Developing Literacy in the Primary Classroom

'Primary literacy involves many different learning processes, which can make it challenging to teach, particularly in diverse classroom environments.
 
Combining an examination of theory and research with practical case studies and real examples of teaching practice, this book shows trainee and early career teachers how to engage and motivate children to develop a range of primary English skills.
 
Chapters incorporate broader aspects of primary teaching such as active learning, self-regulation and assessment, and activities and discussion points explore how to apply important principles to your own teaching. 
 
Drawing from international research and aware of policy developments in different countries, the book covers key topics on primary teacher education courses, including:

• The foundations of reading, writing and oracy skills

• Planning, assessment and classroom organisation

• Using new technologies and social media as tools for learning
• Engaging with the literacy needs of diverse learners.' 

Sage Publications Ltd 

Publication date late June 2014

'Gary Woolley’s new book gives us a comprehensive overview of what we mean by both literacy and literacies in our modern world. It is thoroughly researched and offers student and practising teachers, and those working in Higher Education, a balanced and informed overview of the theory behind our present teaching practices.'

Howard Cotton

Lecturer in Language and Literacy, Plymouth University, UK

'Highly recommended. The author has left no stone unturned in this extremely comprehensive exploration of how best to develop students’ literacy skills. Beginning teachers, and those with experience, will find much here to influence their positive thinking and their classroom practices. A truly 21^st century perspective.'

Peter Westwood

Education Consultant and Author, Australia

'Developing Literacy in the Primary Classroom is a comprehensive overview of the critical topics all teachers need to understand and apply to be effective literacy educators.  Teachers need to know and understand what literacy is, how students learn and advance in their literacy skills, and how to direct, structure, monitor and adapt their literacy instructions and practices, as required for different purposes. This book is strongly focussed on developing teachers’ pedagogical knowledge across the different elements of literacy and across the changing demands of students’ literacy enhancement across the school years.'

Professor Ian Hay

Past Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania

Spelling - Organisation Pt. 3

Tim is has selected the word, 'appeared' for word building.

This series looks at spelling issues as they relate to human information processing and working memory. How we learn to spell is dependent on how the brain processes information by encoding, storing and  retrieving stored information. The first post looked at the encoding of spelling information while the second post dealt with the retrieval of that information from long-term memory. This is the third posting in this series and discusses the notion of storage and organisation of that information. 

To begin this discussion it must be understood that spellers are active constructors and processors of information. In the past many teachers and others have assumed that learners merely identify and store spellings in there heads by systematically spelling or sounding out each word over and over again until the word is encoded or printed on a sort of mental chalk board. However, we now know that various elements of the encoded words are stored in different locations of the brain. For example, some graphic letter patterns may be stored in one area while the sounds and meanings may be stored in other areas. Dual Coding theory is particularly relevant in our overall understanding of this process. According to this theory the orthographic elements of words are stored in the visual memory while the sound elements are stored in the phonological store of working memory. What this essentially means is that good spellers have good organisation strategies and efficient linking mechanisms to enable them to reconstruct the target word.

Created from Visuwords

There are lots of ways to help children organise and develop these linking processes. We will discuss two methods that can be used together to link the semantic, orthographic and phonological aspects of words. Visuwords is an excellent application on the Internet to enable people to explore the meaning and relationships of a targeted word. How words are related to each other is shown with the use of colour coding and line style. For example, the red coloured link shows the antonyms for the word 'appear' while the coloured spots indicate the grammatical relationships. In conjunction with this activity a table or feature analysis chart could be made up to explore word building by using 'appear' as the root word and showing how other morphemes such as 're', 'dis', 'ed', 'ing' or 'ance' can be added to change the meaning.

Many children with spelling difficulties are often passive learners who exhibit a limited set of spelling skills. They typically lack confidence and it is important for teachers to help them set appropriate and specific goals that are not only challenging but achievable. This, lack of confidence and disengagement can be partially overcome by giving them a choice of words to learn. In this way they will develop more effective and longer-lasting word learning than they will for words chosen by the teacher. Spelling also improves when children are expected to generate word meanings by giving them the opportunity to experiment independently using the techniques mentioned above.   

This is the final part in the three part series on spelling from a working memory perspective. I would suggest that you visit Trevor Cairney's Blog, Literacy, families and learning, for an excellent overview of the teaching of spelling called "Spelling, caught and taught."

 

Spelling - Recalling/Re-visualizing - Pt 2

In my last blog I mentioned that spelling is more consistent visually than it is by sound. The mistake that most people make when they teach spelling is to think that you need to convert spelling to sound before you can bring the correct spelling of a word to mind. You might think that, "I just can't recall how to spell that word!" This sounds like a fair enough statement when thinking about the spelling of a word. But is it?

The notion of recall comes from Aristotle's conception of how memory functions. He proposed that when one remembers one recalls or re-says a list of associated ideas, concepts or separate items. In other words, when you recall a particular item in memory other items, such as letters in a word, are recalled one after the other in a linear or time ordered sequence.  Of course, the sounds of words are important and you endeavour to recall the sequence of letter sounds and associate each of these sounds with the corresponding graphic representation. Thus, to recall a spelling word you recall the sound units and link these to their correct letter shapes. For many children this is easy and very efficient - they are good spellers. However, not all children find this process easy, particularly learners that have a primarily visual mode of learning.

Not only is the visual mode of spelling easier for some it is much more consistent (see my previous blog).  Around the same time that Aristotle formulated his ideas about memory Plato had quite a different idea, he proposed that memory was like a wax tablet. He depicted memory as sketches in the mind's eye that could be inscribed and changed as new information came to light. When people say, "I see what you mean." they are attributing (or ascribing) this notion of visualisation of information in memory. This encoding works quite differently - to memorise a word is to visualise that word in the mind's eye. While attempting to spell a word one can re-envision  the whole word as an image. In other words one can use one's imagination to access the memory of the word. The two systems can complement each other: Alan Paivio's Dual Coding theory of cognition proposes that  memory functions more efficient when the visual and verbal systems are combined or linked.

One method that has worked well for children that I have worked with is to use slightly different spellings to write the word three times. Each time direct the child to carefully look at the word and to think about whether or not it looks right. Ask, "What part of the word does not look right? Can you think of other ways to write this part of the word? Write the word again. Now circle the one that looks right." Often this takes a few practises with some guidance. Many times the child will recognise the correct spelling and can circle the one that looks right. From this, one would assume that the spelling has been correctly encoded in long-term memory but the usual retrieval mechanism has not worked well for the child.

It may also be helpful to combine this approach with the verbal strategy of breaking the word into syllables, spelling each syllable and then viewing the word to see if it looks right. Usually one of the syllables does not look right. The child should be asked to identify which syllable is the odd one out and to write the word again with an alternative graphic representation of the same syllable.

Spelling - Encoding Pt 1

Spelling is not just speech written down. 

In fact, spelling is more consistent with the visual aspects of print. For example, the ‘c’ in the words ‘medical’ and ‘medicine’ has different sounds when spoken but looks the same in print. For example, in the spoken word ‘medical’, the ‘c’ sounds like a ‘k’ whereas in the spoken word ‘medicine’ the ‘c’ sounds like an ‘s’. In the written word, the graphic representation does not change and therefore is more consistent.

One of the best methods for learning spelling words incorporates both visual and sound elements and is known as the look-cover-write-check method. 

It involves the following steps:

   1.         Look carefully at the targeted word and carefully note the graphic features of the word.

   2.         Cover the word and try and see the word in the mind’s eye.

   3.         Write the word.

   4.         Check that the word is the same as the original targeted word.

A fifth and sixth step could be added to consolidate word learning and to connect with background knowledge. 

These are:

   5.         Think about the meaning of the word or find a word meaning in the dictionary, and use the word in a new sentence.

   6.         Identify morphemes that are present within the word and add other morphemes such as prefixes and suffixes as a word-building exercise.

From: Woolley, G. (In Print). Teaching literacy in the primary classroom. London: Sage.

Why some children can't spell and spelling tests won't help?

There was an interesting discussion on spelling in 'The Conversation' recently. This should be of interest to all especially for those of us who have children who struggle with spelling. It was written by Dr Misty Adoniou, Senior lecturer at the University of Canberra. It explains why many children have difficulties with spelling and why some methods do not work for children who have ongoing problems in this area of learning.

She asks, "Are all children learning to love words from their very first years at school? Are they being fascinated by stories about where words come from and what those stories tell us about the spelling of those words?" This statement highlights the central role of meaning and context. However, the common practice of weekly drilling meaningless lists of words and then testing them at the end of the week merely widens the gap between those that normally do well and reinforces the perception of constant failure for those that normally do not spell well. This process lowers their self-esteem and inhibits their desire to do better.  Thus, the habit of drilling and testing are inefficient learning methods, particularly for those who struggle.

There was an interesting comment by Giles Pickford, which I have included below:

"It is worth remembering that neither Keats nor Shakespeare were very good at spelling, but they could write. Good spelling is definitely desirable, but a bad speller is not necessarily a failure. There has to be some tolerance and balance in the judgement."Giles was on to something here because he demonstrates that people can be very successful even though they are not good spellers. 

Spelling is very important but it should not cloud our judgement. For a struggling speller there is nothing more degrading to the human spirit than to find that your best efforts earn you the opportunity to stay in the classroom and write every mistake 50 times each while your friends are playing in the playground. Likewise, red lines drawn through every fourth or fifth word in a creative writing activity reinforce the notion that it is better not to try than to try and fail. 

There are many ways to teach spelling that focus on meaning and the joy of using written language to communicate, express creative ideas and encourage a desire to improve.