Literacy Strategies

 LITERACY STRATEGIES: WHAT WORKS?

    There are various ways in which Language is taught - sometimes it is verbally, sometimes through observation, and sometimes through explicit instruction. Educators use literacy strategies to help students acquire literacy (or language) skills. In my literacy course, we use a textbook called "50 Literacy Strategies" (Tompkins, 2013), describing various strategies that focus on comprehension, among other dimensions of literacy in great depth. Besides the textbook, there are a variety of strategies online. 


Doyle & Bramwell (2006) provide insights into the positive impacts of Dialogic Reading. Although they focus primarily on early learners, their strategies can also be adapted to work for older students. It is important to remember that ANY literacy strategy can be modified and adapted to fit the needs of all learners at any age. While some sources may highly recommend specific strategies for certain grades, it is not limited to them as long as you know your learners. Doyle and Bramwell (2006) discuss how dialogic reading is a fancy way to describe a shared, interactive book reading to help create a foundation of strategic questioning that probes critical thinking.  The article lists some strategies that work well with dialogic reading, two of which can be found below. 
  • Small Groups - helps with comprehension of texts and student engagement
  • Repeated Readings - reading the exact text multiple times so that students are familiar with it and can read it fluently before answering questions with a deeper understanding 
Dialogic Reading also offers parents opportunities to participate actively in their child's and their peer's education if small groups are being used as a strategy. 

    Moreover, other strategies that are successful literacy strategies were recorded by Minero (2019) for elementary students - including students in the Junior division. Minero lists six strategies that help students with literacy skills, and they were: 
  1. Choral Reading
    - Low-risk, high participation
    - Roles of listener and reader wherein the listener asks questions to check comprehension of the text
    - Readers paired with a strong peer who goes first to model
    - Acts as peer mentoring

  2. Cross-Grade Reading Buddies 
    - Younger grades can listen and eventually read some sentences or pages from the book
    - Older students who may be below grade level can read at the level they feel comfortable with without feeling embarrassed or ashamed
  3. Ear Reading
    - Playing audiobooks where usage is slowly withdrawn as the reader gains confidence 
    - Proven to help students with dyslexia if they use audiobooks
  4. Elements of Drama 
    - Acting out words using skits or gestures to assist recall
    - Useful strategy for English Language Learners (ELL) 
  5. Choice 
    - Helps students feel empowered and engaged
    - Choices in books can reflect their interests, experiences or perspectives
    - Diverse classroom libraries can assist in this 
  6. Re-reading in Multiple Modalities
    - Re-reading can help with comprehension and pronunciation 
    - Re-reading can be done individually, in partners, in groups or even as a whole class
Additionally, Fisher & Frey (2002) enhances our sample of literacy strategies to include seven more. Like Doyle and Bramwell, Fisher and Frey found that read-alouds are effective literary strategies (2002) as they allow students to hear fluent readers daily. Moreover, strategies such as KWL Charts, which stand for KNOW (before) -WANT (to learn) -LEARNED, and graphic organizers or structured notes, such as Cornell notes, help students organize and be aware of their thoughts and ideas. Fisher and Frey (2002) also offered the idea of students writing to process their thoughts before, during, or after learning as a strategy, similar to summarizing or quick writes. The idea of reciprocal teaching also is valuable as students turn to their peers to help facilitate understanding rather than the educators present. Echoing articles before it, McEwan discusses seven reading and comprehension strategies of activating, inferring, monitoring or clarifying, questioning, searching or selecting, summarizing, and visualizing or organizing as effective (2007). 
       

Literacy strategies can take on many forms, but they all focus on honing comprehension, fluency, decoding, and phonological awareness skills to help individuals become stronger in language. If you would like to see some strategies that were discussed today in action - as well as some that were not mentioned - check out these videos provided by the American Museum of Natural History (2022) and see how they have been integrated into Science Curriculums! One video from the collection has been included below!












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References

 REFERENCES  American Museum of Natural History. (2022). Integrating Literacy Strategies Into Science Instruction . American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved from https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/integrating-literacy-strategies-into-science-instruction CASEL. (2020, October 1). Casel's SEL framework . CASEL. Retrieved from https://casel.org/casel-sel-framework-11-2020/  CASEL . (2022, March 11). Fundamentals of SEL . CASEL - Fundamentals of SEL. Retrieved from https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/  CASEL. (2022, August 3). What is the Casel Framework? CASEL. Retrieved from https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/what-is-the-casel-framework/  Center for Responsive Schools. SEL and Literacy: A Natural Fit . (2021). Retrieved from https://www.crslearn.org/publication/feburary-2020-literacy-and-sel/sel-and-literacy-a-natural-fit/  Doyle, B., & Bramwell, W. (2006). Promoting Emergent Literacy and Social–Emotional Learning Through Dialogic Reading . Retrie
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