Module 6

Closing the Gap Early: Implementing a Literacy Intervention for At-Risk Kindergartners in Urban Schools

By Colleen MacDonald, Lauren Figueredo

Assessing preschoolers’ emergent literacy skills in English and Spanish with the Get Ready to Read! Screening Tool

By JoAnn M. Farver, Jonathan, Nakamoto and Christopher J. Lonigan

Theme 1 The Importance of Oral Language and Emergent Literacy

Both articles discuss the importance of Oral Language and Emergent Literacy. When children have emergent literacy skills they usually read sooner and have an easier time learning how to read. Children who do not have emergent literacy skills usually have a hard time learning how to read. Research showed us that oral language is the foundation of literacy development and linked to this is development in phonemic awareness (Adams, 1990; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Stahl, 2001; Trehearne, 2000), a valid predictor of later reading by the end of kindergarten (Morris, Bloodgood, & Perney, 2003).

   

             

·         Every year, we have students entering kindergarten who demonstrate a 405 deficit in the area of oral language and emergent literacy. Students are not coming to kindergarten with the skills and foundation in oral language necessary to be successful, literate learners (MacDonald and Figueredo 2010).  

·         Given that the kindergarten years are a critical period of growth for students’ emergent-literacy, oral language interventions placed during the course of the kindergarten school year give students an additional source of support at a critical time in their development (MacDonald et al., 2010).

·         Thus, some poor readers exhibit low levels of phonological processing skills but have cognitive abilities that are consistent with age expectations (the condition typically referred to as dyslexia), whereas other poor readers have inadequate phonological processing skills as well as poor oral language or low general cognitive abilities, often referred to as garden-variety poor reading (Castles & Coltheart, 1993). For both types of poor readers, these requisite skills can be identified and assessed early during the prereading stage (Farver;Nakamoto; Lonigsn, 2007).          

                                                                                                                                                                                                

     Theme 2 Effectiveness of Early Intervention

      Both articles show the effectiveness of early intervention in the classroom. The first article I read was about at risk kindergartners in an urban neighborhood. The article explained how there is a gap in literacy achievement for student in urban schools from disadvantage backgrounds. The school district created an intervention called the KELT Program. The students need to experience expressing opinions, interacting in discussions, questioning, seeking information, and sharing ideas. The students in the KELT program don’t have the necessary background knowledge and vocabulary to engage in these types of language learning experiences (MacDonald and Figueredo 2010). The KELT Program provides these students with the necessary background knowledge and vocabulary that they need to be able to engage in language experiences. Recognizing the need to develop background knowledge through firsthand experiences, a key part of the instruction included three off-site school field trips (e.g., library, museum, farm, apple orchard, pumpkin patch, pond) supplemented with on-site trips (e.g., seasonal walks in the neighborhood) (MacDonald et al., 2010). The second article I read compared literacy skills in English and Spanish with the get ready to read. That is, interventions that provide systematic, explicit, and intense instruction in phonological awareness, print awareness/letter knowledge, and vocabulary produce the most gains for monolingual English-speaking children who are at high risk of reading difficulties and disabilities (e.g., Hatcher et al., 2004; Mathes et al., 2005; National Reading Panel Report, 2000; Whitehurst et al., 1994).                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                 

      

       After reviewing successful intervention programs, we put forth a proposal to our school district’s director of education, James McCracken, who embraced the program, supporting the philosophy expressed by Rick Lavoie (n.d.) that “fairness means that everyone gets what he or she needs (MacDonald et al., 2010).

·      An intervention program must be specific and focused, not just more of the same thing over a longer period of time (MacDonald et al., 2010).

·       We needed to provide extra time and specific, focused intervention for those students that required it (Farver;Nakamoto; Lonigsn, 2007).

·      Studies of the effectiveness of early interventions also support the importance of these key skills for helping struggling readers and preventing reading disabilities (Farver et al., 2007).