Teaching literacy in the classroom
Abstract
The document, State of the Art: Transforming Ideas for Teaching and Learning to Read, outlines ideas to transform literacy education. These ideas are based on solid research findings and practical experience. Practices discussed include helping students develop their own strategies for discovering meaning from text and modeling behaviors teachers can use during instruction.
Issue
Research has led to new understandings about basic cognitive and instructional processes, particularly those involved in reading comprehension. The result is improved literacy tutoring strategies. The following practices have been synthesized from this research.
Action
According to State of the Art: Transforming Ideas for Teaching and Learning, ten ideas for transforming the teaching and learning of reading are as follows:
- Children, when reading, construct their own meaning.
- Effective reading instruction can develop engaged readers who are knowledgeable, strategic, motivated, and socially interactive.
- Phonemic awareness, a precursor to competency in identifying words, is one of the best predictors of later success in reading.
- Modeling is an important form of classroom support for literacy learning.
- Storybook reading, done in the context of sharing experiences, ideas, and opinions, is a highly demanding mental activity for children.
- Responding to literature helps students construct their own meaning which may not always be the same for all readers.
- Children who engage in daily instructions about what they read are more likely to become critical readers and learners.
- Expert readers have strategies that they use to construct meaning before, during, and after reading.
- Children's reading and writing abilities develop together.
- The most valuable form of reading assessment reflects our current understanding about the reading process and simulates authentic reading tasks.
- Model literacy behaviors for children to follow.
- Provide children daily with positive experiences involving stories and other literature through social and enjoyable shared reading.
- Value children's response to literature to develop a sense of ownership, pride, and respect with regard to learning.
- Provide students with ample opportunities to engage in daily discussions with one another. The more students work in groups or pairs, the more productive their discussions will become, especially as their social skills become more refined.
- Incorporate inferencing, identifying important information, monitoring, summarizing, and question generating into their ongoing literacy instruction.
Context
These ideas are intended to be seen as a whole, not parts. Good literacy instruction incorporates most, if not all, of these concepts.
Citation
Sweet, Anne P. State of the Art: Transforming Ideas for Teaching and Learning to Read. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education. Government Printing Office, stock number 065-000-00620-1, November 1993. Available online at State of the Art: Transforming Ideas for Teaching and Learning to Read.
