PK - Grade 3 Literacy Archives

Oral Language: The Foundation for Reading and Writing

Language skills and literacy achievement are highly correlated; research consistently demonstrates that the more children know about spoken language, the better equipped they are to succeed in reading and writing (Burns et al., 1999, Mehta et al., 2005, Pennington et al., 2019). The language children are exposed to at home and in school influences the development of their language comprehension, which in turn influences their fluency, vocabulary development and comprehension of written and media texts. The development of oral language skills through instruction combined with frequent exposure to rich oral language opportunities throughout the school day lays the foundation for learning to read and write. Effective literacy instruction must include teaching that fosters oral language development, especially for students who enter kindergarten with weak spoken skills and English language learners. (Calderon, 2011)

Joan Sedita | August 26, 2024 | 2 Comments

Developing Phonemic Awareness Using Letters

Phonological sensitivity developed using oral language (such as syllable awareness, sensitivity to rhyming, awareness of alliteration, and awareness of onsite-rimes in spoken words) is an important part of emergent literacy skills for young children (ages 4-5) in preK and beginning kindergarten. They are precursors to phonemic awareness, which is the phonological task most related to learning to read and spell words in any alphabetic system (Ehri, 2004). Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify, blend, segment, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in words. This post highlights the importance of developing phonemic awareness using activities that include letters.

Joan Sedita | August 6, 2024 | 5 Comments

You May Be Right, I May Be Crazy: MTSS and Tier I Instruction

This is a guest re-post of a blog recently written by Stephanie Stollar, founder of Stephanie Stollar Consulting and creator of The Reading Science Academy. Stephanie's message caught our eye -- she shares some important insights about issues related to implementing core literacy instruction for schools using a multi-tiered system of supports framework.

Stephanie Stollar | March 20, 2024 | 1 Comment

The Writing Rope: Author Q and A

Since the publication of my book The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects in August, 2022, I have been asked to do several interviews for podcasts, webinars, and articles about the book. The book has also led to inquiries about how Keys to Literacy's professional development courses are aligned with The Writing Rope. For this month's blog post, I have collected questions and answers from these interviews.

Joan Sedita | December 5, 2023 | 0 Comments

Reading Assessment Basics

Reading assessment is essential for supporting effective reading instruction. Reading assessment data provides teachers important information to guide instructional decisions. It also helps guide school leadership as they make reading curriculum decisions. This goal of this blog post is to share basic explanations of key terms related to reading assessments.

Joan Sedita | July 24, 2022 | 7 Comments

Spelling Rules and Generalizations

The focus of this post is on explicit instruction, with examples, of spelling rules and generalizations

Joan Sedita | June 6, 2022 | 0 Comments

Teaching Handwriting

A few years ago I developed The Writing Rope as a framework to organize the writing skills that are woven into skilled writing. One of the components is transcription skills, which includes spelling and handwriting. When students develop fluent handwriting skills, they can focus their attention on composing. Difficulty with handwriting can have negative consequences for later writing ability. Teaching handwriting should be an essential part of a writing curriculum.

Joan Sedita | March 1, 2022 | 11 Comments

Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction

Culturally Responsive Teaching is a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of meeting students where they are culturally and linguistically. It puts students at the center of instruction that validates and affirms students' identities and gives students from historically marginalized communities an equitable education experience. When culturally responsive educators validate and affirm students and bring them where they need to be academically, students are more likely to feel recognized, valued for their contributions, and eager to learn. (Hollie, 2017)

Joan Sedita | January 5, 2022 | 3 Comments

The Science of Reading Comprehension

The term Science of Reading has been the focus of attention for several years (see my January, 2020 post). The term refers to the research that reading experts, especially cognitive scientists, have conducted on how we learn to read. This body of knowledge, over twenty years in the making, has helped debunk older methods of reading instruction that were based on tradition and observation, not evidence. Much of the discourse around instruction based on the Science of Reading tends to focus on the importance of explicit instruction for phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency. But what does the research tell us about effective instruction for comprehension?

Joan Sedita | October 3, 2021 | 1 Comment

Pre-K Literacy Instruction

Keys to Literacy recently introduced a new professional development program titled Keys to Emergent Literacy for Pre-K educators which caused me to review resources related to preschool literacy instruction. A short piece in Psychology Today titled "5 Science-Based Tips for Promoting Literacy in Preschool" (Gentry, 2020) reminded me of the importance of providing developmentally appropriate and research-based literacy instruction to preschoolers.

Joan Sedita | June 3, 2021 | 0 Comments

What is Structured Literacy instruction?

Keys to Literacy recently launched our new "Understanding Dyslexia" online course, and one of the major topics in the course is the importance of using a structured literacy approach to teaching reading to students with dyslexia. Structured literacy is a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction that research shows is effective for all students and essential for students who have difficulty with reading. This approach addresses all the foundational elements that are critical for reading comprehension. It is characterized by the provision of systematic, explicit instruction that integrates listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It includes instruction for multiple levels of language.

Joan Sedita | May 5, 2021 | 0 Comments

Phoneme & Letter-Sound Ladders

One of the most well-established findings in beginning reading research is the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading acquisition. Phonics is the system by which symbols (i.e., letters, also called graphemes) represent sounds (i.e., phonemes) in an alphabetic system like English. Some sounds are represented by just a single letter (e.g., b for /b/ as in tub) while some sounds are represented by two or more letters (e.g., bb for /b/ as in rubber). In order to learn this phonics system where "print maps to speech" students rely on their phonemic awareness ability to isolate, blend and segment sounds as they learn which letters/graphemes represent those speech sounds. This is why, of all the phonological awareness tasks, phonemic awareness is most closely associated with phonics and learning to read. One activity that can support both phonemic awareness and learning letter-sound correspondences is Word Ladders, sometimes called Word Chains.

Joan Sedita | March 3, 2021 | 3 Comments

High Frequency Sight Words

Educators sometimes confuse the following related terms: sight words, high frequency words, decodable words, irregular words. Sight words are words that are instantly recognized and identified without conscious effort. High frequency words are the words most commonly used in the English language. Because high frequency words are essential to learning how to read, teachers should begin to teach some high frequency words as sight words to children in primary grades at the same time children are being taught how to use phonics to decode words. Teachers introduce these words as soon as kindergarten if their students are ready.

Joan Sedita | January 5, 2021 | 8 Comments

The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read

Every word has three forms – its sounds (phonemes), its orthography (spelling), and its meaning. Orthographic mapping is the process that all successful readers use to become fluent readers. Through orthographic mapping, students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect) the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings). They then permanently store the connected sounds and letters of words (along with their meaning) as instantly recognizable words, described as “sight vocabulary” or “sight words”.

Joan Sedita | May 5, 2020 | 62 Comments

Systematic Phonics Scope and Sequence

Systematic phonics instruction follows a sequential and planned set of phonics elements that gradually builds from base elements to more subtle and complex structures. Teachers follow a scope and sequence, as opposed to implicit phonics instruction that addresses phonics as it comes up in text. While there is no universally agreed upon scope and sequence, any logically ordered sequence begins with the most basic phonics concepts and progresses to more difficult concepts, with new learning building on prior knowledge (Carreker, 2011). Sequences vary somewhat among phonics programs. If teachers are using an explicit, systematic phonics program it is best to follow its sequence for the order of teaching. If this is not the case, or if the program is not systematic enough, Keys to Literacy has developed a "generic" scope and sequence.

Joan Sedita | March 3, 2020 | 2 Comments

Levels of Language & Literacy

Question: What role does knowledge of language play in reading and writing? Answer: A huge role! Teachers tend to focus on the “five components of reading” when thinking about what’s needed to teach students to be good readers (i.e., phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension). But there is another model that should be considered: the seven levels of language.

Joan Sedita | February 4, 2020 | 1 Comment

Science of Reading in the News

As the number of articles, podcasts and blog posts related to the science of reading grows, I've been updating a list I started for our Keys to Literacy trainers to share. We have been getting so many requests about the list, that I decided to make it the focus of this post.

Joan Sedita | January 17, 2020 | 3 Comments

We Need to Pay Attention to the Science of Reading!

The scientific evidence base on how we learn to read and how to best teach reading has been growing and converging over 40 years. This includes brain imaging studies that show how our brains learn to read and underlying causes of why some students have difficulty learning read.

Sadly, teachers often do not have access to this evidence base. Many teachers report that their preservice education in college did little to prepare them for teaching reading. Many veteran teachers report a lack of quality professional development once hired that could help them improve their reading instruction. And for too long, the reading wars have confused teachers and administrators. These wars started in the 1990's when whole language advocates succeeded in convincing too many schools that learning to read comes naturally without the need for explicit instruction in decoding skills. Even today, there are many reading "experts" that say they promote a "balanced" approach to beginning instruction, but what that actually represents is a little bit of incidental phonics thrown in on top of the same approaches to reading instruction that have not worked for the past 25 years. The latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation's report card, were just released—and things aren't looking good for the country's young readers.

Joan Sedita | November 4, 2019 | 3 Comments