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Oxford Academic (Oxford University Press)

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What is unique about children’s literature?

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The number one book is "Where the Wild Things are" by Maurice Sendak.

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We're living in a golden age of young-adult literature, when books ostensibly written for teens are equally adored by readers of every generation. In the likes of Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen, they've produced characters and conceits that have become the currency of our pop-culture discourse-and inspired some of our best writers to contribute to the genre. To honor the best books for young adults and children, TIME compiled this survey in consultation with respected peers such as U.S. Children's Poet Laureate Kenn Nesbitt, children's-book historian Leonard Marcus, the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature, the Young Readers Center at the Library of Congress, the Every Child a Reader literacy foundation and 10 independent booksellers. With their help, we've created two all-time lists of classics: 100 Best Young-Adult Books and 100 Best Children's Books. Vote for your favorite in the poll below.

See 17 authors' favorite books for young readers.

Read about how author Meg Wolitzer was inspired by Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar.

It's your turn:
By the editors of TIME, with reporting by Daniel D'Addario, Giri Nathan and Noah Rayman. Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Kenn Nesbitt's name.

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The 100 Best Children's Books of All Time

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We're living in a golden age of young-adult literature, when books ostensibly written for teens are equally adored by readers of every generation. In the likes of Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen, they've produced characters and conceits that have become the currency of our pop-culture discourse-and inspired some of our best writers to contribute to the genre.

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It is important to provide appropriate children's literature to students. It is very important for the students to be able to connect with the stories and enjoy reading. If a student is given a hard text then it is harder for them to comprehend the text and dislike it.

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Independent reviewers read and critically review thousands of children's and young adult books annually. Our reviews are directed at librarians, teachers, parents, and caregivers, and are available for licensing.

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Independent reviewers read and critically review thousands of children's and young adult books annually. Our reviews are directed at librarians, teachers, parents, and caregivers, and are available for licensing.

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A multi-age teacher helps her students stretch out important parts by using a variety of details.

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"Calkins is one of the original architects of the “workshop” approach to teaching writing to children, which holds that writing is a process, with distinct phases, and that all children, not just those with innate talent, can learn to write well. Calkins popularized and developed many of the positions taken by Graves regarding writing and later applied them to reading.The publication of The Art of Teaching Reading (2001) catapulted Calkins to expert status in reading as well. The book offers ideas about setting up libraries in classrooms and the value of offering students a wide selection of books, adults reading aloud, and many other things that go into Calkins’s idea of helping children live a “richly literate life.”"

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Once upon a time there was a thoughtful educator who raised some interesting questions about how children were traditionally taught to read and write, and proposed some innovative changes. But as she became famous, critical debate largely ceased: her word became law. Over time, some of her methods became dogmatic and extreme, yet her influence continued to grow.

That educator is Lucy McCormick Calkins, the visionary founding director of Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Begun in 1981, the think tank and teacher training institute has since trained hundreds of thousands of educators across the country. Calkins is one of the original architects of the "workshop" approach to teaching writing to children, which holds that writing is a process, with distinct phases, and that all children, not just those with innate talent, can learn to write well. She is author of some 20 books, including the best-selling The Art of Teaching Writing (250,000 sold). According to the project web site, books by its leaders are "widely regarded as foundational to language arts education throughout the English-speaking world."

While her influence is geographically broad, Calkins is perhaps nowhere more powerful than in New York City, where the project began as a consulting service to a few elementary schools and grew into a highly profitable venture. According to Andrew Wolf of the New York Sun, Calkins charges $1,200 to send one of her assistants into a school for one day. In 2003 schools chancellor Joel Klein appointed her and the project, through a no-bid three-year $5.4 million contract, to the task of revamping the way literacy skills are taught in more than 100 district schools, including most of those in Brooklyn and Queens, the project's mission is to retrain-through onsite workshops, leadership seminars, curricular materials, and an intensive summer institute-primary and upper-grade teachers, administrators from principals up through district superintendents, and central department policymakers.
Stories That Matter
Calkins's approach to literacy grows out of a pedagogical theory that prides itself on being in step with the natural development of both writers and children. Her earliest mentor was the progressive educator Donald Graves, who observed in the 1970s that while American children were taught reading and math, they were only rarely taught how to write beyond grammar and spelling. Graves argued that in being deprived of lessons that would develop the skills and habits that most good writers have, children were relegated to the status of "receivers," never "senders," of information. Graves, in turn, was deeply influenced by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and college journalism professor Donald Murray, perhaps one of the earliest to describe the craft of writing. By observing his own writing process, Murray delineated a method all writers could follow. "Writing might be magical," he is often quoted as saying, "but it's not magic. It's a process, a rational series of decisions and steps that every writer makes and takes, no matter what the length, the deadline, even the genre."

Graves adapted Murray's approach to teaching writing to children. The idea was to make them more conscious of what successful adult writers do-draft ideas, revise, edit, and publish. By involving children in this process, he sought to help them become more active in their own education, and not incidentally, more self-aware; he advocated that children write extensively about themselves and their observations.

Calkins popularized and developed many of the positions taken by Graves regarding writing and later applied them to reading. At the heart of her philosophy is the notion that children ought to be given a "voice," encouraged to discover and refine their own personal writing style, as they compose "stories that matter." Calkins is a "constructivist," believing that children should generate their own texts, using material from their own lives. Her belief in self-expression as a key to learning extends to reading: children develop a passion for reading when they are given freedom to choose books that are meaningful to them. Her approach to literacy reviles "direct teaching," where the teacher stands in front of the room and lectures, preferring instead that children work in small groups and consult each other as much as possible. And she advocates that teachers routinely engage in conferences with each individual child about his writing and reading experiences (see sidebar). She writes of the "art" involved in teaching and conferring, and thereby suggests that while aspects of literacy can be taught, there also exists a degree of creative intuition in the process, on the part of both the child and the teacher.
No Detours, No Surprises
Some of Calkins's ideas on writing have made exciting contributions to the life of the classroom. In her nearly 600-page 1986 tome, The Art of Teaching Writing, Calkins lays out her rationale and methods for implementing a writers' workshop in the classroom. She instructs teachers to make room for students to keep a "writer's notebook," a place where they can "jot down things they notice and wonder about" and record "bits of life." Calkins offers up this notion in a relaxed spirit, conjuring a playful atmosphere that encourages creativity. Photographs of lively students and reproductions of students' writing assignments, done in their own quirky handwriting, add to the friendly and appreciative tone of the book.

In her later work, however, Calkins's notion of the writer's notebook is prescriptive, even rigid. She instructs teachers as well as parents to make sure children "never miss a day" of writing in their notebooks, because "if you allow kids to get off the hook once, they'll try to get off it all the time." In Raising Lifelong Learners (1998), she describes how she needs to stand over her son while he writes down his thoughts after returning from a play date. The earlier "jotting" and "bits of life" sensibility seems to be gone, as she complains that her sons, then six and four years old, "often say non-sequiturs," and how she, and all parents and teachers, should confront "sidetracks," and prohibit any "detours."

Project staff instruct children to revise their writing, according to sometimes peculiarly stringent guidelines, and do the same to their drawings. Writing coaches instruct even kindergartners to redo their pictures, making some things bigger, smaller, using less white space, etc. At a project open house in 2004, Calkins said, "I tell kids that after they've finished writing [personal narrative] they should go back and lop off the beginning and lop off the ending. Those parts are always weak. The meat is always in the middle." When an audience member asked if there were exceptions to this, she said emphatically, "No."

To keep the focus on autobiographical writing, the project trains teachers to deter children from writing fantasy of any kind. A six-year-old child whose classroom was under the project's tutelage remarked to me, "Once upon a time is against the law in our school." Not long ago Calkins altered her stance modestly and decided that staff in her program can now teach children how to write "realistic fiction."

"What's most important to me," explained a project staff member during the open house, "are social issues. I teach fiction writing to teach social justice." She went on to describe her methodology: "I tell students that they must always first start with an issue-gender discrimination, racism, poverty-not a character. Then we create a character around the issue." She explained that she instructed children to plot the story from start to finish before setting out, telling them to be certain to alternate between "incident, dialogue, incident, dialogue." While virtually all professional writers of fiction describe the element of surprise and discovery as central to the process, this teacher takes an alternate view: "By the time children begin to write, they know exactly what their characters will do and say. The point is, there should be no surprises when you sit down to write fiction."

The leader then projected copies of student papers on the wall, where we read several stories about bullying, gender discrimination, etc. The stories were impressively written, although they seemed, after a while, to sound almost uniform; without exception, each protagonist was a victim of some kind. Fictional characters in a project workshop might be described in the same way as literary critic, Sheila Egoff, describes characters in many current teen novels: they are "defined by the terminology of pain."
It Takes Two to Read a Book
The publication of The Art of Teaching Reading (2001) catapulted Calkins to expert status in reading as well. The book offers ideas about setting up libraries in classrooms and the value of offering students a wide selection of books, adults reading aloud, and many other things that go into Calkins's idea of helping children live a "richly literate life."

Beginning in kindergarten, children are to regard books as objects of study. They are asked, for example, to compare two books and try to figure out which characters have a "worse life"; make a "study" of Frog and Toad books; or debate whether Enchantress from the Stars is fiction or fantasy. Children are asked to keep track-on Post-its, or other diagramming material-of the ways characters' lives resemble their own. Post-its loom particularly large in the Calkins universe. "If I could change the world," she writes, "children across America would carry books that were furry with slips of paper and jotted writing." Indeed, project methods require a vast array of accoutrements: charts, matrixes, Venn diagrams, page numbers, graphs, reading marathons, bookmarks, book corners, book bags, book celebrations, jazzed up "book talk," and great discussions about how to live "readerly lives."

"Every reader has two lives, one public, the other secret," noted poet and chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia. Not so in a project classroom. Calkins maintains-for reasons never explained-that reading is fundamentally a "social activity." "The books that matter in our lives are the books we have discussed." Or "It takes two to read a book." She relays approvingly how a teacher asks kindergartners who are enjoying a book, "But where are your tools, your logs, your Post-its?"

Rarely are children invited to simply sink into a story and experience it emotionally. In fact, when an unguarded emotion occurs while a teacher is reading aloud, it is perceived as a unique, nearly baffling event. Calkins relates approvingly how a teacher, while reading the very moving book The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes to a group of six-year-olds, noticed a boy whose "facial expression showed how Peggy felt as she stood by and watched her classmate Wanda being taunted. 'Oh my goodness,' [the teacher] said to the class when she saw what Robert was doing, 'Let me keep reading and all of you watch the way Robert's face shows what Peggy was feeling.' Soon everybody was following Robert, supplying the facial expressions and gestures to match the interpretations of Peggy's mood."

Yet Calkins herself, in the middle of The Art of Teaching Reading, describes with some derision two 2nd-grade students using jargon to discuss a book. She hears them say that they are making "text-to-self" connections, and "text-to-text" connections, phrases they'd obviously been taught to use. When she asks them what they are referring to and their response is flimsy, she concludes that all their jargon is much ado about nothing. "If anything," she muses, "the long metacognitive detour had probably pulled these readers out of 'the virtual dream' of the story, and broken the spell of the enchantment." Apt words, indeed.

Planning the Writer's Conference

The Calkins tome One to One: The Art of Conferring with Young Writers (2005) is the result of 18 months of poring over transcripts of her own and her protégés' conferences with very young children, in an attempt to extrapolate their own "best teaching moves." The goal is then to refine those moves, sort them into categories, and write scripts to accompany them. Calkins has managed to bring the whole unwieldy world of teaching writing into neat, snap-on categories. There are four phases for conducting a conference: the research phase (to last no longer than two minutes), in which the teacher assesses what she or he will teach the young writer; the decision phase, in which the teacher decides what kind of conference (there are four kinds) to implement; a teaching phase; and, finally, a link phase, which involves extracting an oath from the child. "From this day on, for the rest of your life," the teacher asks the child to pledge, "are you always going to remember to do X when you write?"

Calkins instructs teachers to give two compliments during their conferences with students, one at the beginning and one at the end, and to "briefly record what you have complimented in a box containing the child's name." The Conferring CD-ROM comes with a letter from Calkins that advises teachers to "study the compliment section in every conference. What do you see us doing over and over again? Compare the way we tend to give compliments and the way you have done this. By doing this, you will be able to create your own Guide to Giving Powerful Compliments."

While the idea of meeting one-on-one with a child to discuss his work might suggest spontaneous communication between two people, conferences as described by Calkins have a prepackaged, often manipulative quality. She writes, "One effective strategy for buoying a writer's identity is to tell the child he or she has written just like a professional writer." She suggests saying, "You're trying to do something you've seen another author do. That's so professional of you!" Calkins reports proudly how well a member of her staff intervened when two kindergarteners were squabbling over Magic Markers: "Writers...do not wrestle over markers. Can you imagine Mem Fox or Tomie DiPaola wrestling over markers?"

Another approach brings a similar result. "We try the technique of pretending that the child has been doing exactly what we hoped he or she would do," Calkins explains. "I help Olivia see that her experience is a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end," she writes, describing a "successful" conference she had with a child about a drawing. "I condense her long explanation of her picture into a tighter narrative line that is within her reach of being able to write. But I do this acting as if she's done all the work herself, and she willingly believes that all I've just done is to restate the story she invented. When we assist a writer, it is often helpful if the writer is fooled into thinking she's done the job herself!"

So Do Her Methods Work?
Calkins is shaping the education of millions of children, yet no independent research backs the efficacy of her programs. Aside from grumblings from the New York City teachers required to work under her system, there has been remarkably little open debate about the basic premises behind Calkins's approach, or even feedback on how the programs are faring in the classroom.

What controversy exists generally centers around two concerns: First, her programs do not explicitly teach phonics-which she calls "drill and kill." She favors a "whole language" approach to literacy, which builds on the premise that reading and writing develop naturally in children. Her detractors argue that this lack of direct instruction leaves many children, especially those who already struggle, at a disadvantage.

The other argument, perhaps resonating with a larger audience, is that her methodology lacks real content, has no reference to any knowledge that should be learned. In The Art of Teaching Reading, she explains that she doesn't want "all reading and writing to be in the service of thematic studies" but instead seeks to "spotlight reading and writing in and of themselves." Calkins's insistence that students should focus mostly on writing about their lives rankles the many educators who believe that curriculum should be focused on content-rich material, and that students should read and write about information outside of their own personal lives. Broadening one's knowledge base strengthens reading comprehension, builds vocabulary, and deepens knowledge of the world, all of which help students understand the text, but also, as E. D. Hirsch writes, "what the text implies but doesn't say."

What has not been openly questioned is the assumption that Calkins has retained her ordinal stance, that it is the teacher's job to midwife a child's own, often richly imaginative voice, rather than impose her own. Calkins's program originally gained its popularity, at least in part, because of its mission to help children make their distinct voices heard. She was known as a champion for flexible, creative teaching, uniquely attuned to children. "If we adults listen and watch closely," she wrote in 1986, "our children will invite us to share their worlds and their ways of living in the world." And while this impulse continues to inform aspects of her approach, she has tended over time to become increasingly focused on enforcing her own methodology; many of her techniques limit children's genuine engagement with reading and writing. This insistence on only one way to do things, not surprisingly, has translated into a demand that teachers quiet their own impulses, gifts, and experiences, and speak in one, mandated voice.

Recently, Common Good, a bipartisan organization committed to "restoring common sense to American law" asked New York City public school teachers to keep a diary for 10 days and consider specifically "how bureaucracy impacts everyday teaching." The results were presented in a town hall-style meeting attended by more than a hundred educators and union representatives. One of the topics was "mandated teaching," which referred specifically to the required presence of Calkins and Teachers College in city schools. The responses were almost universally negative.

This entry from a teacher's diary is typical: "Administrators expect all our reading and writing workshops to adhere to an unvarying and strict script....For example: 'Writers, today and everyday you should remember to revise your writing by adding personal comments about the facts.' Sometimes I feel like I'm a robot regurgitating the scripted dialogue that's expected of us day in and day out."

A kindergarten teacher reported how she was instructed to ask her students, on the third day of class, "to reflect on how they'd grown as writers." She explained that the children were still preoccupied with missing their mothers and felt the assignment was "ridiculous."

The truth is there isn't one way to teach writing, or a limited number of ways to have conversations with children about their imaginative work and their lives. Calkins would have done well to heed the counsel of Donald Murray, whose prescient caution she quotes in The Art of Teaching Reading: "Watch out lest we suffer hardening of the ideologies. Watch out lest we lose the pioneer spirit which has made this field a great one."

Barbara Feinberg is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times and the Boston Globe. She is the author of Welcome to Lizard Motel: Protecting the Imaginative Lives of Children, Beacon Press, 2005.

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The Lucy Calkins Project - Education Next

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Once upon a time there was a thoughtful educator who raised some interesting questions about how children were traditionally taught to read and write, and proposed some innovative changes. But as she became famous, critical debate largely ceased: her word became law. Over time, some of her methods became dogmatic and extreme, yet her influence continued to grow.

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According to E. H. Hiebert, "Words represent complex and, often, multiple meanings. Further, these complex,

multiple meanings of words need to be understood in the context of other words in the sentences and paragraphs of texts. Not only are students expected to understand words in texts but also texts can be expected to introduce them to many new texts. The vocabulary of written language is much more extensive and diverse than the vocabulary of oral language."

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The teaching and learning of vocabulary: Perspectives and persistent issues

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The teaching and learning of vocabulary: Perspectives and persistent issues

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According to E. H. Hiebert, "fluency is an essential component of successful reading – the failure of students to become fluent readers can have repercussions throughout their lives. The need for instruction that helps students to achieve fluency is clear and unequivocal. However, in spite of its importance, fluency is only one aspect of reading, and students also need instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension to become successful readers."

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CECE Early Childhood Videos at Eastern CT State U.

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According to Marie Clay, "In a complex model of interacting competencies in reading and writing the reader can potentially draw from all his or her current understanding, and all his or her language competencies, and visual information, and phonological information, and knowledge of printing conventions, in ways which extend both the searching and linking processes as well as the item knowledge repertoires. Learners pull together necessary information from print in simple ways at first . . . but as opportunities to read and write accumulate over time the learner becomes able to quickly and momentarily construct a somewhat complex operating system which might solve the problem. There is no simplified way to engage in the complex activities . . ."

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Reading Recovery Council of North America

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Early Literacy Learning - Reading Recovery Council of North America

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In a complex model of interacting competencies in reading and writing the reader can potentially draw from all his or her current understanding, and all his or her language competencies, and visual information, and phonological information, and knowledge of printing conventions, in ways which extend both the searching and linking processes as well as the item knowledge repertoires.

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The preschool years are where the student's emergent literacy abilities start to develop. This is the moment where the students should be introduced to phonemic awareness, print awareness, writing, oral language, and phonemes.

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If the job of a toddler is to learn to talk, the job of a preschooler is to learn to communicate, which is a complicated task indeed! From learning the sounds that make up words, to figuring out what the words mean and determining how to combine them into syntactic strings that have meaning within a culture or environment, mastering language use is a major achievement for such young children.

Language Use
Language ability is a direct outgrowth of a child's use of symbols and representational thinking (the ability to have one thing stand for another). According to Russian researcher Lev Vygotsky, language develops from social interactions for communication purposes. To guide behaviors, overcome obstacles, and acquire new skills, children use what Vygotsky termed private speech, a verbalized but really internal monologue. Private speech reaches its height between 4-6 years old. As development progresses, it becomes inaudible muttering, to then become internalized as inner speech or "thought."

Within a Vygotskian framework, strategic use of language facilitates thinking, understanding, and learning. Parents, without trying, scaffold (or support) children's language learning, adjusting the support as children become more skilled. For younger children, parents recast young utterances - they restructure children's incorrect speech into a socially acceptable form (e.g.,"You would like a cookie" when their child says, "Me have cookie."). Similarly, they use expansions to elaborate on their child's more simple communications (e.g., "We go," becomes, "Yes, we are going to the store to get eggs for dinner.").

As children mature and their utterances become more standard, parents will seamlessly withdraw the previous supports. Thus, language use and vocabulary development is fostered within a social and cultural context, through meaningful interactions with parents, caregivers, peers, siblings, etc. While learning about language, children are also learning about culture, behavioral expectations, and social interactions.

Language Development
By the age of three, most children have considerable experience with language. They can understand most sentences, understand the use of basic prepositions (e.g., on, in, under), and use pronouns such as I, you, we, and they, along with some plurals. They show immense creativity in their language use, creating phrases for words they don't know (e.g., calling snow "fluffy rain" or broccoli "eating trees"). Their spoken sentences on average are as many words long as they are old (e.g., at 3 they produce 3-word sentences). A majority of their words should be understandable to a person outside the home. Across the preschool period, children are learning to categorize items (e.g., a shoe is not a fruit; a collar, leash, and bone are all dog items, etc.).

Children this age learn to ask questions, the most prevalent of which is the question "Why?" which they are known for asking over and over. To help parents know how to answer the onslaught of wonderings, check out Whyzz.com. Preschoolers also learn (over time) how to produce negative sentences or how to negate sentences ("I am not going").

Before they are 6, children can recall parts of a story, use future tense, begin to tell stories, and can say their name, age, gender, and address. Their sentences are on average at least 5 words. Their vocabulary has increased at least 4-fold, from around 1000 words to upwards of 8-10,000. They are now able to define common items by use (e.g., a chair is something you sit in). Most children this age can follow three step directions.

Children's syntax (grammar) gets increasingly complex over these years, while remaining uniquely "preschool-like." For example, by 5 they begin to use word endings (e.g., ing, ed), but they often show overregularization. That is, children learn a grammar rule through interaction and then over apply that rule. For instance, they will say "goed or "eated," applying the "add -ed to a word to make it past tense" rule, despite the fact that they will have never heard adults use the incorrect forms and they previously said the words correctly. These peculiarities notwithstanding, 5-year-olds use increasingly descriptive language for functional purposes, including conveying information, asking questions, and providing explanations.

Language enhancing strategies:

Offer function cues and see if your child can identify the word (e.g., We eat this with syrup: pancakes). A fun online category vocabulary builder for preschoolers is What's the Word, a reading and vocabulary game.

Help your child better understand prepositions by asking her to put the box under the table, next to the spoon, beside the bed, etc. Introduce relationships (e.g., first, last, right, left, up, down).

Have your child bring the item to the owner when you say "it's Daddy's," or, "it's his."

Name items in a category and see if your child can identify the category label. Try this fun app also: Creationary Lego.

Literacy Development*
The preschool years are the time during which children's emergent literacy abilities develop. In fact, these skills are the foundation onto which children's later reading and academic abilities will build off of. Most important for literacy is the development of phonological awareness (often called phonemic awareness), the ability to recognize and manipulate the sound units that make up words, be these individual phonemes (sounds) or syllables. Once a child can auditorally distinguish individual sounds, she learns to link the sound with the visual representation - the letter or the individual word. Thus, discerning sounds is a key early literacy skill. To get practice with generic auditory discrimination skills, try this Magic School Bus activity.

While most preschool programs will teach children letter names, more relevant to cracking the code system for reading is the letter-sound orientation. Thus, you can shortcut your child's learning curve by identifying letters by their sounds, as opposed to by a letter's name (a la Montessori). For example, instead of calling the letter an "A," call it an "aah," using the short sound for early learners. Here is a fun alphabet song that use letter sounds instead of letter names.

By the end of the preschool period, most children will know their upper and lowercase letters, and understand that letters make up the sounds in words. They are beginning to sound out words in their environment or in books. They understand the basic conventions of print, and can do some basic phonetic (sound-based) spelling in early story writing or picture labeling. You can make learning sounds tactile by making scratch-and-sniff letters or words: write the words with glue and sprinkle Kool-aid® or Jello® powder over them. Have your child trace the letters to release the smell.

Most children can use their phonological awareness skills and generate rhyming words, identify words that begin with the same sound as a target word, and blend sounds together (/k/ /aah/ /t/ into 'cat'). Many children can also identity blends (e.g., fl, str) and digraphs (e.g., ph, ch). Children love stories and can often memorize and "read" their favorite books, often reciting the lines by heart. Preschool children understand many print conventions, such as the left to right, top to bottom orientation of English words. They know that spaces separate words and can identify familiar words in favorite books or familiar environments (e.g., reading the stop sign or a favorite restaurant name). Invite them to write sounds or words on a dry erase slate and then trace (and erase) with a q-tip.

Their fine motor skills vary and some children can produce all letters and many pictures with precision and accuracy. Others may struggle to maintain size and form. A fun way to support sound writing (over letter writing) is to put hair gel, food coloring, and glitter into a zip lock bag. Tape the bag to the table and use it as a squishy surface for drawing sounds (e.g., you say "aah" as opposed to "a") or words. To further foster fine motor and writing abilities, have your child draw and write letters or words in shaving cream, finger paint, sand, or rice. Invite your child to experiment with all sorts of writing tools, such as paints, chalk, bath crayons, clay, etc. Have him use blocks or magnets to put sounds together and make early words based on phonetics (e.g., "rope" is spelled the way it sounds: rop). A fun app that uses the letter's sound as opposed to its name: ABC PocketPhonics Lite: Letter Sounds and Writing + First Words.

Children this age begin to play with language. They make up stories based on fantasy, but tell these tales as if they are real. Encouraging story-telling will advance their cognition, linguistic abilities, and creativity. They are beginning to understand concrete riddles ("Knock, Knock." "Who's there?" "Boo." "Boo who?" "Why are you crying?"), love silly language, nonsense rhymes, and bathroom talk.

Phonetic Word Games
Isolating individual phonemes (sounds) lets children command the system that makes up words and is the basis of reading:

Have your child tell you the individual sounds he hears in words (remember, sounds, not spelling, so they would hear 3 sounds in "three:" th, r, (long)e.; frog would have 4 sounds: f, r, o, g.

Switch out letters: See if he can manipulate isolated phonemes by making new words as they switch out sounds (e.g., replace the /c/ in 'cat' with /b/ (bat)).

Make a hopscotch board with letters or phonetic words instead of numbers. Have your child say the sound or read the word before hopping onto the square.

Write letters or phonetic words onto the Candyland color cards. Have your child say the letter or read the word in order to advance to the colored space. A fun learn-to-spell app is Learn to Spell: Reception Class.

Play with Nina the Naming Newt and her friends, or Clifford the Big Red Dog's phonics game - both games will allow your child to identify letters, sounds, and rhymes by category.

Come up with Rhyming words while passing the time. For online fun, try Super Why.

Isolate sounds at the beginning, middle, and end of words.

*If learning to read is hard for your child, he needs support. The newest research on literacy development in children emphasizes the importance of providing reading interventions sooner rather than later.

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Language and Literacy Development in 3-5 Year Olds

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Learn strategies and activities to help your 3- to 5-year old master language use.

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Literacy theorist Donald Graves explains how to start a writing class.

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Donald Graves Tells Us How To Get a Writing Class Started

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Author/Teacher Donald Graves has written many books on teaching writing, including the classic book, Writing: Teachers and Children at Work (Heinemann). Here tells us how to get a writing class started.

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According to M. Pressley, "Strategies instruction in reading groups is transactional in the psychological sense in that the activities of the group are determined jointly by teachers and students as they interact with text. Even through the teacher begins the lesson with particular ideas about what will be discussed and how discussion will proceed, the students strongly influence what actually happens. Thus, if the students are "not getting it," the teacher changes tactics. Alternatively, a student's response may cue an extensive and relevant discussion that the teacher did not plan. Throughout the transaction, student responses affect the behaviors and responses of other students and the teacher".

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It is a new era where technology surrounds us and now teachers have to incorporate technology within their lessons. While it can be difficult for teachers to learn it can greatly benefit students to learn from this new alternative way. This can open a new interactive pathway for students to appreciate reading and writing in a fun way instead of the simple pen and paper.

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As new literacies that include digital and media technologies evolve, preparing students to understand and adjust to these literacy demands is critical to current and future expectations for pleasure and work (International Reading Association, 2001; Leu, Mallette, Karchmer, & Kara-Soteriou, 2005). For instance, teachers may identify with past models of literacy that are paper and pencil bound; however, new conceptions involve continually changing views of reading and writing, particularly with the advent of the Internet (Leu et al., 2004; Warschauer, 2006). These new literacies include innovative text formats (multiple media or hybrid texts; Lemke, 1998), new reader expectations (reading nonlinearly; Warschauer, 2006), and new activities (website publication; Leu et al., 2004). They extend traditional literacy experiences with comprehension of information on the Internet; effective use of search engines to locate information; evaluation of Internet sources; communication using e-mail, texts, and chats; and the use of word processing programs (International Society for Technology in Education, 2007).

The Internet has caused educators to confront issues related to new technologies, as previous technological innovations have never been adopted so rapidly and in so many places simultaneously. The Internet allows for immediate dissemination of information through the click of a single link, for instance (Warschauer, 2006). Moreover, Internet access has become common in schools. In 2005, approximately 95% of K-12 classrooms in the United States had Internet access (Parsad & Jones, 2005). Additionally, 80% of kindergartners use computers and over 50% of children younger than 9 years old use the Internet (Goldberg, Russell, & Cook, 2003). However, the average of U.S. students' use of computers in school was 12 minutes per week (Wells & Lewis, 2006). This descriptive data points out that computers and Internet access are available to students, but most students do not have sufficient time in school with this technology to develop new literacies.

Bringing new literacies into a classroom is not an easy task for a teacher, especially when two thirds of teachers feel underprepared to use technology (Kajder, 2005). Teachers face additional challenges as well. These include problems with resources (lack of technology, time, or technical support), teacher knowledge and skills (inadequate technological and pedagogical knowledge), school leadership (lack of school planning or scheduling), teachers' attitudes and beliefs (not valuing or being fearful of the use of new technologies), and assessments (traditional rather than matching new literacies' expectations; Hew & Brush, 2007). Additionally, Leu et al. (2005) identified the following three important points to ponder before bringing new literacies to classrooms:

1. Simply using software programs on computers does not prepare students for new literacies' expectations.

2. New literacies are deictic in that they constantly change and require teachers to embrace these changes.

3. New literacies are essential in classrooms so that equal opportunities are offered to all students.

Although educators may assume that bringing new literacies into the classroom, especially through the use of a laptop for each child (one-to-one laptops), is a new technological innovation in education, the reality is that these structures have been in existence for almost 20 years (Dunleavy, Dexter, & Heinecke, 2007). The first documented use of one-to-one laptops was in Melbourne at a private girls' school in 1990 (Johnstone, 2003). In the late 1990s, Microsoft's initiative, Anytime Anywhere Learning Program, brought laptop learning to 1,000 schools. By 2005, 55% of U.S. schools had instructional laptops, although not necessarily one-to-one laptop classrooms (Warschauer, 2006). Many schools used carts with laptops with wireless access to support instruction as a substitution or transition to one-to-one laptop classrooms.

Warschauer's (2006) research found that laptops and connections to the Internet provided scaffolding for many classroom topics, thus building background knowledge. He noted increased student engagement in wireless classrooms as students participated in more diverse writing activities, analysis of reading, and use of media-production software. Finally, he observed how students gained control of reading on the page as well as the screen. The students realized that there was more to a computer than games or chatting and gained practice in reading for a variety of purposes, such as interpreting the textual and visual elements in a document and knowing how to navigate and find information.

As more classrooms and schools adopt one-to-one laptop instruction, the need to document the work of teachers and students in such settings is important (Dunleavy et al., 2007). The descriptions found in this article provide the pragmatic details of making such a transition in instruction and can serve as roadmaps for teachers considering such a shift in their instructional practice. We have responded to the need for rich description of exemplary new literacies instruction by sharing Todd Wright's journey in bringing laptops and new literacies into his school and classroom. Todd (second author) teaches at Fernley Elementary, a rural Nevada elementary school with about 565 students. The majority of students are white (68%) with the largest minority group being Hispanic (24%). Approximately 45% of students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch.

Todd's classroom through the experiences of Michael

In most schools, the opening day is spent with students coming to know their new teacher and classmates, getting materials, and learning the new rules and expectations. Imagine the excitement on fourth-grade students' faces when, in addition to meeting their teacher, Mr. Wright, and their classmates, they are issued their own laptops for the year, which they will use in and out of school.

To gain an understanding of what learning is like in this classroom, we share a narrative centered on the literacy instruction of Michael-a collective identity of several students. This example brings the use of technology as a tool to life as it showcases how a laptop complements and extends traditional literacy learning and supports student engagement. We provide a photograph of students working in Todd's class (see Figure 1) so that readers can get a sense of the classroom. To see additional visuals of students and their classwork, visit www.fes.lyon.k12.nv.us. The descriptions shared in this article only target explicit literacy instruction and learning; however, technology is integrated with all subject areas including math, science, and social studies.

Figure 1. Students in Todd's classroom

Routines in Michael's Literacy Instruction

As soon as Michael enters his classroom, he takes out his laptop to pick up any files from the school server that his teacher has put there for the day and checks the class webpage (see Figure 2 for the layout of the class webpage). These files may include learning centers, writing prompts, graphic organizers, digital worksheets, URLs, media files (pictures, audio, or video), or corrected work. By bringing these files to his computer, Michael is ready for the teaching and learning expectations of the day. Michael then synchronizes his class calendar with the teacher's so he has the up-to-date homework and event schedule.

Figure 2. The class webpage

Once these activities are complete, he checks to see what the morning sponge is (an activity to keep students engaged as Todd checks in with individual students). Today the sponge is centered on vocabulary, so Michael uses the thesaurus on his laptop for the word launched so that he can gain an idea of what this word means and learn about related words. He then uses his word processing application to write a sentence using this word, thereby demonstrating his understanding of its definition. Complementing the sentence is a nonlinguistic representation of the word that he creates by using a drawing application (see Figure 3). This activity and the class webpage demonstrate the hybridity evident in new literacies documents (Lemke, 1998), where students use word processing, drawing, or music in a single document.

Figure 3. Visual representation of vocabulary words

Shifting to More Formal Literacy Instruction During the Reading Block

Most days, Michael's teacher leads the class through a short minilesson on a reading comprehension or vocabulary strategy before engaging in differentiated instruction. Today they read Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg from their basal reader. Before they start reading, students open up a timeline graphic organizer on their computers, which supports the week's reading comprehension strategy-sequence of events. Students use instant messaging (IM) to pair-share during the reading of the story with their 8 o'clock buddy. (Todd has a clock for each student with a different person's name near each time. When he says a time, students know their partner.) Todd begins reading and stops the class periodically for discussion and to add events to their timeline graphic organizer. They also pause when prompted by the teacher to use IM to share their thoughts and answers to questions with their partner. Most of this instructional process is familiar to teachers; what is novel is completing a timeline on a computer screen and having students use IM to deepen comprehension and foster engagement.

When the story is completed, Michael and his classmates spend a substantial part of their literacy block arranged in a Seat-Center-Circle organizational structure. Technology is integrated throughout the Seat and Center parts (those parts where students work independently), but not Circle. Circle is when small groups of students meet with the teacher and read and study leveled reading books. During Circle time, the teacher most often works on traditional literacy expectations grounded in print. However, during independent times, students engage in new literacies through the use of technology.

When working independently, Michael does one of three things. The first is to respond to a writing prompt on his computer that is directly related to the story or informational text read that day. Michael also completes a digital practice sheet or worksheet, a more traditional use of technology. The third activity is a book study. Students are offered multiple titles that are related to the theme of the core program from which to choose. As Michael is reading his book, he may use a Venn diagram (see Figure 4) or a comparison map to relate his chosen book to stories from the theme. Michael also joins a blog where other students reading the same book contribute and comment on each other's postings (see Figure 5). Michael participates in center activities that are Internet-based and related to the week's story and reading skills. The links that Michael uses are all on the class website so that he doesn't have to spend time locating them.

Figure 4. Venn Diagram Comparing Maniac Magee to Other Characters

Figure 5. Example of a Book Blog for Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater

Breaks in Instruction

During recess breaks throughout the day, students are free to stay in the room and engage in noninstructional activities. Michael engages in sending IMs, checking and sending e-mail, and going online to enter kid-friendly virtual worlds like Club Penguin (www.miniclip.com/games/club-penguin/en/). Students, particularly those who do not have Internet access at home, enjoy engaging in these activities during breaks in instruction.

Differentiated Literacy Instruction

After recess Michael logs on to KidBiz Achieve3000 (www.kidbiz3000.com), a web-based, individualized reading and writing instruction program. First, he checks his KidBiz e-mail and replies to a question meant to stimulate background information for a current events article. After he finishes replying, he reads the article. This article is written at his reading level, so the whole class is reading similar articles but at different reading levels.

Similar to other teachers, Todd is expected to prepare his students for high-stakes assessment. He has Michael complete the thought questions from the KidBiz website. Thought questions are questions or writing prompts related to the article that call for students to use information from what they read to write a constructed response-a response that clearly answers the question. This is very similar to criterion-referenced test (CRT) constructed response questions and provides students experience with this expectation. For instance, the question that Michael responded to was, "National Basketball Association players are honoring soldiers during basketball games. Is this a good idea? Use ideas from the story in your answer." After the class has finished their assigned KidBiz tasks, there is either a whole-class or small-group discussion of the article to extend meaning and explore answers.

Following this reading and responding, Michael opens the Internet browser and clicks on a link that takes him to a webpage with all of the stories his class is reading this year. He finds Just a Dream and clicks on Vocabulary from the pull-down menu. With this click, he is taken to a site called Flashcard Exchange, where his teacher has already entered vocabulary words for him to practice.

Writing Instruction

After this independent practice, Todd shifts to writing instruction. He begins by posing the question, "Have you or anyone you've known ever had an imaginary friend? Instant message your 3 o'clock buddy and tell him or her about this imaginary friend." Then he leads a discussion about the writing trait, Ideas and Content, and tells the class to listen for good examples of this writing trait as he reads a picture book, Ted by Tony DiTerlizzi, about a boy with an imaginary friend. Although Todd wants them to do a Quick Write (first draft writing) on their laptops about an imaginary friend, he does not feel they are ready for this writing, so he has them return to the Internet to an interactive writing prompt found at www.writingfix.com. This particular prompt encourages Michael to describe his imaginary friend's color, size, and amazing features. With this preparation in place, Michael and his classmates start the Quick Write. While everyone is writing, Todd confers with three to four students about their individual writing and ways to improve it. This activity demonstrates once again the seamless movement from traditional literacy practices, like reading a book, to new literacies through using IM and writing at a website.

As Michael's class completes more Quick Writes, they are saved electronically into a folder to revisit later. Every two weeks or so, Michael is instructed to go back through his Quick Writes and pick one that he would like to take through the writing process. Michael then uses the software program Inspiration (www.inspiration.com) to organize and brainstorm his story or informational text. Following his first-draft writing, he revises using the built-in thesaurus to help with word choice and the built-in spelling and grammar check to edit his piece. Michael has learned that he has to be careful when doing these checks as he can't just assume the computer is always correct. The next step in this process is peer review, where a fellow student reads and evaluates Michael's writing electronically. Finally, after several revisions and edits, he is ready to print out and post his writing on the writing bulletin board in his class.

End of the Day Routines

Before leaving school, Michael picks up his homework from the server. Tonight's homework is a graphic organizer that is to be filled out from a webpage. Todd saved a copy of the webpage for pickup because not all of Michael's classmates have Internet access at home. Michael leaves school with his laptop tucked into his backpack, ready for out-of-school learning.

Getting there

In Todd's words,

What makes today's kids really sit up and fires their neural fibers? Technology. Kids don't see laptops, MP3 players, cell phones, PDAs, DVD players, and video games as technology, it's just life. Schools need to connect education to their students' lives with technology.

That is exactly the path that Fernley Elementary School took. Following are some of the important details of this process.

Teacher and Principal Initiative

Todd shares this transformation to new literacies through his personal journey as an educator who wants to upgrade to a 21st-century model for teaching. He says,

I feel passionately that my job as a teacher is to prepare my students for their future. I started this journey 10 years ago when I began exposing my students to as much technology as possible. At the beginning, it was one Internet-connected desktop computer.

Fernley Elementary School was very much like any other public elementary school 10 years ago, one where teachers solely relied on books and paper for teaching. Todd began his quest to bring technology to his classroom with one computer with Internet access. The turning point came when Fernley received a new administrator, Alan Reeder, who had the desire and drive to improve student achievement through an infusion of technology and who was willing to provide leadership and support. The school targeted a goal that 80% of instruction in each content area would be supported with technology in fourth and fifth grades-an ambitious one for a rural Nevada school.

The first step was to start a computer lab (a classroom equipped with multiple computers with Internet access for teachers to use with their students) and purchase two mobile, wireless, laptop labs. Todd took over the teaching of the lab, where every class, K-5, visited once a week. He taught students to use technology as a tool to help them accomplish grade level expectations and to meet the essential learning outcomes required by district and state standards. At this time at Fernley, technology-supported instruction occurred most often in the lab with Todd, but teachers were also bringing technological innovations into their classrooms through the mobile laptop labs. They were encouraged in these first tentative endeavors by Todd, who nudged them to try and supported them as they did.

After three years teaching with the lab and mobile labs, the principal wrote a grant for 2 one-to-one laptop classrooms and received funding. Todd left the computer lab and took over in the fourth-grade one-to-one classroom. His transition to this classroom was supported by his three years in the computer lab, where he taught students digital and media technologies, and his previous teaching in fourth grade. As he began his new position, he brought a strong knowledge base of new technologies to his students (see Table 1 for many of the technologies to which students have access) and a current knowledge base of exemplary literacy instruction. His students brought their technological experiences from the computer lab setting as the foundation for their in-class extended experiences with laptops in the fourth grade.

Table 1. Applications and web support available to students at fernley elementary

Web support

Flashcard Exchange: Teachers can input information for flashcards and students access them online.

Gaggle.net: This website allows students to e-mail and blog.

Google Earth: We use this so they see where everything is in the world.

Inspiration graphic organizer/outline software: We use Inspiration as a graphic organizer before we write or as we read a story. We use it for note taking in science or social studies.

KidBiz: This website integrates technology and routine classroom curriculum

netTrekker: This is a search engine made especially for schools. Sites have all been previewed by educators. Sites are rated by reading level and they have a speech function built in. Also, sites can be searched by state standard.

QuizStar: Teachers enter in quizzes for students to take online. The site gives a breakdown of each question so teachers can see how many students got a question right or wrong.

Thesaurus.com: This site provides information about a word of the day, a dictionary, and thesaurus support.

Unitedstreaming: Teachers use this to access educational videos.

WritingFix: We use this to teach writing traits, and students really like the interactive prompts.

Teaching in a One-to-One Classroom

What has each student's access to a laptop meant for Todd's teaching? It has made Todd rethink how he teaches everything, and it has made him a better teacher. He says,

Every week when I am lesson planning, I consider how I can best integrate the technology. I don't use the technology just for the sake of using it. I want to use it in a way that enhances learning and best motivates students. I find myself borrowing ideas from colleagues, the Internet, and educational publications. I am a better teacher because I am making my students' learning relevant to them and their times.

In listening to Todd, it is evident that the challenges of bringing technology to his classroom are also sources of creativity and enthusiasm. At first, Todd says that time management was an issue. It took him longer to plan, as he explains. "I had to think about all of the kids having laptops and infusing technology in real ways." Coming from a lab offered Todd background in technological applications, but the sessions in the lab were typically for a half hour to an hour per week per class. Now he had to plan for full-day instruction with technology infused into all subject areas over the course of an academic year. Even with the initial time demands for planning and preparation, Todd finds himself, after three years of teaching with new literacies, still excited by the possibilities for student engagement and learning.

Preparation and Professional Support

Todd was not working alone through this major learning and teaching shift at his school. He received support from Apple when he became an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE). For more information on what the ADE program is, visit Apple's edcommunity. For Todd, the greatest benefit of being an ADE was attending their Institute to learn cutting-edge techniques for integrating technology and joining a worldwide community of educators who understood the importance of teaching students with today's technology.

Apple didn't just prepare Todd to teach with digital and media technologies, they came to Fernley and provided professional development for all the school's teachers. The training involved a mixture of learning applications and ways to integrate laptop instruction with lessons and standards already being taught. With Apple's support, Todd became responsible for continuous, on site, professional development. Each summer he offers a 20-hour technology-related workshop for teachers. In these workshops, he introduces teachers to learning with a laptop and shows them how to use its potential in daily instruction.

Simultaneous with this support, Todd created a group of students known as Wright's Techies, students from his fourth-grade class who had moved up to fifth grade. Their responsibilities are to be tech-savvy enough to assist their fifth-grade teachers and classmates. They are expected to help with everything concerning the laptops, including knowing the operation of all applications and troubleshooting problems.

The training of Wright's Techies is twofold. The majority of their training comes during their fourth-grade year, where they are exposed to how laptops and applications work. The second part occurs in the summer, a few weeks before school starts. Todd brings Wright's Techies in for a day to review any changes to the laptops for the upcoming year. They also learn how to assist their new fifth-grade teachers and classmates, who will not be as familiar with the technology. Teachers are pleased with the resources brought to them through the support of the Wright's Techies. They value the help with troubleshooting and teaching other students the technology so they can focus on content.

Preparing Students for New Literacies

When viewing a typical day for Michael, readers may wonder how a student came to be so proficient with new literacies. Fernley has carefully scaffolded new literacies for all students. New literacies instruction begins in kindergarten when students visit the computer lab or work on a laptop in their classroom. Students learn how to visit, explore, and learn from material shared on websites. They learn to write using word-processing programs. They also become familiar with multimedia projects, like those created with PowerPoint.

In third grade, students' classrooms have eight laptops in addition to two student desktop stations. When visiting third-grade classrooms, it is common to see students investigating ideas using the Internet and reporting on their discoveries. Third grade serves as the transitional year where students continue to visit the lab and also have laptops available in their classrooms, thus becoming better prepared for fourth-grade instruction. In fourth and fifth grades, students work solely in their one-to-one laptop classrooms. Their teachers, with the guidance of Todd, extend students' earlier experiences with new literacies and bridge intermittent laptop use to consistent use in fourth grade.

During these early explorations with technology, keyboarding techniques are shared with students and practiced somewhat. Todd observed that "keyboarding slows students down, and often their hands are not large enough for proper keyboarding." Most students have some practice with keyboarding but are allowed to develop their own style. As Todd has worked closely with fourth- and fifth-grade students in one-to-one classrooms, he noted that, "their speed triples by the end of one year through their constant use of the keyboard."

As seen in these entries into technology in the primary grades, students are prepared for its more extensive use when they enter fourth grade. During this year, their everyday use of digital and media technologies expands as they routinely create multimedia projects using various software programs. They create music, voice recordings, and podcasts. They create books and graphic organizers using Internet links and graphics. Finally, they become comfortable using blogs, e-mail, and instant messaging for sharing ideas.

When asked about his classroom and the changes to his students brought about by the use of new technologies, Todd says,

The number one thing laptops have done is motivation. Kids are sitting up and leaning into their learning. As a teacher, this is the one thing I want from my students. If I have them engaged and motivated, the sky's the limit.

Students leave Fernley better equipped with the skills required in their futures. They know how to expertly search for information on the Internet, how to evaluate the reliability of different websites, how to find information on a website, and how to take notes from the Internet. Moreover, they know how to use word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software (International Society for Technology in Education, 2007).

Do new technologies result in student learning?

What effects are seen on student learning is the big question for many educators who want answers before bringing new technologies to classrooms. This question is not an easy one to answer. Coiro (2005) indicated that there were improvements noted in comprehension when teachers were given instruction in new technology use. Teachers learned how to support students in comprehending Internet text that is not linear or fixed and, as a result, became more effective at facilitating comprehension on the page or screen. Warschauer (2006) also documented gains in motivation, writing competency, and critical thinking when laptops were used in the classroom.

However, the biggest hurdle when considering new technologies and student learning is that most assessments evaluate traditional literacy and content knowledge. For instance, in current assessments students read on the page and answer questions, or they write on paper to document writing proficiency. A better question related to assessment is, What can students do with new literacies that is not measured by current assessments (Leu et al., 2005)? For example, when thinking about writing assessment, although students are asked to handwrite a composition, the majority of writing today occurs on computers, and this type of writing is typical in one-to-one classrooms. So students in one-to-one classrooms are not able to demonstrate writing competency using familiar technological support because they must rely on traditional expectations. How much more sophisticated would their writing be if they could use the technological tools with which they are familiar?

To answer the important achievement question at Fernley, teachers routinely examine the assessments that students complete, both formative and outcome. Teachers use classroom-based assessment to refine instruction, and they use quarterly benchmark assessments tied to the district's and state's standards. Within this repertoire of formative assessments, classroom-based assessments are the only ones that target new literacies. The biggest challenge for Fernley is to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) as measured by the state criterion-referenced test (CRT) and writing test administered to fifth graders. Since 2002, Fernley has made AYP each year. During the 2006-2007 year, they qualified as a high achieving school for the growth in students who reached benchmark criteria. The most current CRT results indicated the following about the school's fourth graders:

72% met or exceeded the benchmark criteria for English language arts

65% of those qualifying for free or reduced-cost lunches met or exceeded the benchmark criteria for English language arts

67% of Hispanic students met or exceeded the benchmark criteria for English language arts

When considering CRT scores, it is important to note that students were not asked to evaluate a website, read a website, or gain information from a website. Neither of the assessments, formative or outcome, asked students even to use a word processor. Neither of these assessments quantify students' engagement as they learn. So until assessments include at least the first two components, it will be difficult to more precisely measure the additional knowledge students gain from using digital and media literacies. However, as shown by the data from this school, students did not regress on outcome assessments because of the inclusion of new literacies.

Essential Elements for Successful Implementation of New Literacies

The journey to new literacies through the use of technology happened at Fernley and can happen at other schools. Schools must consider their preparation for and response to several key elements before embarking on this journey (Hew & Brush, 2007). Fundamental to any implementation are resources that include access to sufficient technology, time for teachers and students to learn the technological applications, and technological support. At Fernley, the principal acquired the funding through grants and had a leader in place in Todd Wright. Moreover, Fernley carefully planned its initial support with Apple and continuing support and professional development with Todd for success.

A second issue is teacher knowledge and attitude about new literacies (Hew & Brush, 2007). Fernley presents a case study of working with teacher knowledge and attitude through a gradual model of moving to new literacies. Primary teachers are carefully supported with the lab and the gradual introduction of classroom laptops. In third grade, there are higher expectations for teachers to bring digital and media technologies to their classrooms. These efforts are carefully supported with Todd's leadership, ongoing professional development, and student experts. By fourth grade, teachers are aware of the extended expectations for laptop learning and instruction, and students are prepared for this more consistent use of digital and media literacies. To bring new teachers to new literacies and to provide support for returning teachers, there are summer workshops to refine teachers' knowledge about technology and explore ways to use it in learning. Todd similarly provides summer workshop support for student technology leaders.

A final issue is centered on assessment. The question of how students achieve on traditional assessments will affect those who make decisions about moving to new literacies. This question, although important, is losing its power as major assessments like the National Assessment of Educational Progress move to the use of computers (Olson, 2007).

Final encouragement

When Todd was asked why a teacher would want to take on learning about and using new literacies, especially with the additional work, time, and thinking required, he replied,

Teachers take on this challenge because it is their job to prepare students for the future. There is a steep learning curve at the beginning, but after the first year, most teachers won't spend any more time preparing lessons. Once teachers have training in using laptops and how to integrate technology with state standards there is greater student engagement in learning. Teachers will see that giving a laptop to a student results in greater engagement. Greater engagement equals higher achievement. End of story.

About the authors

Barone teaches at the University of Nevada, Reno, USA; e-mail [email protected]

Wright teaches at Fernley Elementary School, Fernley, Nevada; e-mail [email protected]

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Literacy Instruction with Digital and Media Technologies

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As new literacies that include digital and media technologies evolve, preparing students to understand and adjust to these literacy demands is critical to current and future expectations for pleasure and work (International Reading Association, 2001; Leu, Mallette, Karchmer, & Kara-Soteriou, 2005).

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A first grade teacher and library media specialist collaborated on integrating technology into literacy by using pebbleGO.

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Literacy/Technology Integration using PebbleGo and Pixie

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A first grade teacher and the library media specialist explain how they collaborate to integrate a variety of technology tools with literacy instruction. First grade students develop Pixie eBooks as a result of the project.

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These are some fun websites/apps that students can use:

Scribe

Online annotations

students can collaborate on one file

Teacher can give feedback on the annotations

Annotations can be be open for teacher and students

VideoAnt

video annotations

users can share annotations with others

users can times tap an important part of a video to go back to

Kaizena Shortcut

Teachers provide detailed feedback to students

record comments verbally

insert links to grammar lessons

EdPuzzle

formative assessment

create lessons by embedding videos and generating questions such as open-ended or multiple choice on the video

teacher can view answers and provide real time feedback

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When teaching with digital natives in a digital world, one question facing many educators revolves around integrating technology to help facilitate learning: How do you work technology into the pedagogy, instead of just using something cool? That task can be especially daunting in language arts literacy classrooms where reading and writing skill development is the crux of daily lessons. However, as 1:1 technology initiatives roll out, integrating technology into the classroom is our reality.

With hundreds of sites, apps, Chrome extensions, and platforms available, choosing the right ones can seem overwhelming. As an eighth-grade language arts teacher, I've experienced this myself. Following are four tools that can help provide immediate formative assessment data as well as top-of-the-rotation feedback to help students develop personal learning goals.

If, like my school, you're in a "Chromebook District," these suggested tools will work well because all integrate perfectly when you sign in with your Google ID, limiting the need for multiple passwords. This saves a lot of student confusion, too.

1. Online Annotations via Scrible

Annotating texts is an evidence-based literacy strategy to help students understand and navigate complex texts, and a large part of my district's schoolwide literacy initiative. Annotating digitally as part of our 1:1 Chromebook program was something that I wanted to incorporate, and Scrible has proved to be a valuable tool for my students.

Registering is quick and free, whether via Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, or your own email account. Upon registration, users should select an educator account, which allows them to create libraries where they save the annotation for future reference. The one drawback is that Scrible doesn't yet support .PDF files. Among the highlights and benefits:

Students can work collaboratively on the same file.

Students and teachers can share annotations with each other.

Teachers can use annotations as formative assessment and comment back to students, allowing for immediate feedback.

Users can share annotations online via Facebook or Twitter.

With the sharing option, teachers can share any in-class modeling with students who were absent.

Annotating digitally allows for greater student choice as students find their own online texts.

There is a Google Chrome extension that you can add to your toolbar.

2. Video Annotations via VideoAnt

Digital literacy and using video as "texts" can create a myriad of issues for students who don't take effective notes. Developed by the University of Minnesota, VideoAnt allows users to annotate videos and save them to their own virtual "ant farm." The benefits:

Users can timestamp important parts of a video, allowing for easy access later.

Users can type notes with the timestamp, creating a quasi two-column note-taking tool.

Users can share video annotations with others.

3. Feedback via Kaizena Shortcut

Formerly known as Kaizena mini, Kaizena Shortcut is a Google extension that allows teachers to provide actionable, detailed feedback in a streamlined fashion. Typing out feedback in Google Docs comments boxes can get cumbersome. Even limiting feedback to three or four items takes time. Also, what happens when you need to address grammar errors? With Kaizena, teachers and students can:

Provide feedback in the form of typed comments.

Record comments verbally so that students can hear their teacher's voice on playback.

Insert links to grammar lessons.

The last bullet point is clutch for teachers who tire of providing feedback about the same grammar errors over and over. For example, many of my students commit that cardinal sin known as the comma splice. In Kaizena, I created a lesson on comma splices in which I typed a detailed explanation of what they are and how to correct them, as well as a link to a YouTube video about them. This lets teachers provide effective feedback that appeals to students with diverse learning styles. The drawback is that you have to manually create the lessons for each topic. But once you have them, the work is done, allowing you to differentiate grammar lessons based on individual students' errors.

4. Formative Assessments via EDPuzzle

Teachers of language arts and all content areas try to differentiate learning to reach a diverse group of learners by using video clips. But how do you know if students are really focusing and engaging in active learning during videos? EDPuzzle helps collect formative data that can drive instruction.

Users simply register for an account and then create classes. Each class gets its own code that students use for joining. Teachers can search and upload videos from YouTube, TED-Ed, Vimeo, KhanAcademy, and other sites. Then you create a lesson by embedding questions in the video that provides immediate formative data and allows you to check for understanding. Questions can be multiple-choice or open-ended.

I've used this when differentiating lessons, and it has worked flawlessly. For example, when working with theme, I broke the lesson into three levels. The first was for a basic understanding of the definition of theme. The second was for analyzing text to explain theme. The third focused on the crafts that writers use to create a theme. Students came in and completed an entrance slip via Socrative. I then used the data to determine where they were in the process of learning about theme, and assigned them appropriate videos in EDPuzzle.

As students completed the videos, I was able to check for understanding based on the data from their completed questions before moving them to the next level. I could also provide real-time feedback to the questions, explaining concepts further if needed.

While there are hundreds of technology tools out there to help language arts teachers, these four have helped me enhance my use of formative data and feedback to further student achievement in a diverse and differentiated classroom.

What technology tools work well in your language arts class?

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When teaching with digital natives in a digital world, one question facing many educators revolves around integrating technology to help facilitate learning: How do you work technology into the pedagogy, instead of just using something cool? That task can be especially daunting in language arts literacy classrooms where reading and writing skill development is the crux of daily lessons.

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A Writing Workshop teaches the writing process and help students slowly build up to writing a final paper. When teaching a writing workshop there are some steps that teachers should follow. First, there is a mini lesson where the teacher introduces a new skill/topic. After, students start to write and the teacher will do one-on-one conferences with all the students. Lastly, the students are able to share what they wrote about. This is very crucial for students to be able to discuss what they created, because it helps with confidence in writing

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Teaching writers workshop is a beautiful and amazing thing because it allows our own creativity to flow out on to paper for our student's to see.

I used to be scared to death of teaching writing. So, I didn't really teach it.

I was caught in a world of prompts, forced topics and "journals".

At the time I didn't realize that this wasn't building authors, I just knew that there was pencil put to paper, so I thought I was fine.

In the past year I was introduced to "crafts". Oh my gravy, did that open my eyes to my instruction. There wasn't a right or wrong anymore; there was only expression and ideas.

I was in love with writing. Little did I know that this would only be the beginning of a fabulous, thrilling romance with something I once loathed.

Writer's Workshop now is a joyous and electrifying time in my teaching day. It has become my favorite part of my day because I am free to explore books with my students with no boundaries, rules or fears.

So, where do you begin?

Well, you need to learn the basic outline for Writer's Workshop. There's 3 main parts: a teaching mini-lesson, writing and conferencing, and finally sharing.

Let's go through step by step with one of my favorite books The Very Lazy Ladybug. This book has many "crafts" embedded in it, so it makes for a great introduction to Writers Workshop.

With The Very Lazy Ladybug, a great first lesson is on "word wrapping".

As you can see from the title of the book, the words "wrap" around the pictures. This craft is used over and over in the story. It is stimulating and whimsical. It makes the reader want to read on.

Now that you're ready to begin, you have your book and craft picked out, it's time to start. Ready? OK, here's how writer's workshop goes...

"Hi boys and girls! Today we are going to use one of my favorite books to talk about 'word wrapping'. I'm going to read 2-3 pages for you so we can explore 'word wrapping'."

Open the book and read 2-3 pages that demonstrate the craft.

"Well, that was fun! Who can tell me where they saw the craft?"

Let one or two children briefly review the craft.

"Now I'm going to work on my story. I wanted to use the 'word wrapping' craft, so let me look through my story that I've been writing and see if there is someplace it would fit. Hmmmm? Well, I could put it on the page with the turtle... and I could write 'The turtle moves slowly along the ground.' around his shell. What do you think?"

Then add to your story while the children are watching you write.

PART 2 - Writing and Conferencing: 30 - 45 minutes

"OK boys and girls. My time is up, so do you know whose turn it is to write? Of course, it's your turn! Go ahead and get your supplies and get started. I'll be walking around once you're settled to see how you're doing."

I then go set a timer for 30 - 45 minutes... this way I know I'll stay on track for time.

My Writing Tools
Paper, books, and boards

This is when the children would get their writers workshop folders, pencils, markers, crayons, flexible cutting boards (to write on), and papers.

You should set writers workshop procedures in place for what to do when they need a writing tool, need more paper, finish a story and get "stuck".

The most important thing to remember is that the children should be W-R-I-T-I-N-G! Not coloring, or drawing. That's for a different time.

During this time I also turn off the overhead florescent lights and use natural light and lamps. I have about 5 lamps that only get turned on during writers workshop time. It makes the room have a magical and soothing feeling, which promotes writing!

I let my students find a place to write. Sometimes it's a desk, sometimes the floor, in a laundry basket, or standing up. I really don't care where they put themselves as long as they are writing.

I know that some teachers would be uncomfortable about this, but when you think about where you read and write at home, I'd venture to say that not many of you would say, "Sitting at a desk with a chair that's totally uncomfortable".

So, with procedures and rules I give my students the choice of location and have found that more often than not they move away from children they chat with and really write.

While the children are writing, I walk around, peeking over shoulders until I find someone who needs to have a conference. During this time the children and I discuss their stories, what crafts they are using, what they still want to add, what should be removed, and many other ideas. It is informal and conversational.

Sometimes my kids just amaze me with their ideas, thoughts and writing goals.

PART 3 - Sharing: 5 - 10 minutes

Once the timer rings, I bring all the children back together and we start sharing. This can be an "author's chair" type activity, partner sharing, large group, or however you want to share.

This stage is extremely important because young children need to develop the ability to discuss what they create. It also helps build self-esteem and confidence in writing.

That's writers workshop! You made it through! That wasn't so hard... Go try it! And just remember, everyday you write with your class helps them become better readers and writers!

Do you have something to say? Please write a testimonal today! I'd love to hear from you.

Wanting more ideas? Sign up for my free teaching newsletter and get ideas sent right to your email box.

New teacher? Struggling teacher? Download my free eBook that's packed with ideas, tips and tricks to get you through a rough year.

Have questions? Contact me about Writers Workshop in your classroom.

Just need more ideas for your classroom, try Sites for Teachers. They have great ideas!

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Teaching writers workshop is a beautiful and amazing thing because it allows our own creativity to flow out on to paper for our student's to see. I used to be scared to death of teaching writing. So, I didn't really teach it. I was caught in a world of prompts, forced topics and "journals".

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A second grade teacher is modeling how a reading workshop is done in her classroom.

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Mrs  Girard's 2nd Grade Reading Workshop

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Uploaded by Jerilyn Hogan on 2016-01-29.

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The teacher uses some great tools while conducting shared reading.

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By students reading independently can improve students vocabulary and fluency. This gives a chance for students to choose what texts they want to read and enjoy reading. So by having a library in a classroom can improve students reading. Also it is important to note that there should be different levels of reading noticeable in the library, because sometimes a book that is too difficult for a student can lead them not wanting to read.

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Independent reading is children's reading of text - such as books, magazines, and newspapers - on their own, with minimal to no assistance from adults. It can consist of reading done in or out of school, including purely voluntary reading for enjoyment or assigned reading for homework.

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Children learn to communicate by speaking and listening. In order to make a transition to communicating through reading and writing, they need a large vocabulary and effective decoding skills. This article explains the importance of developing vocabulary and some different strategies that can be used in the classroom.

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Effective Teaching Strategies for Improving Reading Compre

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Monday Mornings with Marisa: Developing Vocabulary

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Part of the Monday Mornings with Marisa video series, this SRA Open Court Reading Developing Vocabulary sample lesson features teacher Marisa Russo reading a story aloud to model grade 2 vocabulary development strategies such as inferring a word's meaning based on context and apposition.

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This video engages students learning about comprehension strategies in a more interactive activity.

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Sing Those Strategies!:  Engaging Students in Reading Comprehension Strategies

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This video displays some great strategies for read alouds. The teacher uses expression and emphasize vocabulary terms when reading. Also, she uses some pre, during, and post questions while conducting the read aloud.

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Teaching Strategies for Early Childhood Education

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Strategies for Reading Aloud to Young Children

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Guided Reading is an instructional approach where a teacher works with a small group of students and guides the reading.
Read Alouds is where the students read aloud and build on their fluency.
Shared Reading is an interactive reading experience that occurs when students join in or share the reading of a book or other text while guided and supported by a teacher.
Independent reading is when the students choose their own text to read quietly.

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This video explains the importance of phrasing in fluent reading.

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Reading Recovery Council of North America

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Effective Literacy Practices - Phrasing in Fluent Reading

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According to E. H. Hiebert,

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According to LA Times, "[Jeannie Chall] believed 'Learning to Read' was unequivocal in stating the case for phonics: 'At every level tested--kindergarten through college--letter and phonics knowledge is positively associated with reading achievement and also spelling,' she wrote. 'At the college level, particularly among poor readers, knowing sound values of letters has an important relationship to reading ability.'"

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Jeanne S. Chall, an influential psychologist whose research on reading opposed the educational tide and led to her unwavering belief in the importance of phonics, has died.

An emeritus professor at Harvard University, Chall was 78 and died of heart failure Saturday at her home in Cambridge, Mass., a spokeswoman for the Harvard Graduate School of Education said.

The author of several well-regarded texts on reading, Chall was best known for her staunch support of phonics instruction, an unpopular position during the past two decades when the nation's schools were dominated by the so-called whole language approach: teaching reading primarily through contextual clues rather than alphabetic decoding.

In the 1960s, when she undertook a massive review of reading research, Chall thought the scholarly scales would tip in whole language's favor.

But Chall, to her surprise, proved herself wrong. Her 1967 book, "Learning to Read: The Great Debate," was a definitive analysis of reading research that argued for the critical importance of teaching children phonics as a first step on the path to becoming good readers.

"Most people would bow to their expectations and filter and arrange the information so it made sense in their own world view. Jeanne turned hers upside-down and said: 'What do you know? We are making a mistake,' " said Marilyn Adams, an eminent reading researcher whose 1990 book, "Beginning to Read," confirmed Chall's 1967 findings.

After virulent debate over the proper way to engage young children in the task of reading, public schools in California and elsewhere around the nation have begun to reintroduce phonics instruction, along with vocabulary and spelling drills, to reverse a pattern of weak performance on national tests of reading competency.

Adams said Chall was "loudly and brutally maligned" by whole language advocates after taking her stand for phonics. But the Harvard professor, a petite woman described by colleagues as a tiny dynamo, stuck to her view that phonics was essential, particularly for disadvantaged students who were most likely to start school without grounding in the ABCs.

In fact, Chall's research helped demonstrate that knowledge of the alphabet and awareness of the sounds that make up words are among the most powerful predictors of reading success.

By the mid-1990s, as dismal reading scores rang alarm bells in California and other states, Chall's work was reissued in paperback, sought by a new generation of educators eager for guidance in what had become a hotly political debate.

"Learning to Read" was unequivocal in stating the case for phonics: "At every level tested--kindergarten through college--letter and phonics knowledge is positively associated with reading achievement and also spelling," she wrote. "At the college level, particularly among poor readers, knowing sound values of letters has an important relationship to reading ability."

Although she insisted that intensive phonics instruction produced better readers, Chall also was careful to emphasize that it was only a tool. She agreed with whole language enthusiasts that it was just as essential for young children to be exposed to challenging and imaginative literature.

"Probably the majority of the things she published were about those issues--what makes text more difficult, more appealing, more challenging for children," said Adams, a protege of Chall who is a visiting scholar at Harvard.

Chall collected and reviewed classic American readers. Several years ago, after comparing current readers to many in her collection that were popular a century ago, she concluded that the old texts were more challenging and tackled more substantial topics than contemporary readers. That led her to develop her own series of readers for children in second through fourth grades that featured such classics as Hans Christian Andersen's "The Nightingale" and an 1892 story about wasps called "The First Paper Makers."

"Research has shown that when the books were harder the children achieved better, and when they got easier the achievement went down," Chall said in 1994. "You don't have to be a great scientist to see that makes sense."

Chall was born in Poland on Jan. 1, 1921 and immigrated to New York when she was 7. She spoke mainly Yiddish when she arrived in the United States, but quickly absorbed English in New York City public schools. She became her mother's tutor, teaching her English well enough to pass the test for U.S. citizenship.

She became the first member of her family to attend college, graduating cum laude from City College of New York in 1941. By 1952 she had earned a master's and a doctorate from Ohio State University.

She taught at Ohio State, New York's City College and Columbia University's Teachers College before joining Harvard's Graduate School of Education as a full professor in 1965.

She founded the Harvard Reading Laboratory and was an early advisor to the creators of the PBS series "Sesame Street." She also developed an important diagnostic tool for reading specialists with her Ohio State University mentor, Edgar Dale. Called the Dale-Chall Readability Formula, it was one of the first and most effective tools for measuring the difficulty of a text.

Although she became an emeritus professor in 1991, Chall continued to conduct and publish research. Among the works published after she formally retired were "Learning to Read in the Computer Age," "Creating Successful Readers," "Readability Revisited and the New Dale-Chall Readability Formula" and "Teaching Children to Read." She recently completed a book on academic trends over the past half-century, which will be published in February.

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Jeanne S. Chall, an influential psychologist whose research on reading opposed the educational tide and led to her unwavering belief in the importance of phonics, has died. An emeritus professor at Harvard University, Chall was 78 and died of heart failure Saturday at her home in Cambridge, Mass., a spokeswoman for the Harvard Graduate School of Education said.

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According to Hallie Kay Yopp, "The awareness that the speech stream is made up of a sequence of small units of sound and the ability to manipulate those small units— phonemic awareness—appears to be critical for readers of an alphabetic orthography. Why? Because an alphabetic orthography maps speech to print at the level of the phoneme. In other words, users of an alphabetic written system record the smallest units of sound of their spoken language in print."

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Reading workshop are important like writing workshops. This is where students are developing vocabulary and comprehension. The reading workshop is the same process as the writing process, but instead of writing the students are reading. This specific teacher has 5 choices when conducting a reader's workshop. The choices are:

read to self

read to someone

listen to reading

work on writing

word work

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Comprehension strategies are very important to teach. Students need to be able to think from simple to complex. These strategies are made to have students think in higher order thinking. The Key Comprehension Strategies are:
+ Activating and Using Background knowledge
+ Generating and Asking questions
+ Making Inferences
+ Predicting
+ Summarizing
+Visualizing
+ Comprehension Monitoring

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References

Click the "References" link above to hide these references.

1. Dole, J. A., Duffy, G. G., Roehler, L. R., & Pearson, P. D. (1991). Moving from the old to the new: Research on reading comprehension instruction. Review of Educational Research, 61, 239-264.

2. Anderson, R. C., & Pearson, P. D. (1984). A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading. In P. D. Pearson, R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, & P. Mosenthal (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 255-292). New York: Longman.

3. Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Anderson, R. C., Reynolds, R. E., Schallert, D. L., & Goetz, E. T. (1977). Frameworks for comprehending discourse. American Educational Research Journal, 14, 367-382.

4. Pichert, J. W., & Anderson, R. C. (1977). Taking different perspectives on a story. Journal of Educational Psychology, 69, 309-315.

5. Armbruster, B. B., Anderson, T. H., & Ostertag, J. (1987). Does text structure/summarization instruction facilitate learning from expository text? Reading Research Quarterly, 22, 331-346.

6. Wood, E., Woloshyn, V. E., & Willoughby, T. (1995). Cognitive strategy instruction for middle and high schools. Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.

7. Pressley, M., Symons, S., McGoldrick, J. A., & Snyder, B. L. (1995). Reading comprehension strategies. In M. Pressley & V. E. Woloshyn (eds.), Cognitive strategy instruction that really improves children's academic performance. Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.

8. Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Hansen, J., & Pearson, P.D. (1983). An instructional study: Improving the inferential comprehension of fourth grade good and poor readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 821-829.

9. Gillet, J. W., & Temple, C. (1994). Understanding reading problems: Assessment and instruction (4th ed.). New York: Harper Collins.

10. Honig, W., Diamond, L, & Gutlohn, L. (Eds.). (2000). Teaching reading sourcebook for kindergarten through eighth grade. Novato, CA: Arena Press; National Reading Panel, 2000.

11. Pressley, G. M. (1976). Mental imagery helps eight-year-olds remember what they read. Journal of Educational Psychology, 68, 355-359.

12. Gambrell, L. B., & Bales, R. J. (1986). Mental imagery and the comprehension-monitoring performance of fourth and fifth-grade poor readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 454-464.

13. National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

14. Dole et al., 1991; Palincsar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension monitoring activities. Cognition & Instruction, 2, 117-175.15. Paris, S. C., Wasik, B. A., & Turner, J. C. (1991). The development of strategic readers. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. 2, pp. 609-640). New York: Longman.

16. National Reading Panel, 2000.

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How can classroom reading instruction help poor readers - indeed, all students - become more like good readers? Research suggests that the answer may lie in providing students with instruction that both teaches them the comprehension strategies that work so well for good readers and helps them to develop the necessary metacognitive awareness of how and when to use these strategies.

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According to Fountas & Pinnel, "Guided reading is not an exercise to practice reading skills. It is research-based, professionally energized, highly targeted, scaffolded reading instruction that propels all students toward confident, independent reading of high quality grade level books across a diverse array of literature and informational genres. Reading well means reading with deep, high quality comprehension and gaining maximum insight or knowledge from each source."

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The teacher in the video uses guided practice for fluency reading. She also uses some instructional strategies that can be done in any classroom.

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How to Teach Fluency  with Accuracy and Phrasing

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Fluency is the speed, accuracy, and prosody that a person uses when reading a text. When a student is able to decode, express, and comprehend a text the student displays fluency. However, if the student struggles with one action it can result in struggling with other actions, which can makes the student lose understanding of the text.

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Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

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Fluency is the most overlooked of the five essential aspects of reading. Because it is usually measured through oral reading, many do not consider it important to silent, independent reading. However, fluency plays an important role in a reader's ability to comprehend texts.
What is fluency?
At the most basic level fluency is the speed, accuracy and prosody (expression) that a person uses when reading a text. Because it is multifaceted fluency involves a reader's ability to use multiple skills simultaneously. As a reader reads a text it is important that he is able to efficiently decode and comprehend the individual words and complete phrases and sentences that he encounters. When he must stop at each word and spend time trying to pronounce it or determine its meaning he is unable to develop an overall understanding of the text. This aspect of fluency makes perfect sense to us. However, the role that prosody plays in reading comprehension is a bit "fuzzier" for many people. To see how expression influences comprehension consider the experience of reading the following sentence without any sort of emotional expression: How dare you take the last piece of my birthday cake! The sentence loses much of its meaning when not read with expression. Prosody is not only the emotion represented in reading, but also the phrasing and reader's interpretation.
Determining a Reader's Fluency
Accurate assessments should be aimed at determining a reader's fluency focus on all three components: speed, accuracy and prosody. The most standard measure for determining fluency is one that primarily assesses speed and accuracy. A child reads a novel, but grade level appropriate passage for sixty-seconds. As she reads the teacher notes the number of words read correctly. This number is then divided by the amount of time that the student reads for (60 seconds). The resulting number is the child's fluency rate. This rate is used to determine if the student is reading on grade level. While this formula does not indicate prosody, the assessor can also determine it by examining the same sixty-second reading session. By taping the child reading, the teacher can go back and listen to the recording focusing on how appropriately she phrases her reading and uses expression.
Role of Fluency in Reading
Fluency is inextricably tied to decoding and reading comprehension. It serves as the bridge between decoding and comprehension. On one level fluency reflects a reader's ability to decode the words in a text. If he is able to quickly and accurately move through the words on the page, his decoding skills are automatic. This means that the reader should be able to accurately comprehend the text. This is not always the case though. Prosody plays a very important role in reading comprehension. A reader may be able to efficiently decode words without really understanding what they mean because he is not engaging with the text on an emotional and personal level. When he reads with appropriate expression and is able to recognize and replicate the writer's phrasing comprehension will follow. Expression allows the reader to make more the complex cognitive connections necessary for true reading comprehension.

Because fluency is tied to decoding abilities, it fluctuates based on the difficulty and complexity of the text a person is reading. While each reader has a general fluency rate (as determined by a fluency assessment) it will increase if she is reading a text that is well below her independent reading level or will decrease when reading one well above.
Impact of Fluency on Reading Ability
Focus on fluency in the elementary years is important to development of reading ability in young children. Children in grades kindergarten through 4th grade show the greatest gains in fluency when it is included in the reading education program. Students with reading difficulties continue to show improvement in reading ability through high school when their teachers include fluency instruction in their reading programs.

Fluency has the greatest impact on reading comprehension. Children with high fluency rates tend to read more and remember more of what they read because they are able to expend less cognitive energy on decoding individual words and integrating new information from texts into their knowledge banks.

Fluency also has positive effects on word recognition skills. Those children exposed to reading programs with a focus on fluency have shown greater gains in their abilities to efficiently recognize words than those not receiving instruction with a fluency component.

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Fluency is the most overlooked of the five essential aspects of reading. Because it is usually measured through oral reading, many do not consider it important to silent, independent reading. However, fluency plays an important role in a reader's ability to comprehend texts. What is fluency?

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Phonics is the building blocks to reading. It is the connection between graphemes and sounds. It relies on the students' understanding of sounds and recognizing letters that correspond with the given sound. Letters stay the same, however, sounds come out in different units such as: syllables, onsets, rimes, and phonemes.

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Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

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Phonics is one of the primary building blocks of reading. Without an understanding of the relationship between letters and sounds, reading cannot occur. This multifaceted connection between print and pronunciation is an important component of any instructional program in reading because it provides readers with tools for discovering new written words.
What is phonics?
Simply put, phonics is the connection between graphemes (letter symbols) and sounds. Because we have been readers for a good portion of our lives this relationship seems apparent and common sense. However, in reality there is no natural connection between words and their meanings. For example, there is nothing innately "cup-like" about the word "cup". Even more, the written letters making up the word "cup" do not reflect anything about an actual cup. The word and its written form are agreed upon by English speakers and thus must be learned in order to communicate.

At the very core of phonics lies the alphabet. In order to master phonics a person must master the alphabet. Letters then need to be connected to their corresponding sounds. As we know as English speakers, this is easier said than done. Many letters can represent a number of different sounds. Thus learning phonics is an ongoing process for a developing reader.
Elements of Phonics
The correspondence between letters and sounds presents itself in several different ways. While letters remain the same, sound comes in different units: syllables, onsets and rimes and phonemes. Each syllable is made up of an onset, a rime or a combination of both. An onset is any consonants presented before a vowel in a syllable. For example, in the word "star"/st/ is the onset. Conversely a rime is any vowel and consonant(s) following an onset. In "star"/ar/ is the rime. Phonemes are the small units of sound that make up a word. While "star" consists of only one syllable, it contains four different phonemes: /s/ /t/ /a/ /r/.
Role of Phonics in Reading
As you may have noticed phonics and phonemic awareness (the understanding that words are comprised of small segments of sound) are intimately connected. Phonics relies heavily on a reader's phonemic awareness. The reader must not only understand that words are made up of phonemes (small units of sound), he must also know a number of phonemes. Since a reader's primary phonemic awareness develops through speaking and listening, most children come to reading with many phonemes stored in their knowledge banks. Phonics instruction connects these phonemes with written letters so that they can transfer their knowledge of sounds to the printed word. This is why phonics instruction is an important component of early reading education.

The goal of phonics instruction is to help readers quickly determine the sounds in unfamiliar written words. When readers encounter new words in texts they use the elements of phonics to decode and understand them. There are a number of ways in which phonics can be applied to reading. Synthetic phonics builds words from the ground up. In this approach readers connect letters to their corresponding phonemes (sound units) and then to blend those together to create a word. For example, if a reader encountered the word "apple" and did not recognize it, he would sound out each segment of the word (/a/ /p/ /l/) and then blend these sounds together to say the entire word. Analytic phonics, on the other hand, approaches words from the top down. A word is identified as a whole unit and then its letter-sound connections are parsed out. This approach is especially helpful when a reader comes to words that cannot be sounded out (such as "caught" and "light") and reinforcement of sight words. Analogy phonics uses familiar parts of words to discover new words. When applying analogy phonics to the word "stun" a reader notices that the second half of the word is the same as other familiar words ("sun" and "fun"). She can then apply her knowledge of this phoneme to easily decode the word.
Impact of Phonics on Reading Ability
Phonics instruction has a strong impact on the reading abilities of young children. Those receiving phonics instruction in the early grades (K-1) showed significant gains in their reading comprehension and spelling abilities and moderate growth in oral reading skills. Studies show that children in grades 2-6 also show growth in these areas, but theirs is not as considerable as that seen in primary grade students. At the upper grades, phonics instruction has a positive impact on the reading abilities of disabled, low achieving non-disabled students as well as those from low socio-economic backgrounds. These groups of children showed growth in their abilities to decode and spell new words. However, their reading comprehension skills were not affected by phonics instruction.

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Phonics is one of the primary building blocks of reading. Without an understanding of the relationship between letters and sounds, reading cannot occur. This multifaceted connection between print and pronunciation is an important component of any instructional program in reading because it provides readers with tools for discovering new written words.

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This a great chart to put on a classroom wall. This can help students associates the sounds with the letter which can improve reading and comprehension.

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Ms.Marisa models different lessons/activities on phonemic awareness.

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Phonemic awareness is the ability of students to be able to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds. This is a very important a skill that students should be able to do, because these skills help the students spell and also improve reading comprehension. The students should develop skills of phonemic awareness by blending, phonemic segmentation(first isolation, last isolation and completion).

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First of all, Phonemic awareness is not phonics. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds-phonemes--in spoken words. Before children learn to read print, they need to become more aware of how the sounds in words work. They must understand that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes (the smallest parts of sound in a spoken word that make a difference in a word's meaning).

Why Phonemic Awareness Is Important

Phonemic Awareness Can Be Developed Through Activities

Identify and categorize sounds

Blend sounds to form words

Delete or add sounds to form new words

Substitute sounds to make new words

Phonemic Awareness Instruction Is Most Effective When--

Students are taught to manipulate phonemes by using alphabet letters.

Instruction focuses on only one or two rather than several types of phoneme manipulation.

Phonemic instruction is taught in Kindergarten or First Grade.

Phonemic Awareness Instruction Basics

Children who cannot hear and work with the phonemes of spoken words will have difficult time learning how to relate these phonemes to graphemes (A letter of an alphabet, or all of the letters and letter combinations that represent a phoneme, as f, ph, and gh for the phoneme- American Heritage Dictionary) when they see them in written words. Early readers can show they have phonemic awareness in several ways:

recognizing which words in a set of words start with the same sound

isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word

combining or blending the separate sounds in a word in order to say the word

breaking up or segmenting a word into its separate sounds.

Examples of Phonemic Awareness Skills

Blending: What word am I trying to say? Nnnnn-oooo--t.

Segmentation (first sound isolation): What is the first sound in not?

Segmentation (last sound isolation): What is the last sound in not?

Segmentation (complete): What are all the sounds you hear in not?

"One of the most compelling and well-established findings in the research on beginning reading is the important relationship between phonemic awareness and reading acquisition." (Kame'enui, et. al., 1997)

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First of all, Phonemic awareness is not phonics. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds-phonemes--in spoken words. Before children learn to read print, they need to become more aware of how the sounds in words work.

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This dance is a great alternative way to teach students sounds and blends. It is great for students who are more musical and movement learners. Also it helps ELL students learn phonics in a more fun way.

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This is a great assessment where a teacher can assess the students on phonemic awareness. The phonemic awareness assessment assesses students on segmentation and blend of phonemes. The assessment also includes alphabet recognition and letter sound identification. It can be given as a pre and post assessment as well.