Literacy

Literacy Instructional Strategies Exemplar

(Provided courtesy of an iteachTEXAS candidate)

Sun & Moon: A Giant Love Story by Lisa Desimini

I chose this book because it provides a fascinating narrative to introduce the topic of eclipses around the overall theme of being kind to one another even if we have differences. By reading this book to kick off a unit on the earth, sun and moon, instruction can expand on the topic of eclipses to specify the difference between solar and lunar eclipses. The book is written a little below grade level which will promote the reading confidence of students who read at a lower level.

Oral Language - The book includes very descriptive pictures that depict each part of the story, therefore, I will use the pictures within the book to assess oral language prior to the students reading the book. The students will be asked to summarize or retell the story based solely on the pictures which will test students’ expressive vocabulary, grammatical skills, and spoken dialect use (Malec et al. 380 - 81).

Phonological Awareness - The book is useful for assessing phonological awareness of the suffix “-ed”. There are many examples of this suffix in the book including: bathed, belonged, collected, covered, followed, learned, moved, rescued, shined, squeezed, stopped, talked, walked, and watched. I would assess students phonological awareness skills by reading the book aloud and asking students to snap or clap when they hear that particular sound. This would demonstrate the number of students who are able to hear and differentiate that particular sound while also highlighting the students who are not able to hear that sound by those students not snapping or clapping when that word is read aloud.

Phonics - Many words that contain the consonant “m” are included in the text including: made, means, moment, moon, moonbeams, mooniness, moving, and moved. In order to assess awareness of this phonetic element, I would ask students to read the book independently and circle every word that contains this particular phoneme. This exercise would require students to also utilize graphemic awareness by recognizing the words that start with that consonant.

Fluency - This book can be used to enhance student reading fluency. After studying and practicing phonics and vocabulary using the book, the students can begin to read the text without getting hung up on certain words, which increases accuracy. The book promotes the use of

inflection by having a sort of rhythm throughout the text. The book utilizes short sentences and phrases rather than long paragraph format. For example, “The girl bathed alone in the ocean. Animals watched over her as she slept. The boy bathed with water squeezed from the clouds. Birds kept him warm as he slept.” In order to assess accuracy, I would listen to an oral reading and count the number of errors per 100 words, however, rate would be assessed by timing the student for sixty seconds and recording the number of incorrect words per minute (Hudson et al. 705). Prosody would also be measured by listening to an oral reading although I would only be recording notes regarding the student’s inflection, expression, and phrase boundaries (Hudson et al. 707).

Vocabulary - The book contains many words that are useful for expanding the vocabulary of students. For example: lonely, afraid, giants, planet, trouble, rough, travelers, warmth, eclipse, bright, and across. I will assess students’ vocabulary by asking them to define the word in writing using context clues.

Comprehension - Once the new vocabulary has been mastered, the students can begin to comprehend the meaning of the story in full. In order to assess each student’s comprehension of the book, I will ask them to summarize the story and answer pertinent questions such as who, what, when, where, why, and how.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba

This book is written a little above grade level which will be more challenging for some students but beneficial for students who already read at a higher level. It tells the true story of a young boy who created a windmill to bring electricity and water to his village. Reading this book would provide a good jumping off point for a lesson on renewable energy and/or electrical energy. This book is particularly lengthy to be used as part of science instruction, so I have chosen one chapter (chapter 9) of the book that is concentrated with scientific information to be read in class. If the students become interested in reading the full book, they could check it out from the school library.

Oral Language - I will assess students’ oral language abilities by having them retell or summarize the chapter in their own words (Malec et al. 381). This also allows me to assess their comprehension and vocabulary. Non-fiction texts can be more difficult for students to understand, therefore, I think it would be a good challenge for all students especially those that are higher achieving.

Phonological Awareness - The vocabulary words that I listed below as part of assessing vocabulary can also be used to assess phoneme blending. I will write individual phonemes on pieces of paper and ask students to place the phonemes in order to make one of the vocabulary words (Torgesen et al. 8). This could be turned into a game where the students compete to see who can complete each word the fastest.

Phonics - The portion of the book that I have chosen for classroom study contains many words with the “long ‘i’” vowel sound: appliances, behind, bicycle, delight, described, diagrams, diode, entire, exciting, fight, finds, giant, inside, library, like, lines, might, mind, otherwise, provided, rider, right, science, shiny, sometimes, time, turbine, while, white, wire, and write. I will assess this skill by asking students to read the passage with a partner and circle each word that contains the “long ‘i’” vowel sound. We would then review the words that students found by going through the passage together and identifying any such word.

Fluency - To assess accuracy, I would predetermine a section of the chapter that contains 100 words and have each student read the passage aloud without being timed (Hudson et al. 705). I would follow along with my own copy and note the words that each student stumbles on. I would assess reading rate by having each student read a different part of the passage aloud for one minute and note the words that each student mispronounces (Hudson et al. 705). Prosody would be assessed during each of the previous two exercises by listening to the student’s inflections and expressions while reading the passage.

Vocabulary - The book is rich in academic vocabulary such as: hydro plant, electricity, turbine, physics, petrol, electroscope, diode, kinetic energy, magnet, electromagnets, induction, alternating current, direct current, electron, fluorescence. To assess the student’s vocabulary skills, I will split the students into groups and assign each group a word to research and define. Each group will then present their research to the class and explain the word in detail.

Comprehension - When it comes to non-fiction texts, an effective way to assess comprehension is by having students create a chart to make notes as they are reading. According to Young, “students should create a chart with three columns labeled “text feature,” “page number,” and “what I learned” in which they record text features such as charts, diagrams, timelines, headings, and captions” (31). The students write down the page number, and then describe what they learned from the text features, or how it enhanced what they were reading (Young 31). I would utilize this strategy to assess students’ comprehension of the book chapter that was selected for reading.

Works Cited

Desimini, Lisa. Sun & Moon: A Giant Love Story. The Blue Sky Press, February 1999.

Hudson, Roxanne F., et al. “Reading fluency assessment and instruction: What, why, and how?”. The Reading Teacher, vol. 58, no. 8, May 2005, pp. 705 - 07.

Kamkwamba, William, and Bryan Mealer. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope. HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.

Malec, Alecia, et al. “Assessing Young Children’s Oral Language: Recommendations for Classroom Practice and Policy”. Canadian Journal of Education, vol. 40, no. 3, 2017, pp. 380 - 81.

Torgesen, Joseph K., and Patricia G. Mathes. “Assessment and Instruction in Phonological Awareness”. Florida State Department of Education, vol. 2, 2002, p. 8.

Young, Chase. “Providing Independent Reading Comprehension Strategy Practice through Workstations”. Texas Journal of Literacy Education, vol. 2, no. 1, 2014, p. 31.

Explanation of how I can use my research in the classroom - Most of these assessments can be applied to many different books. I will use what I learned to gather information about my students’ abilities across all the dimensions of literacy in order to pinpoint reading difficulties that my students need more practice with. Then I will target my instruction and ongoing assessment towards the areas students struggle most by choosing appropriate books at the level of complexity that is not too easy, but slightly challenging in order to push students’ reading levels and abilities through guided instruction and practice.