I spoke with my colleague, Kristen, about her philosophy about literacy. Kristen is Reading Recovery trained and has taught RR, ELL, and primary grades. She completed her masters about 5 years ago, in curriculum development at UCD. Kristen talked about the importance of knowing what the child knows and basing instruction from their strengths (known) and scaffolding instruction to support and also keep the student in their ZDP. This belief was also Reading Recovery's creator, Marie Clay's view. Kristen also talked about the reciprocity of reading and writing, that they build on each other. Writing stages are developmental, and early writing about personal experiences helps the writer value their own words in print. The skills needed to develop reading and writing skills need to be assessed, modeled and practiced. Assuming that the child knows left to right directionality, 1-1 matching, etc., is an error that primary teachers sometimes make, that hold back development. She recommends that primary teachers learn more about the five components that build literacy (phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency) before moving into a basal series-in fact, she (and I) know that teachers rely on basal series more than a framework, to guide the instruction rather than looking at the strengths and needs of the child. This frightens both of us! Another fear is the pace that teachers deliver content and expect young learners to follow. The phrase "developmentally appropriate" has been replaced with "stress".
Kristen's philosophy is based on Marie Clay's Reading Recovery training, ELL training and her masters from UCD.
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