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Literacy:
A Clerc Center National Mission Priority
At the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, we are designing an
educational curriculum that best serves not only students at the Kendall
Demonstration Elementary School and the Model Secondary School for the Deaf,
but also deaf and hard of hearing students across the nation.
Almost daily we see articles in the paper about children who are not achieving
in their school programs. The same problems happen with
deaf children. After setting up a philosophy that includes
language and communication, we looked for strategies for getting
children to achieve. At the Clerc Center, we have been examining the
best practices for an ideal learning environment, and working on
putting it in practice daily.
After looking at the reading and
writing best practices, we have identified nine practices that need to
be in place. These include dialogue journals, shared reading and writing, other
journals and logs, independent reading, guided reading and writing, reading to
children, language experience, writers' workshop, and research reading and
writing. We have been working on these practices with the common goal of having
the ideal learning environment for our students.
At the Clerc Center, we have been working on various programs
and projects related to reading and writing. We also continue
to make contact with other promising practices throughout the United
States and share this information in the resources
and link section of our site. At the same time, we continue
to experiment with programs and projects at the Kendall
Demonstration Elementary School and the Model Secondary School for
the Deaf. And we continue to let people around the world know
about the materials and products developed
here and around the country. Literacy is just one of the Clerc Center's
priority areas. For more information about our other priorities,
please visit: http://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/Priorities/index.html.
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See also:
Frequently Asked Questions about literacy
BALANCED LITERACY RESEARCH
The nine areas of literacy adhere to the best practices in reading
and writing that have been found in schools across the nation. Best
practices in education pertain to a school reform movement of teachers,
educational researchers, and professional organizations that seeks
to determine and document effective teaching practices in schools
around the country.
“Schools can help all children become
independent readers and writers through a balanced literacy
program. The components of a balanced literacy program include
reading aloud, shared reading, guided reading, independent
reading, modeled/shared writing [dialogue journals and journals
and logs], interactive writing [language experience], and
independent writing [writer’s workshop and research
reading and writing].”
-Debra
Johnson
Balanced
Reading Instruction: Review of Literature
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), 1999 |
According to Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde (1998), “All the
people in this alternate, uncoordinated reform movement—teachers,
instructional researchers, professional associates, subject-area
leaders—have been rethinking the substance, content, processes,
methods, and dynamics of schooling. As a result, in virtually every
school subject, we now have recent summary reports, meta-analyses
of instructional research, reports from pilot classrooms, and landmark
sets of professional recommendations. Some of these reports were
produced with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, while
others were independent and self-financed. Taken together, this
family of authoritative documents provide a strong consensus definition
of Best Practice, of state-of-the-art teaching in every critical
field” (pp. 4).
Whether from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE),
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the Center for
the Study of Reading, the National Writing Project, the National
Council for the Social Studies, the International Reading Association
(IRA), the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS),
and the National Association for the Education of Young Children,
the same common recommendations are suggested.
They characterize best practice learning as:
- student-centered
- experiential
- holistic
- authentic
- expressive
- reflective
- social
- collaborative
- cognitive
- developmental
- constructivist
- challenging
Their recommendations are found in Best Practice: New Standards
for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools (Zemelman,
Daniel, & Hyde, 1998), pages 54, 84. The following charts that
list the recommendations on teaching reading and writing provide
a useful reference for teachers in developing a reading and writing
program in the classroom.
Recommendations on
Teaching Reading |
Increase |
|
Decrease |
| Reading aloud to students |
|
|
| Time for independent reading |
|
Exclusive emphasis on whole-class or reading-group
activities |
| Children's choice of their own reading material |
|
Teacher selection of all reading materials
for individuals and groups |
| Exposing children to a wide and rich range
of literature |
|
Relying on selections in basal reader |
| Teacher modeling and discussing his/her
own reading processes |
|
Teacher keeping his/her own reading tastes
and habits private |
| Primary instructional emphasis on comprehension |
|
Primary instructional emphasis on reading subskiills
such as phonics, word analysis, syllabication |
Teaching reading as a process:
Use strategies that activate prior knowledge
Help students make and test predictions
Structure help during reading
Provide after-reading applications |
|
Teaching reading as a single, one step act |
| Social, collaborative activities with much
discussion and interaction |
|
Solitary seatwork |
| Grouping by interests or book choices |
|
Grouping by reading level |
| Silent reading followed by discussion |
|
Round-robin oral reading |
| Teaching skills in the context of whole and
meaningful literature |
|
Teaching isolated skills in phonics workbooks
or drills |
| Writing before and after reading |
|
Little or no chance to write |
| Encouraging invented spelling in children's
early writings |
|
Punishing preconventional spelling students'
early writings |
| Use of reading in content fields (e.g., historical
novels in social studies) |
|
Segregation of reading to reading time |
| Evaluation that focuses on holistic, higher-order
thinking processes |
|
Evaluation focus on individual, low-level subskills |
| Measuring success of reading program by students'
reading habits, attitudes, and comprehension |
|
Measuring the success of the reading program
only by test scores |
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Recommendations on
Teaching Writing |
| Increase |
|
Decrease |
Student ownership and responsibility by:
-helping students choose their own topics and goals for improvement
-using brief teacher-student conferences
-teaching students to review their own progress |
|
Teacher control of decision making by:
-teacher deciding on all writing topics
-suggestions for improvement dictated by teacher
-learning objectives determined by teacher alone
-instruction given as whole-class activity |
Class time spent on writing whole, original
pieces through:
-establishing real purposes for writing and students' involvement
in the task
-instruction in and support for all stages of writing process
-prewriting, drafting, revising, editing |
|
Time spent on isolated drills on "subskills"
of grammar, vocabulary, spelling, paragraphing, penmanship,
etc.
Writing assignments given briefly, with no
context or purpose, completed in one step |
| Teacher modeling writing--drafting, revising,
sharing--as a fellow author and as demonstration of processes |
|
Teacher talks about writing but never writes
or shares own work |
| Learning of grammar and mechanics in context,
at the editing stage, and as items are needed |
|
Isolated grammar lessons, given in order determined
by textbook, before writing is begun |
| Writing for real audiences, publishing for
the class and for wider communities |
|
Assignments read only by teacher |
| Making the classroom a supportive setting
for shared learning using:
-active exchange and valuing of students' ideas
-collaborative small-group work
-conferences and peer critiquing that give responsibility
for improvement to authors |
|
Devaluation of students' ideas through:
-students viewed as lacking knowledge and language abilities
-sense of class as competing individuals
-work with fellow students viewed as cheating, disruptive |
| Writing across the curriculum as a tool for
learning |
|
Writing taught only during "language arts"
period--i.e., infrequently |
| Constructive and efficient evaluation that
involves:
-brief informal oral responses as students work
-thorough grading of just a few of student-selected, polished
pieces
-focus on a few errors at a time
-cumulative view of growth and self-evaluation
-encouragement of risk taking and honest expression |
|
Evaluation as negative burden for teacher and
student by:
-marking all papers heavily for all errors, making teacher a
bottleneck
-teacher editing paper, and only after completed, rather than
student making improvements
-grading seen as punitive, focused on errors, not growth |
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Using this list, the Clerc Center identified nine areas of literacy
that should be used with deaf and hard of hearing children. These
nine areas for balanced literacy include reading to students, language
experience, shared reading and writing, guided reading and writing,
writer’s workshop, research reading and writing, dialogue
journals, journals and logs, and independent reading.
Each of the nine areas of literacy in the Litearcy—It All
Connects program is based on research with what is best for the
general population. At the Clerc Center, we have been looking at
each of these areas, and seeing what research are available for
deaf and hard of hearing students.
According to Debra Johnson in Balanced Reading Instruction:
A Review of Literature (1999), “Schools can help all
children become independent readers and writers through a balanced
literacy program. The components of a balanced literacy program
include reading aloud, shared reading, guided reading, independent
reading, modeled/shared writing [dialogue journals and journals
and logs], interactive writing [language experience], and independent
writing [writer’s workshop and research reading and writing].”
(For more information, please go to the North Central Regional Educational
Laboratory (NCREL), at http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/timely/britoc.htm
For more information about the research behind each of the nine
areas, please go to the Supportive Research and Description Literature
in each of the areas.
For more information about Balanced Literacy, please visit
these (non-Clerc Center) Web sites:
Balanced
Literacy
Components
of Effective Reading & Writing
Early Literacy
The Four Blocks
Literacy Model
Issues
in Literacy Development
Learning to Read
Overview
of Learning to Read and Write
Reading Recovery Council
TUSD
Balanced Literacy Booklets
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