classroom.
I still see far too much of an emphasis on the Science of Reading being just phonics, there seems to still be very little understanding of what is actually encompassed in this term and the research behind this. We are all so fearful of using the word 'balanced' we steer clear of this term, just in case people think we are talking balanced literacy.
If you look at the very well known pillars of literacy above, you'll see there is far more to all of this than just phonics. However if you listen to researchers discuss the above visual, you will hear them say that the pillars above are misleading, seeming to apply that the same weight be applied to each. This was not the intention of the diagram, and it is important to understand, for children to become readers and writers, there does need to be a higher degree of emphasis on phonics and phonemic awareness (with letters) in the beginning, for children to become fluent. In a recent podcast series on Melissa and Lori love Literacy, Hugh Catts discusses specifically this.
Obviously over time, the degree of weight applied for each pillar, changes. There is also the important point to make that while there are key elements of comprehension that need to be taught and fostered through practice, comprehension should be the outcome of all reading and the old adage, learning to read and reading to learn, should be thrown out with the bathwater as it is misleading and infers that we can't learn to comprehend, while we are learning to read. Obviously comprehension is something always being fostered, if not through children actually reading themselves, by rich picture books and other texts.
I have popped oral language and knowledge along the bottom of the pillars, as they are so foundational and if you are anything like us, the oral language level of children coming in to school and the deficit in knowledge about the world are becoming quite alarming.
The other misconception about the pillars, as Hugh Catts has discussed is the fact the pillars appear to stand alone as if they are independent, this of course is not the fact and they develop together, being complementary of each other. I guess this is where the reading rope is a really useful model, along with Active View of Reading (Nell Duke).
This could be discussed at length, but what I really wanted to share, is how I ensure an approach that fosters each of these aspects, with an appropriate emphasis on what my children actually need. I have a class of older Year One children mixed with predominantly Year Two (NZ) So they are 5 - 7 years of age.
Importantly it is necessary to note that my journey has led me to view the interwoven nature of reading and writing and therefore this is how I approach it in my classroom.
Knowledge Development In My Classroom
Operating through a play based pedagogy, means this is something that happens quite naturally in terms of what is child led. Tuning into the focus of their play, what they are exploring and featuring this in our discussions, highlighting this in our reflective journals and finding connected texts, videos and podcasts drives this easily. It is something I have always done, but actually never thought about how it directly impacted progress in literacy. Now I am deliberately thinking about it, it is easy to tie it into our writing and my modelled texts, along with any problems presented in mathematics.
However, once I started to focus on how we build knowledge, I knew I needed to go beyond this, there were so many areas that their play just wouldn't lead us to. In a curriculum that is so overloaded as it is, it seemed very logical to pull this in through areas such as Science, SEL, Social Sciences, Drama, Arts etc.
While this does happen quite naturally, I have learned to be more deliberate, to really tune into the knowledge and expand on it in different ways, to link it and interweave it, to listen to podcasts, to watch related videos, to use storytelling, to read about it and write about it. Even more importantly, to record it in some way, in turn connecting it to our vocabulary development.
Another thing I have learned, is not to take for granted, what children do and do not know and not to waste a lot of time gathering 'prior knowledge.' Most powerfully I make sure we connect writing to whatever knowledge we are deliberately developing and try to draw explicit connections to aspects of knowledge, where it is relevant. If children are not yet able to write about it themselves, then they assist me to write about it.
Something we are working on at our place is this knowledge and reading spine, it is only a couple of years old and still a work in process, but it is our attempt to pull everything together and make it easier to 'fit everything in.'
When building knowledge on a topic or idea I generally follow this rhythm:
*Knowledge presented through play, or deliberately by me
*Create some word storms around the topic or idea that can be added to over time and used for writing ( I have shared some examples of these in my group)
*Read some fiction books around the topic
*Read some non-fiction books around the topic
*Watch some short videos on the topic and listen to some podcasts if relevant
*Practical activities if relevant to the topic
*If able to, provide items in the environment that will encourage further thought through play
*If possible, find connected texts that the children can read, or access as a read together
*If able to, I write some decodable texts to go with our topic or idea.
*If appropriate I will use storytelling and dramatic inquiry that are connected to our knowledge.
*Focus our writing on the topic or idea
- Throughout the process, record our ideas and journey to reflect back on.
The above process may be quick, or it may extend over several weeks. As much as possible, I allow children to guide it and generally we will start to wander off into connected areas.
There is obviously a massive link here to how we explicitly foucs on Vocabulary and I will focus on that a bit more in my next blog post.
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