Literacy Instructional Teams

Teams that embrace literacy instructional practices mainly focus on providing the students with the required assistance. This help encompass proper instruction and planning essentially through the access and interpretation of diverse forms of data to come up with  great and enlightened instructional practices that aim at benefiting my learners (Collins, 2013). This paper will address my literacy instructional team, strengths of the members and how well they contribute to the effectiveness of the literacy instructional team.

Description and Strengths

            My current literacy instructional team is made up of three members. My main focus is on struggling learners and I channel my energy towards ensuring that they develop in different phases to get to the same level as top learners. Additionally, I greatly embrace compensating strategies and remediation since learners can discover the rules as they get more assistance on a one-on-one basis and have the most challenging parts read to them. For instance, if a child has their most challenging and important parts read to them, it becomes easier for them to understand as compared to when they are left to read on their own. The second member in the team is concerned with three factors (intensiveness, expertness, and extensiveness) while the third member assists me in dealing with top learners in the class. My strength lies in helping the learners handle their work correctly and fluently. The second member’s strength is in the expertise evident while dealing with the overall class. Finally, the strength of the third member is in creation of an interaction between the learners to deliberate on several issues to better their understanding respectively. Consequently, we form a complete cycle whereby every learner’s interests are fully catered for in terms of need and grasping capability.

Challenges

As a team, we have meetings where we discuss matters on how students are faring, which improvements have been noted, what strategies have worked, and students who require special attention (Collins, 2013). These factors enable us to support learner diversity. However, there are several challenges that my team encounters during the execution of activities. For instance, some learners are rigid and unwilling to respond to their weaknesses while others are so quiet consequently making it difficult to know the areas to pay most attention (Collins, 2013). These challenges create a disparity in terms of advancement and improvement among learners. On the other hand, these challenges are important because they help the team to increase the expertise, experience, and understanding of the learners thus increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the process. Fortunately, these challenges can be addressed through establishment of group discussions where learners can challenge each other and sharpen their skills, thus, enhancing solving of challenges among learners in levels where instructors cannot (Collins, 2013).

References

Collins, P. (2013). What can literacy teams do for your readers? Retrieved from www.lcosu.org/documents/pdfs/3GRG-PIP-05.pdf

Considerations When Working With Struggling Readers Program Transcript. [Interview transcript].

What is Diversity?

As a blunt term, the University of Idaho (n.d.) defines diversity as being “[any] individual differences such as age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and physical ability or disability” (p. 12).  However, I believe that diversity can be viewed, and defined, by using a much broader frame of thinking. Diversity is a concept that allows room for all languages, cultures, and thought processes to have a chance to learn, exist, grow, and change. In the educational realm, diversity is a requirement in the present-day. This is because students and their families are immigrating from all over the world. This can help the reputation and skill of teachers, students, and their institutions, as students with outside perspectives can inform instructors and peers when a certain aspect of speech or lesson planning is offensive or neglectful. This feedback requires instructors to develop and improve their lesson planning skills to a degree that they can anticipate any other feedback that they may get from students who come from diverse cultural backgrounds (Diversity and Inclusive Teaching (Archived), n.d.).

Nemeth (n.d.) writes that “Children under the age of six who come from immigrant families form the fastest growing segment of our population, [and] census estimates show that about 25% of preschool-aged children come from homes where a language other than English is spoken” (p. 225). This means that the classroom setting will be changing in the future. Diversity, when viewed as the overlying concept, welcomes this change openly. This is because diversity creates the room for the various languages and cultures that will be introduced to help positively influence the lessons that are taught and activities that are done. By doing this, the adjustment period that students and teachers will inevitably have will go from being disheartening and awkward to exciting and informative.

References

Diversity and Inclusive Teaching (Archived). (n.d.).

Nemeth, K. (n.d.). Language and Cultural Diversity in the Classroom. Language-and-Cultural-Diversity.pdf [PDF]

University of Idaho. (n.d.) Multicultural Perspectives and Diversity Issues. Chapter_4.pdf [PDF]

Creating a Literacy Environment

Literacy development is dependent on instruction meaning that if one finds quality instruction, then they are likely to develop better literary skills. Children are passed through successive stages of literacy and in each stage there are qualitative changes in writing and reading tasks meaning that the quality of instruction has to change at all stages. The purpose of this essay is to describe the different elements of a literature rich environment in a classroom.

The early literacy lesson is about a kindergarten teacher conducting a literature lesson. The lesson begins with a ‘read aloud’ lesson after which the students perform a writing activity. The areas within the literary framework that can be observed from this media are reading and writing. The teacher is guiding the students to read and write on different topics like science, math and social studies. The classroom material is adapted to meet the learning needs of the students and also to motivate the students to reading. When in need of more information, students use dictionaries, computers, word walls, encyclopedias and their peers. The teacher is also of great help to the students in case they need assistance from him.

The Common Core State Standards is an educational initiative which has information on what K-12 learners should know in mathematics and English. The media example of teacher evokes conversation on language while reading aloud helps in improving the vocabulary of the learners. This can be integrated with the components of a literary environment where the classroom may be filled with pictures and words, and mathematical notions and expressions. The purpose of this is to increase student interaction with the course content thereby promoting retention of the content (Ragains & Wood, 2015). There is a session for practical everyday practice where students use signs, watches and schedules to understand the different ways in which words can be used. Children with learning disabilities like those with visual impairments are allowed to use Braille in order to make the classroom more inclusive.

The two components of the framework for literary instruction which I feel I am confident are the interactive and critical component. I feel I can instruct reading, writing and comprehension very easily. I also feel I have the analytical skills to critically examine and evaluate text. However, I feel that I need to develop more skills that form the basis for reading, writing and comprehension.

The literary framework can be used as a planning tool in enhancing literary instruction (Powell & Rightmyer, 2012). I will collaborate with my colleagues to ensure that we always have literary rich environments in the classrooms. This is where we will emphasize the importance of reading, speaking and writing. The materials that will be selected in the classroom environment will be those that facilitate development of language among the students. Together with my colleagues, we will inform the students to always relate the course content with whatever they experience in their daily lives. We will have a wide selection of books from different subjects to ensure that we can alternate the books. This will help evoke and maintain the interests of the students and also expose them to different topical issues. In order to accommodate the learning needs of the students, there are instances when the environments will be adapted to individual students. This is where as a teacher I will create both directed and group activities during the process of assessing student performance in the course contents. Students will be allowed to participate actively in the process. For example, students may be required to dictate some words. When a student who is not yet fluent in pronunciation dictates words, then the other students may understand the translation of oral language into written.

References

Powell, R., & Rightmyer, E. (2012). Literacy for all students: An instructional framework for

closing the gap. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Ragains, P., & Wood, M.S. (2015). The new information literacy instruction: Best practices.

New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Self Efficacy

When it comes to being an efficient literacy educator, there are several key skills which are important to success. These skills include being able to conduct reading assessments, analysing these assessments, monitoring the progress of the student and finally assessing the outcomes. I found completion of the self assessment useful as it forced me to evaluate my skill set critically. Personally, when it comes to my own skill set I feel that I have a good basis on understanding the subject matter which will be evaluated. However, I feel struggle with being able to come up with methods to help foster critical thinking and problem solving (Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse, 2009). While I know there are resources available, this area comes easy to me, and I feel like I may have some problems coming up with fun and innovative ways to help foster these skills in students.

Three assumptions that non-early childhood educators might make about the early stages of literacy development are first that learning to read is natural for all children. The second assumption is that phonemic awareness is intuitive and does not need to be taught to children. The third assumption is that there is nothing you can do if a child hates reading. As a literacy educator it is important to have an understanding of these and other assumptions. One reason for this, is it will allow me to be able to anticipate problems before they occur. For example, if parents believe that phonemic awareness is intuitive, it is possible that some children may not have had exposure to this concept, and may be lacking skills in this area (Reutzel & Cooter Jr, 2016). Furthermore, students whose second language is English, may not have had exposure to this concept at home (Lesaux & Siegel, 2003). Therefore, I can design lessons and activities designed to help students improve the areas.

References

Lesaux, N. K., & Siegel, L. S. (2003). The development of reading in children who speak English as a second language. Developmental psychology, 39(6), 1005.

Literacy Coaching Clearinghouse. (2009). Self-assessment for elementary literacy coaches. Urbana, IL: Author.

Reutzel, D., & Cooter Jr, R. B. (2016). Strategies for reading assessment and instruction: Helping every child succeed. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Retake Literacy Education

To make a positive impact on literacy education, educators need to create an appropriate learning environment in the classroom, school and communities. In the classroom, the educator needs an approach to assess each individual to create an environment that integrates the visual, auditory and physical projects to ensure an effective literacy education. The classroom and school environment should encourage independency of the learners, whereby each learner is able to make individual choices, projects and assignments. The community, to positively impact on literacy education, should encourage parents to get involved in their children’s learning and family learning activities be championed. More importantly, literacy educators need an approach that nurtures their students, facilitate development in their literacy work and promote extensive reading (Ribeiro, 2011).

Research in literacy education is important in helping me understand individual students, help in nurturing their literacy and where development is needed. Research has aided in encouraging independency among the students and an approach to improve their learning. High-stakes assessment and standards in literacy education indicate the performance level of students and show how the educator is influencing, motivating and nurturing the students. A gap in phonics and comprehension evidently shows the literacy achievement gap in the classroom. This gap is influenced by the challenges in individual learners and lack of a strong support back at home. It is evident in that some learners easily read and pronounce word, and effectively comprehend their reading materials while other learners are incapable of this.

Learning resources advocates for learning through problem solving. This is an effective learning practice as it enables the educator have knowledge on their students, their reasoning mode and interests (Ribeiro, 2011).Through problem solving, the educator is able to know each students shortcomings and work on it. This also enhances the students’ capacity in knowing the areas they are good in. It was implicated that encouraging students to take charge of their learning is a positive approach of which I support as seen where students came up with words they were good in and read texts that they could understand impacted positively in the class. In addition, a tactic of using tests in teaching whereby I used tests was an effective experience. Therefore, tests and problem-solving are a good approach in literacy education.

Reference

Ribeiro, L. R. (2011). The Pros and Cons of Problem-Based Learning from the Teacher’s

Standpoint. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice , 19.

Literary Gaps

I am an African American Pre-K teacher at a private school which offers learning to children using diverse learning ways. I am passionate about transforming the lives of children by helping them to acquire literacy skills. There is nothing more gratifying than watching a little boy or girl come to school without any idea on how to read and write and later leave our watch to go to the next education level fully equipped with these life-changing skills!

However, despite our school, my colleagues and I doing our best at imparting these important literacy skills onto our students, lack of family engagement in their progress seems to stand out as an obstacle that creates a gap in their learning. During school hours, many children seem to be doing very well by the end of the day when they leave to go home but seem to have forgotten everything they had learnt when they come back to school the following morning.

Close observation points this ato lack of family involvement in reinforcing the literacy skills they have learnt. Family members, especially parents and guardians, must recognize that the learning process requires active involvement of both the teacher and the family. Children should be encouraged to practice what they have learnt at school when they go home. Practical examples include making helping the children to spell, read out loud and writing (Kendra, 2014).

Parents of the African American descent are known for prioritizing working over spending time with their children. However difficult it is, they should try their level best to get involved with the learning of their children. Currently, most children view learning as an activity that begins and ends within classroom walls. Instead, they should view it as a continuous life process that happens everywhere with no confines (Dearing et al, 2006). Furthermore, children love to impress and by seeing the family is interested in their progress, they are likely to be more motivated to grasp literacy skills.

References

Dearing, E., Kreider, H., Simkins S. & Weiss, H. B. (2006). Family involvement in school and

low-income children’s literacy: Longitudinal associations between and within families.

Journal of Educational Psychology, 98 (4), 653-664.

Kendra, F. (2014). Bridging the Gap: The Potential of Family Engagement. Stanford, CA: John

1. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities.

Developing a Conceptual Framework for Advocacy

Identification of issue for policy action

This is the initial stage where the organization identifies a problem, sets the agenda and target institutions for creating change (Sharma, n.d.). This organization, The Child Advocate, is focused on various forms of child abuse which result in mental health issues. The organization promotes policies to support children and the parents and professionals who work with them and advocate for them. The contributors in this organization note that children are prone to various forms of abuses which increase the chances of mental health issues during childhood or in their adulthood. The major forms of abuses targeted are emotional abuse, neglect and physical and sexual abuse. The organization supports these concerns using statistics which indicate that one third of girls and one fifth of boys suffer from some form of abuse (The Child Advocate, 2015). The national structures to respond to cases of child abuse are inadequate despite the fact that the trauma caused by childhood abuse can result in biological changes and lifelong problems. Besides, many children die every year as a result of maltreatment or neglect. Reports indicate that about 1,770 children died in 2009 because of various forms of abuse (The Child Advocate, 2015). The aim of this organization is to rectify these issues by supporting children and those who are involved in ensuring their welfare at family and health care levels.

Solution formulation

The organization proposes legal, education and medical solutions to the problem of child abuse in society (The Child Advocate, 2015). The legal solutions are meant to safeguard the interests of the victims in court cases on child abuse. The organization seeks to assist the victims and their families to secure legal services and thus reduce the barriers to achieving justice for the victims. The legal solution is feasible because it takes advantage of existing structures in communication and advocacy for children’s rights. The organization depends on the national and state advocacy resources and agencies to help the victims and their caregivers. Educational solutions are meant to help parents and professionals working with children to identify alternative options for children with special needs. The process aims to guide the caregivers in identifying if a child needs special education and the available steps required to secure educational opportunities. The organization proposes medical solutions to provide important information on psychiatric issues through medical research on child abuse and mental health. The information from various research studies is identified as important in formulating effective responses to cases of child abuse. The education and medical solutions are politically feasible because they require the formulation of policies to support academic needs of children with special requirements and implementation of medical recommendations on the needs of children with mental health issues.

Building political will

Political will involves creating support and collaboration with important stakeholders in implementing the proposed solutions (Sharma, n.d.). The major stakeholders in this case include the professionals, parents and policy makers in political institutions. This organization uses various strategies to create awareness about child abuse and its effects to the society. It is actively involved in spreading news releases about children undergoing mental health care, safety for children and cases of child abuse in the society. The information creates the necessary awareness about the risks faced by children to the public and policy makers. The organization is a major participant in conferences on mental health services where the members create awareness among professionals in health care and legal services. There are initiatives to educate parents on the best approaches on child care and the available options for dealing with cases of child abuse.

Policy action

Policy action is concerned with actualization of the proposed solutions by gaining the support of decision makers and creating awareness for other people to act towards the set objectives (Sharma, n.d.). This organization uses initiatives to inform judges and attorneys about children’s needs. Judges and attorneys are important in safeguarding the interests of children in the criminal justice system. The aim is to ensure that the legal professionals do not take action which may worsen the situation of children, such as through incarceration of youths with serious mental disorders. The organization uses initiatives to educate parents and professionals dealing with children on issues of child abuse. Parents and professionals in child care are important in supporting development of protocol in juvenile psychiatric hospitalization and ensuring commitment to long term care for those affected by mental health problems (The Child Advocate, 2015). The organization is involved with the activities of the House Democratic Policy Committee‘s Public Hearing on prescription of stimulants and antidepressants to children. This initiative is meant to facilitate development of laws to prevent unapproved use of medications on children. The organization uses custody visitation to monitor the progress of children who live in orphanages and provide mental care services for children living in poor families. The initiative is meant to avoid situations where parents are forced to place their children under the custody of state agencies so that they can be provided with health care services. These activities are done in collaboration with national and state agencies.

Evaluation

Evaluation is meant to assess the effectiveness of the initiatives adopted to advocate for various solutions to a problem (Sharma, n.d.). The Child Advocate does not provide details about the effectiveness of their programs to achieve better outcomes in protecting the interests of children against various forms of abuses. However, the organization provides opportunity for public comments on their initiatives. The comment section is important in collecting views about the importance of the program to the public and identifying opportunities for improvement through the suggestions made by people outside the organization.

References

Sharma, R. R. (n.d.). ​An introduction to advocacy: Training guide. Washington, DC: The Academy for Educational Development, SARA Project.

The Child Advocate. (2015). Our goals. Retrieved from http://childadvocate.net/

Literary Assessment

Literary Assessment Tools

While dealing with this student, there are a number of issues that were of significance. One of the main ones was understanding the various needs that the student presented in so far as literacy is concerned. In order to determine these problems, I choose to consistently talk with the student in order to determine the different sectors that posed a significant challenge to the child insofar as achieving literacy is concerned (Hehir & Katzman, 2012). To this end, the literary tools that I chose to use included assessing the fluency, word identification, comprehension, and writing sample of the student in order to determine the exact literacy needs, as well as challenges, that the student possesses. It became quite clear to me that these tools assess some of the predominant challenges that many students and learners face insofar as literacy is concerned. To this end, these tools provided me with the best opportunity to understand the seriousness which this problem and literacy affected the student in question (O’Connor & Vadasy, 2011). At the same time, the fact that these tools have been consistently relied on and proven to be of substantial credibility insofar as assisting literacy is concerned, provided me with the confidence necessary to ensure that I was able to successfully determine the various problems affecting the learning question.

By consistently asking the learner to read out text as well as having conversations, I was able to determine the degree of fluency that the learner possesses and in doing so it enabled me to develop a progressive plan with which the fluency challenges could be addressed. Secondly, I needed to understand the ability of the learner to identify specific words not only in text but also on their own. To this end, a word identification literacy tool proved to be quite critical. It enabled me to understand the ability of the learner to comprehend the meanings of words as well as to identify those words not only within sentences but also on their own or within the text, which was essential to understanding the literacy level of the student in question (Ortlieb & Cheek, 2013). These tools worked significantly well with the comprehension assessment tool. The comprehension assessment was conducted not only on the ability to comprehend speech but also on the ability of the learner to comprehend written text.

This worked well to provide a clear picture of the exact situation that affects the learner in question which enabled me to understand the severity of the literacy challenges that this learner was facing (Collins, 2004). Finally, the fact that I was able to combine all this with having the learner provide a writing sample proved to be the best decision possible in so far as assessing the literacy of the student is concerned. It enabled me to understand the ability of the child not only to comprehend text and speech but also to translate that understanding into a written form which is an essential part of literacy (Hehir & Katzman, 2012). This combination of tools provides a broad perspective surrounding the literacy capabilities of the student in question, which is essential to developing a remedy that is bound to help the student in question improved the literacy in both the long and short-term.

Results of Literary Assessment

From the informal interview conducted with a student, it was clear that the child in question struggled significantly with literacy. They consistently suffered from an inability to comprehend text as well as to read it, which proved to be significant towards impeding their ability to be literate (O’Connor & Vadasy, 2011). From the various literary tools used, it was quite clear that this child was in need of significant remedies to help them overcome their literacy challenges, and particularly as far as reading and comprehension are concerned. It is also worth noting that this student exhibited a significantly high level of instructional capability. Although the child was almost losing capable of following through on the instructions they were provided, they seem to understand what will what was required of them. This is a great advantage because it ensures potential remedies can focus on addressing the literacy problems in question such as comprehension and reading, rather than getting the child to understand the instructions they are provided with, either in text or speech, insofar as literacy is concerned.

Along the same line, it is worth noting that this child proved to be significantly frustrated with his inability to be fully literate. This was purposely reiterated in the fact that this child was consistently fidgeting and exhibited signs of embarrassment, anger, and frustration whenever he was required to undertake any literacy-oriented tasks that demanded them to be fully literate in order to successfully complete them (Collins, 2004). Furthermore, it is worth noting that this child exhibited significant problems with fluency. He was almost always incapable of reading complete sentences and particularly struggled with reading longer than normal words. This was particularly the case insofar as words with more than three syllables are concerned (Ortlieb & Cheek, 2013). The child read in a breaking manner, struggling to articulately read long words in one take. The frustrations that affect this child were also manifested when the child was required to repeat challenging sections during the fluency test as well as during the comprehension tests. As far as independence is concerned, this child exhibited partial independence as far as literacy is concerned (O’Connor & Vadasy, 2011). He was somewhat independent and had self-initiative when reading relatively simple text but this motivation was less apparent when the texts in question were complicated. At the same time, it is worth noting that the frustrations of the child were particularly evident when he was required to undertake comprehension tests involving complex texts or listening. From this, it is quite clear that the instructional level of this child is below his school grade and this requires significant preparation and intensive remediation in order to combat.

Data Implications on RRWWT Framework

The data collected from this informal interview with significance to developing a reliable and effective framework for helping the student improve your literacy. Is it purposely because the data provides a critical perspective of the various needs that the student possesses as well as the significant obstacles that he faces insofar as improving his literacy is concerned (Ortlieb & Cheek, 2013). Taking into account the results provided from the informal interview, it is important to understand that these will direct how the remote aforementioned is applied. In this sense, it will be essential to ensure that this child is provided with remedial classes and attention that is focused on improving his literacy (Hehir & Katzman, 2012). This will be conducted in a neutral and calm environment where the child is capable of full self-expression without judgment or condemnation. The best approach to facilitate this is to provide after-school programs for the child that can be undertaken at least 2 or 3 days every week.

At the same time, it is important that the content and material used in facilitating this remediation classes is age-appropriate to the grade of this child and that it is also interesting (Ortlieb & Cheek, 2013). This is one magazine and newspaper articles play a critical role in this respect. By sourcing for exciting and engaging articles in these sources, the student can be further motivated to read not only with the teacher but also by himself (Collins, 2004). Finally, it is critical that the classes provided to this child are well-paced. This is because this child exhibits a tendency to become frustrated whenever they are incapable of fully grasping concepts critical to the realization of full literacy. To this end, being patient with the child is critical to helping them grow their literacy skills, and is a trait that must be exhibited in the remediation process.

Technology Incorporation

As far as this child is concerned one of the best technologies that can be incorporated into his remediation is the use of text to speech software (Ortlieb & Cheek, 2013). This software enables the child to not only listen and improve the listening skills but also follow along by reading the text itself as it is being narrated. This software can be applied not only to the use of magazines and newspapers but also in simple novels which enables the child to grow multiple skills at the same time and in doing so improve his literacy. The flexibility and dynamism of this tool support the literacy needs of this child (O’Connor & Vadasy, 2011). It enables him to read and listen to texts of varying complexity and it appears that he can adequately follow. This manages to address all the aforementioned needs that the student exhibits which is essentially vital to improving his overall literacy and enabling him to catch up with his peers and develop literacy capability that matches his grade level. This is a tool that must be considered insofar as improving the literacy of the student is concerned.

Monitoring Progress

Being a gradual process, improving literacy in this child is not an overnight process. It will require dedication, consistency, commitment, and patience. In this respect, the best way to monitor the progress of the student will be during the remediation after-school program designed to help him improve his literacy (Collins, 2004). By consistently assessing his ability to read and comprehend text from magazines, newspapers, and even over, it will be possible to track his progress. In time, it will be possible for the child to improve his ability to study the words that he consistently runs into and in doing so eventually improve his literacy level. Also, it is worth noting that it will be essential to continually improve the quality and complexity of texts that this child is provided with (O’Connor & Vadasy, 2011). This enables him to gradually grow and develop his literacy skills which is the main goal of the remediation program. Lastly, consistently practicing on these issues will also help him improve his fluency in speech and writing which will contribute towards making him a well-rounded student that is fully literate.

References

Collins, K. (2004). Growing Readers: Units of study in the primary classroom. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.

Hehir, T., & Katzman, L. I. (2012). Effective inclusive schools: Designing successful schoolwide programs. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

O’Connor, R. E., & Vadasy, P. F. (2011). Handbook of reading interventions. New York: The Guilford Press.

Ortlieb, E., & Cheek, E. H. (2013). School-based interventions for struggling readers, K-8. Bingley: Emerald.