Literacy Development in Multilingual Programs

Learning Objectives

• To identify stages of literacy development in children and use strategies to build on them.

• To use reading activities that that develop children’s vocabulary, comprehension, and language production in the first language(s).

• To use reading activities that that develop children’s vocabulary, comprehension, and language production in the new language(s).

Introduction

Learning to read and write is very similar to oral language development in that it begins early in life and is a developmental process. Literacy develops from real life situations and is learned through active engagement. Reading and writing are easier to learn when they have a purpose, when learning is interesting, when reading and writing are meaningful, and when they build on what children already know about language.

Learning to Read

Learning to read usually proceeds in the following steps:

• Learning to love books• Learning how books work• Discovering that print has meaning• Memorizing and rehearsing books• Recognizing the words• Sounding out words• Independent reading

Learning to Write

 Learning to write is also a process.

•Scribbling•Making formations that approximate letters•Writing letters•Invented spelling•Conventional spelling

Video: The Office. https://vimeo.com/home/myvideos/page:5/sort:date/format:video What stage of writing are these children? This is a positive example of children who already know a lot about literacy, but who are not yet formally writing.

Strategies for Reading Books

Step 1: The purpose of Level 1 is to get the children talking. The goal is to establish labels for objects and actions and elicit details about pictures.  

Step 2: Once the children are comfortable using the books vocabulary the teacher prompts child to describe in their own words what is happening in a picture. “Tell me what is happening on this page.”

Step 3: This level is used after the children are very familiar with the book. The purpose of level 3 is getting children to use the vocabulary of the book to retell the story. The conversation is less focused on pictures and more on the story plot. The teacher may also prompt children to apply the new vocabulary in conversation that goes beyond the book. Extension can also involve making connections between parts of the story or talking about personal experiences.

Strategies for reading books The example of these three levels are from the ISSA Reading Corner Book, Bursunsel and Paskualina written by

Level 1

Teaching Focus on Vocabulary

Example of Teacher/Child Dialogue with book

Encourage children to label objects and actions in pictures. Elicit details about the attributes and functions of the objects.  Conduct repeated readings until all children are comfortable using the vocabulary.

T - What part of the dog is this? C- The tail. T - That is right – the tail. What is she doing to his tail?  T - Whose tail is longer? C- The black dog’s.T – And the white dog’s tail is shorter. T - What color is her tail? C- WhiteT- And what color is her spot on her tail?

Strategies for reading books The example of these three levels are from the ISSA Reading Corner Book, Bursunsel and Paskualina written by

Level 2

Teaching Focus on Expansion (Use Level 2 questions during additional readings alternating with Level 1 questions to continue to build vocabulary.)

Example of Teacher/Child Dialogue with book

What’s happening in this picture?  Help children use longer phrases by expanding a child’s response with a few more words. Follow up on a child’s responses with more questions such as: What else do you see? Tell me more. 

C- He is jumping over her. T- Yes he is jumping over her and what is she doing?

C- She is afraid.T- Why do you think she is afraid? C – She is putting her hands on her head. T- She is putting her hands there to protect herself? What might hit her?

Activity 3: Strategies for books in first language(s)

The example of these three levels are from the ISSA Reading Corner Book, Bursunsel and Paskualina written by

Level 3

Teaching Focus on Story PlotUse Level 3 questions only when the child is very familiar with the story.

Example of Teacher/Child Dialogue with book

Ask recall questions to make connections between parts of the start.   Ask distancing questions to connect the story to the child’s personal experiences?     Ask the child to act out parts of the story. 

Recall questions What did they have fight about?What kinds of things did they do together?How do you know they are still friends?  Distancing questionsWhat kinds of things do you do with your friends?Have you ever had a fight with a friend?How did you make up? Can you show me what they did as friends?Can you show me how they acted when they had a fight?

Strategies for reading books

• On Monday and Tuesday, introduce the vocabulary in the story and use Level 1 types of questions.

• On Wednesday and Thursday use Level 1 and 2 types of questions.

• On Friday, if the children are familiar enough with the vocabulary and events of the story, read the story again and ask Level 3 questions. The children can also retell the story using their own words with the teacher using the language experience approach to teach some of the beginning reading concepts that were introduced in the previous activity and work with the book for a longer period of time.

Language Experience Approach

What can be said can be written down and read by others.

1.Give the story a title.

2. Write down what children say whether it is telling a new story, retelling a story just heard, or describing something such an event or object. Write the sentence or phrase exactly as the child says it.

3. After writing each sentence, read it back and have the child(ren) read it back.

4. When the story is finished read the entire text back to them putting your finger or hand under each word. Next ask the children to read along with you.

Language Experience Approach

• Second stage –sentence assembly

• Third stage – sight word development

• Fourth stage – word study (letters, sounds and syllables).

• Make a new book – At any point in the process, the children can take the sentences they dictated and draw pictures that go next to them making their story into a book that can be kept in the book corner of the room. Be sure that children’s names are also added to the book as the author and illustrators.

Work with Photos for Questions and Belonging

Activity•Find the people who have your same picture.

•Discuss why each of you chose this picture.– What attracted you to the picture?– Is there some memory attached?– What particularly do you like about it? – What do you imagine it may be about?

•Together draw what you think the rest of this picture may be.

AWork with Photos for Questions and Belonging

Discuss: •How did this activity stimulate conversation?•How do photos help children feel they belong?

Write 5 open-ended questions for your photo.

Using Photographs to Show Diversity

Photos that specifically counter stereotypic thinking can include:•People with varied physical abilities in active roles•Elderly people doing interesting things•Positive portraits of poor and working-class people in a variety of jobs•Men and women in nontraditional roles•People of varied racial and cultural backgrounds in a variety of jobs or doing everyday kinds of activities

Work with Photos for Questions and Belonging

Other kinds of activities you could do with these photos include:•Creating labels with the names of children, their family and friends and have the children play games matching photos with names.

•Playing other matching games with the photos (for example, a number and the number of people in a photo or a letter and photos of people whose names begin with the same letter).

•Making photos into puzzles that the children will reassemble.