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Table of Contents

• Continuum of Children's Development...
• Primary Level Literacy Education: Three Planning Models
• Literacy Instruction in the Primary Grades
• Of Primary Interest Online
• Reprint Policy

Continuum of Children's Development...

Continuum of Children’s Development in Early Reading and Writing is a section of Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children, a joint position statement of the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The entire position statement, adopted this year, may be found in the July 1998 issue of YOUNG CHILDREN, Volume 53, Number 4, pages 30-46, and accessed on the internet at http://www.naeyc.org/resources/position_statements/psread0.htm or http://www.naeyc.org/resources/position_statements/psread98.pdf [NAECS Editor's note (07-27-07): These URLs are no longer active]. As a position statement, it is in the public domain and may be reproduced as such with the appropriate citation(s).

Phase 1: Awareness and exploration (goals for preschool)

Children explore their environment and build the foundations for learning to read and write.

Children can

• enjoy listening to and discussing storybooks
• understand that print carries a message
• engage in reading and writing attempts
• identify labels and signs in their environment
• participate in rhyming games
• identify some letters and make some letter-sound matches
• use known letters or approximations of letters to represent written language (especially meaningful words like their name and phrases such as "I love you")

What teachers do

• share books with children, including Big Books, and model reading behaviors
• talk about letters by name and sounds
• establish a literacy-rich environment
• reread favorite stories
• engage children in language games
• promote literacy-related play activities
• encourage children to experiment with writing

What parents and family members can do

• talk with children, engage them in conversation, give names of things, show interest in what a child says
• read and reread stories with predictable text to children
• encourage children to recount experiences and describe ideas and events that are important to them
• visit the library regularly
• provide opportunities for children to draw and print, using markers, crayons, and pencils

Phase 2: Experimental reading and writing (goals for kindergarten)

Children develop basic concepts of print and begin to engage in and experiment with reading and writing.

Kindergartners can

• enjoy being read to and themselves retell simple narrative stories or informational texts
• use descriptive language to explain and explore
• recognize letters and letter-sound matches
• show familiarity with rhyming and beginning sounds
• understand left-to-right and top-to-bottom orientation and familiar concepts of print
• match spoken words with written ones
• begin to write letters of the alphabet and some high-frequency words

What teachers do

• encourage children to talk about reading and writing experiences
• provide many opportunities for children to explore and identify sound-symbol relationships in meaningful contexts
• help children to segment spoken words into individual sounds and blend the sounds into whole words (for example, by slowly writing a word and saying its sound)
• frequently read interesting and conceptually rich stories to children
• help children build a sight vocabulary
• create a literacy-rich environment for children to engage independently in reading and writing

What parents and family members can do

• daily read and reread narrative and informational stories to children
• encourage children’s attempts at reading and writing
• allow children to participate in activities that involve writing and reading (for example, cooking, making grocery lists)
• play games that involve specific directions (such as "Simon Says")
• have conversations with children during mealtimes and throughout the day

Phase 3: Early reading and writing (goals for first grade)

Children begin to read simple stories and can write about a topic that is meaningful to them.

First-graders can

• read and retell familiar stories
• use strategies (rereading, predicting, questioning, contextualizing) when comprehension breaks down
• use reading and writing for various purposes on their own initiative
• orally read with reasonable fluency
• use letter-sound associations, word parts, and context to identify new words
• identify an increasing number of words by sight
• sound out and represent all substantial sounds in spelling a word
• write about topics that are personally meaningful
• attempt to use some punctuation and capitalization

What teachers do

• support the development of vocabulary by reading daily to the children, transcribing their language, and selecting materials that expand children’s knowledge and language development
• model strategies and provide practice for identifying unknown words
• give children opportunities for independent reading and writing practice
• read, write, and discuss a range of different text types (poems, informational books)
• introduce new words and teach strategies for learning to spell new words
• demonstrate and model strategies to use when comprehension breaks down
• help children build lists of commonly used words from their writing and reading

What parents and family members can do

• talk about favorite storybooks
• read to children and encourage them to read to you
• suggest that children write to friends and relatives
• bring to a parent-teacher’s conference evidence of what your child can do in writing and reading
• encourage children to share what they have learned about their writing and reading

Phase 4: Transitional reading and writing (goals for second grade)

Children begin to read more fluently and write various text forms using simple and more complex sentences.

Second-graders can

• read with greater fluency
• use strategies more efficiently (rereading, questioning, and so on) when comprehension breaks down
• use word identification strategies with greater facility to unlock unknown words
• identify an increasing number of words by sight
• write about a range of topics to suit different audiences
• use common letter patterns and critical features to spell words
• punctuate simple sentences correctly and proofread their own work
• spend time reading daily and use reading to research topics

What teachers do

• create a climate that fosters analytic, evaluative, and reflective thinking
• teach children to write in multiple forms (stories, information, poems)
• ensure that children read a range of texts for a variety of purposes
• teach revising, editing, and proofreading skills
• teach strategies for spelling new and difficult words
• model enjoyment of reading

What parents and family members can do

• continue to read to children and encourage them to read to you
• engage children in activities that require reading and writing
• become involved in school activities
• show children your interest in their learning by displaying their written work
• visit the library regularly
• support your child’s specific hobby or interest with reading materials and references

Phase 5: Independent and productive reading and writing (goals for third grade)

Children continue to extend and refine their reading and writing to suit varying purposes and audiences.

Third-graders can

• read fluently and enjoy reading
• use a range of strategies when drawing meaning from the text
• use word identification strategies with greater facility to unlock unknown words
• use word identification strategies appropriately and automatically when encountering unknown words
• recognize and discuss elements of different text structures
• make critical connections between texts
• write expressively in many different forms (stories, poems, reports)
• use a rich variety of vocabulary and sentences appropriate to text forms
• revise and edit their own writing during and after composing
• spell words correctly in final writing drafts

What teachers do

• provide opportunities daily for children to read, examine, and critically evaluate narrative and expository texts
• continue to create a climate that fosters critical reading and personal response
• teach children to examine ideas in texts
• encourage children to use writing as a tool for thinking and learning
• extend children’s knowledge of the correct use of writing conventions
• emphasize the importance of correct spelling in finished written products
• create a climate that engages all children as a community of literacy learners

What parents and family members can do

• continue to support children’s learning and interest by visiting the library and bookstores with them
• find ways to highlight children’s progress in reading and writing
• stay in regular contact with your child’s teachers about activities and progress in reading and writing
• encourage children to use and enjoy print for many purposes (such as recipes, directions, games, and sports)
• build a love of language in all its forms and engage children in conversation.

Primary Level Literacy Education: Three Planning Models

As parents, teachers, and administrators develop a continuum of children’s development in early reading and writing and implement literacy instruction in the primary grades (K-3), schools will undoubtedly examine various ways of providing such instruction in reading and writing. In a presentation at the 1997 Annual Conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), researchers Susan Neuman, John Pikulski, and Kathy Roskos presented three such models of facilitating literacy.

The Workshop Model envisions children becoming writers and readers through hearing, reading, and responding to good literature. In this model, teachers

• read to children on a daily basis.
• arrange for children’s independent reading of self-selected books.
• provide opportunities for ‘learning to read’ with quality children’s literature.
• embed skills instruction as needed in texts children are reading.
• provide for journal writing everyday.
• involve children in a variety of literature extension activities.

The strength of this model is its responsiveness to children’s individual needs, but a drawback is that simply embedding skills instruction in texts "as needed" is perceived as somewhat risky.

Another means of strengthening literacy is through the Directed Learning Model. In this model, children learn to read and write systematically through a prescribed program of instruction, through exposure to literature and basal readers, through specific skills instruction and practice, and through a combination of self-directed and teacher-led literacy activities. Here the role of teachers is to

• read to children regularly.
• encourage self-selected, independent reading of literature.
• teach reading using literature and basal readers, and align instruction with prescribed curriculum.
• flexibly group students for direct instruction in specific writing and reading skills.
• provide open-ended writing activities, e.g., journal writing.
• involve children in self-evaluation of writing and reading (toward prescribed goals).

The structure of this model is its strength, but the rigidity with which it provides instruction is also viewed as a drawback.

A third way of facilitating literacy in the primary grades is by using the Interdisciplinary Model, in which writing and reading are viewed as a means of participation in a learning community—as a set of social practices. Children encounter and learn literacy strategies and skills through their engagement in content-rich studies or projects. The function of the teacher in this learning community is to

• select topics of study in collaboration with children (to be a learning organizer).
• determine what children know and want/need to learn (to make curricular connections).
• form study teams and determine activities.
• provide a well-provisioned environment relevant to the study, including a wide range of literacy resources.
• teach writing and reading "as you go" and to ensure active participation.
• involve parents and the community.
• implement ongoing assessment to assure conceptual understanding and effective use of literacy processes.

This model’s strength is the authenticity it brings to both instruction and assessment; a drawback is the quantity of resources needed to implement such planning processes.

All three of these literacy models represent means of addressing the tension, inherent in developmentally appropriate practice, between the need for adults to provide instruction and the need of children to make their own discoveries. Other models which parents, teachers, and administrators may consider using should not only focus on appropriate classroom practices but also incorporate the common elements of these three plans which emphasize (1) meaningful engagement by children, (2) use of quality literature, (3) integration of writing and reading, (4) developmental spelling and writing, and (5) social characteristics of learning.

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The outline of Three Planning Models was included in the presentation Literacy Development for Young Children by Susan Neuman, John Pikulski, and Kathy Roskos, at the NAEYC Annual Conference, in Anaheim, California, on 13 November 1997. Neuman, Pikulski, and Roskos are members of IRA’s Committee on Literacy Development for Young Children, and may be reached in care of the International Reading Association, 800 Barksdale Road, P. O. Box 8139, Newark, Delaware 19714-8139, (800)336-7323.

Literacy Instruction in the Primary Grades

The IRA/NAEYC joint position statement on the development of literacy also includes recommended teaching practices to support the grade-level expectations identified in the continuum of reading and writing development.

It states that every child in the primary grades is "entitled to excellent instruction in reading and writing that includes but is not limited to

• daily experiences of being read to and independently reading meaningful and engaging stories and informational texts;
• a balanced instructional program that includes systematic code instruction along with meaningful reading and writing activities;
• daily opportunities and teacher support to write many kinds of texts for different purposes, including stories, lists, messages to others, poems, reports, and responses to literature;
• writing experiences that allow the flexibility to use nonconventional forms of writing at first (invented or phonic spelling) and over time to move to conventional forms;
• opportunities to work in small groups for focused instruction and collaboration with other children;
• an intellectually engaging and challenging curriculum that expands knowledge of the world and vocabulary; and
• adaptation of instructional strategies or more individualized instruction if the child fails to make expected progress in reading or when literacy skills are advanced."

Although the position statement advocates the use of early intervention strategies, it also concludes that "human beings are amazingly resilient and incredibly capable of learning throughout life. We should strengthen our resolve to ensure that every child has the benefit of positive early childhood experiences that support literacy development. At the same time, regardless of children’s prior learning, schools have the responsibility to educate every child and to never give up even if later interventions must be more intensive and costly."

Of Primary Interest Online

Of Primary Interest is now available on the internet. Issues may be retrieved by accessing the website which the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS/SDE) maintains, courtesy of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. As each issue has been published during 1997-98, it has been posted on the NAECS/SDE website. Plans call for all past issues (1993-97) to be posted as well, in order to form a chronological archive. Of Primary Interest may accessed at http://ericps.crc.uiuc.edu/naecs/opi-nl.html [NAECS Editor's note (01-30-05): This URL has changed: http://naecs.crc.uiuc.edu/newsletter.html].

Reprint Policy

Material contained in Of Primary Interest may be reprinted in other forms, such as books, newsletters, or journals, provided that a copy of such reprinting is sent to the Colorado Department of Education, and that the reprinting contains the name Of Primary Interest and the fact that this newsletter is published cooperatively by the Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska Departments of Education, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Montana Office of Public Instruction. Permission to make photocopies is not required if the copies are to share with parents, teachers, or students; for library reserve; or for personal use; however, the name Of Primary Interest must appear in the copy. Additional issues of the publication may be requested from the editor at the Colorado Department of Education.

We should strengthen our resolve to ensure that every child has the benefit of positive early childhood experiences that support literacy development.

This page last updated: December 13, 2007