Currents in Literacy

A Day in the Life of a Literacy Coordinator

By Alice Marullo

I'm a first grade teacher at the Thompson School in Arlington, Massachusetts and also a Literacy Coordinator (LC) in-training at Lesley University. The LC training program entails an intensive workload, beginning with a week in August, and continuing for four weeks during the school year (one week each in September, November, January, and March) and comes to a close with two weeks in July when the coordinators teach in the Literacy Collaborative (formerly known as Early Literacy Learning Institute) at Lesley.

In addition to the training weeks at Lesley, LCs videotape themselves every month in their classroom settings as they implement a specific part of the framework. We analyze the various components of the lesson, its impact on the children's learning, and reflect on our performance in order to improve our instruction. Year-long case studies are done on the literacy learning of three children in the classroom in order to observe and document their work over a period of time. Groups of LCs meet twice a month for "guided meetings" which involve preparation by all group members for specific projects and readings about a part of the framework. The work is intensive yet inspiring, overwhelming but very compelling. Assistant Teacher Susan Knepper has been in my classroom at Thompson helping me through all of this, and her assistance and expertise has been invaluable, especially during my week-long training absences.

The next part of the program will incorporate a school-based training course that I'll plan for the K-2 staff to take place during the 1999-2000 school year. My role next year will include teaching my class for a half day during the "literacy block" and working ("coaching") with staff to help them implement the framework. LCs have been observing in a variety of schools in the greater Boston area where the Literacy Collaborative framework has been in place and the literacy learning is flourishing!

There are eight elements in the framework: Reading Aloud, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, Independent Reading, Shared Writing, Interactive Writing, Writing Workshop, Independent Writing. These components are contained in a daily two and a half to three hour "literacy block" where language is used by the children to learn and by the teachers to support and extend their learning. The level of teacher support differs with the various components in order to promote the children's independence and level of control.

I have scheduled the "literacy block" in my class in the mornings from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. This set routine has been working well for us and there is a natural flow to the learning in the classroom. The following is an overview of what the program looks like in my class this year.

We begin our literacy block with an interactive read-aloud. Reading aloud to children has been an important part of primary classrooms. However, children were generally expected to listen, to not make any comments or only to ask questions at the end of the story. An interactive read-aloud encourages children to make connections between the story and their personal experiences so they can make sense of the text. The teacher carefully chooses a book, prepares an introduction to the story, poses questions throughout the reading to maintain the level of engagement, and pauses to point out new or unfamiliar vocabulary. Favorite books are reread several times and are sorted by the children into labeled book tubs. (Some categories can be history, science, our world, animals, math, numbers, ABC, early readers, readers, music, poetry and specific authors or book series.) The tubs are easily accessed by the children for their independent reading time.

Since this is a first reading of the story, I begin by asking the children what they knew about owls. We look at the book jacket and the end papers to see what they can deduce from this information. Because the owls' faces are vivid with emotion throughout the book, I ask the class to look at the front cover and "show me with your eyes" how the owlets looked. I begin reading and the children soon pick up on the smallest owl's (Bill) repeated line "I want my mommy." I know I only have to stop at Bill's lines throughout the story and look to the class for their cue to help read that part! There are also some words that I want to clarify ("twigs," "swooped") so I stop to ask the children about these words. At one point in the story, the mother owl is shown flying down towards her babies. The illustrator designed the picture so that the owlets look very small. I ask the children if they know what an "aerial view" is and we have a brief discussion of its meaning and other applications. One child asks if I had read a certain page and I demonstrate how one could go back a page or two to check that information. As we continue to read, there are references to other books we had read that had similarities with this story: the owls sticking together on one branch like the animals in Friends, and how Pookins in a Helen Lester story "stayed up after the owls." When a child mentions the title of another book he is questioned about it and a short discussion ensues about whether he is right or not. A few children are interested in figuring it out and they work together to do so. (One of the important pieces to this program is the social learning that takes place. Vygotsky's theories are covered as part of our pedagogical study in LC training.) Some children seem interested in a deeper understanding of "where the mother owl went" in the story and they come up with a variety of ideas. When the story ends, I ask the children about some of the events and how the characters reacted, then encourage them to relate this to their personal experiences. We talk briefly about animals that are night creatures or "nocturnal" and one child responds, "Bats are nocturnal animals, too."

Shared reading, developed by Don Holdaway in New Zealand in 1979 (which became analogous with the "whole language" or "language experience" movement) is the next component in our literacy block. An enlarged text (a story, chant, poem, song, group writing, etc.) is used so all the children can focus on the details in both the print and the illustrations, creating a learning experience similar to "lap-reading" in a child's home. The teacher demonstrates early reading strategies (word-by-word matching, left-to-right movement, etc.), encourages the children to make predictions when reading new texts, and creates a social situation for them to learn in a group comfortably. A "mini-lesson" or "teaching point" occurs, which focuses on specific words or features of words.

This enlarged text is also a "first read," so I mask some of the words throughout the story as part of a cloze activity. When we read the title, some of the children notice the "er" part in "monsters." (They quickly learned this word part on the first day of school when we checked the calendar and read "September.") There is a pattern to the story language and the children quickly recognize it. When we read, "I can ___ (sing), that's what I can do." I stop at the mask on the word "sing" and the class quickly uses the illustration to construct meaning and says, "Sing, it must be sing!" I move the mask to uncover just the first letter, and ask, "What do you think this could be?" We continue in this fashion throughout the story. My intent is to have the children use the supportive illustrations, along with the repetitive story language to construct a sense of the story. By slowly unmasking the hidden words, they can check their ideas with the visual information and see if they are right. When we get to the word "dance," one child says, "It's ce, ce like Alice." And another child chimes in, "Yes, ce like in ice!" The children are making connections!!

During interactive writing, the teacher and children compose a text together using the "shared pen" technique. There has to be a purpose for the writing and it can be a response to a read-aloud, a letter, a list, a group story, a topic on a current unit of study, etc. The teacher demonstrates saying words slowly (rather than sounding out letter by letter) so the children can make connections between the sounds and letters. The children take turns writing the text, with support from the teacher. Interactive writing demonstrates the connection or reciprocity between reading and writing.

As a result of reading Moo, Moo Brown Cow and Animal Babies, the children become interested in learning the names of adult animals and the corresponding baby animal names. We begin a list a few days earlier and are adding to the list today. Before we begin writing, we reread what we had written so far. When we get to "rainbow trout" and "fry," a child notices that "fry is like fly." (They had read "fly" earlier in The Monsters' Party.) Another child adds. "Yeah, fly is like my, m-y!" While we are writing "goose," some notice that "goose starts like boo." As we add "owl" and "owlet," the children remembers that we had already listed "pig/piglet" and "frog/froglet" and they check the first part that had been posted. It's important that the children's interactive writing be displayed in the room so they can use it as a resource, perhaps when writing independently, or when "reading around the room."

Another component in this program is guided reading. "Guided reading leads to the independent reading that builds the process: it is the heart of a balanced literacy program." (Fountas & Pinnell, Guided Reading, pg. 1) During guided reading, a teacher works with a small group of children who are around the same reading level and use similar reading processes. The teacher carefully selects a text, suitable for the reading level of the group, and provides an introduction which creates a "scaffold" for the children so they can read it the first time with success. As the children read, the teacher "listens in" and observes how they handle the text. Prompts, which support a child's use of strategies to successfully read a story, are used by the teacher to encourage them to think about the meaning of the story, how the language sounds and how the print looks. After the first reading, "teaching points" are made to clarify any difficulties the readers may have had or to demonstrate ways to access text more effectively.

While the guided reading lessons take place, the rest of the class is engaged in work board activities which are related to literacy. Some activities are using books with cassette tapes in the listening center, reading around the room (reading print such as interactive writing pieces, poems on charts, etc. with a pointer), chart reading (arranging poems, songs, stories on sentence strips to read), poetry center (poems/chants we've worked with are enlarged for reading and smaller copies are put into individual poetry books by the children), ABC/word study center (letter or word activities ), writing center (children write for a variety of purposes such as a response to a story, recording observations on a science topic), independent and buddy reading, browsing boxes (which contain books that children have used in their guided reading group and others that they can read independently), plus many others that are suitable for different grade levels.

While the rest of the class is busy with work board activities, one group of children is in a quieter corner of the room with me. I introduce Peaches the Pig, a story with one or two lines of text to a page and many known words. The idea of the story is more subtle, yet is something the children can identify with: playing with friends. They have to use multiple sources of information (meaning, structure, and visual information) since the illustrations, which are supportive to an extent, contain several ideas. I also like the variety of punctuation in the text, along with specific book language such as "she asked." This text requires more thinking about meaning and understanding of language structures and the children seem ready for greater opportunities to problem solve.

After showing them the front cover and pointing to the words in the title, I ask if they know anything about pigs in order to draw on their knowledge. Since the illustrations are a bit tricky, we spend time looking at them to see how the story developes, who the characters are and how some words are pronounced. When I call attention to a section where horses "gallop," one child remarks that "We do that in P.E." I refer to a child's earlier response that pigs "like to roll around in mud" to explain a new word "wallow" to them. They locate the word in the story and read it out loud.

While they are reading, I listen to each child at different points in the text. Using specific prompts to elicit responses from them and to support their use of strategies, I take brief notes on how they are reading and write down words that are difficult for them.

After the reading, I ask the children if they enjoy the book. When one child says, "She's funny," I ask him to give some details from the story so I can see how he constructs meaning from the text. We look at two words that are difficult and I use a Magnadoodle board as a visual aid.

The next time we meet, I take a running record of one or two children to analyze their reading. These records, along with my observations of the group's reading, will influence my decision in choosing the next text.

The last part of our literacy block focuses on writing workshop. This component begins with a "mini-lesson" to assist the children with workshop routines or materials, their writing skills or how to enhance their message for the reader. The children then write about their own ideas while the teacher moves around the room to confer with various children about their stories. After the writing session, the class gathers on the carpet to listen -- and support -- while other students read a work in progress or a finished piece.

My mini-lesson focuses on revising a story. I read a story I had written and ask the children if they need more information to understand it better. After I listen to their responses, I reread the story with the added parts and ask if it made more sense. We decide that rereading is an important thing for a writer to do.

The children are immersed in their writing. I confer with a child who wants to add another part to his story. I listen to his story first, then ask him how he plans to continue. I show him how to use the staple remover, add more paper, and re-staple his book. As I demonstrate, I speak loud enough so others can hear. That way, they learn a new routine as well. Another child is writing about feeling "shi" on her first day of school. As she reread her story to me, she pauses at "shi," looks at me and says, "That's not shy. Shy is s-h-y, like fly. Just like fly in The Monsters' Party." She is referring to the story we had read earlier during shared reading. She then goes through the rest of her story to check where she had written "shi" and fixes it. I work with another child on saying words slowly so he can get his thoughts on paper and I show someone else how to insert a word into their writing using a caret.

During our sharing session, a child reads a completed story. The audience listens, applauds when she finishes, and offers some comments such as, "I like the part where you told about your cat licking your face and it felt scratchy." The writer was elated!

You don't learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that truly matters to you. (Ralph Fletcher, What a Writer Needs, pg. 4)

Participating in this program has made me more cognizant of the intricacies and goals of literacy education, a subject that has long been of importance to me. I feel fortunate to have had "good first teaching" that solidly began with my parents and continued throughout my school years. I am glad that the Literacy Collaborative program is providing a strong literacy foundation for the children at the Thompson School. It will take time, a great deal of effort, and lots of support from my colleagues, principal, superintendent, and families to ensure this program is successful. A cooperative effort will be needed for the school to make this a true success.

Alice Marullo is a first grade teacher at the Tompson School in Arlington. She previously taught kindergarten and pre-school and is a past president of the Boston Association for the Education of Young Children(BAEYC).