Climbing the Literacy Ladder - Chapter 1

I started reading Beverly Tyner's Climbing the Literacy Ladder, recommended by a colleague, before Christmas break and I thought it would be beneficial to refresh my thinking on the first chapter before I continue reading Chapter 2. My copy of the book is filled with green highlighter and sticky notes - here are my takeaways from Chapter 1!

Important Notes:

• If students are unable to read by Grade 3, their academic success is in jeopardy

• Teachers often feel that they have not been not sufficiently prepared to differentiate instruction for the wide variety of literacy needs in classrooms

• To ease teacher workload and stress - a "one-stop-shop" for meeting all those student needs is important!

• Teachers need to assess each individual student's literacy and base instruction on the results of the most recent assessment

• If students are unable to acquire the foundational skills of alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness and the ability to track print, they may be left behind as they advance through the grades. This is why early intervention and prevention are so important.

• Accuracy, phonemic awareness and oral vocabulary are critical areas of reading

• We must be aware of all the pieces that make up comprehension (fluency, vocabulary, decoding)

• In this approach, writing takes place independently outside of the small groups, after the teacher introduces it, discusses the task and scaffolds/supports in small groups.

Questions:

• What role does levelled text play in her approach?

• In small group instruction, what does she see the students who are not currently working with the teacher doing?

• How do teachers determine the groups? Are there screening/progress monitoring suggestions? How fluid are the groups?

• Is asking students to "discover spelling patterns and generalizations on their own" really going to be the most effective strategy for students who are already struggling, or are at risk of struggling?

• How often does she recommend meeting with each small group - does each group get equal time or is she going to suggest a triage model?

Connections:

• Tyner briefly mentions the RTI model. She describes Tier I as basic reading instruction delivered both in whole-group and small-group settings. Tier II as additional reading intervention outside of the literacy block and Tier III as an intensive intervention for students who continue to struggle. I see my RTI role as fitting in at the Tier II level, and maybe occasionally Tier III.

• She also mentions that assessments that indicate specific areas of struggle, and then interventions that focus on those areas of need individually, do not work (in her opinion). She uses reading comprehension as an example skill. Does this apply to the discrete skills of reading too? Much of the reading and PD that I have participated in recently have suggested that screening for areas of need and then providing intervention focused on those areas when working with discrete reading skills is best practice. Not that you forget all the other areas of reading too, but determining specific needs and addressing them just makes sense!

You can also find more information about Beverly Tyner's Climbing the Literacy Ladder: Small-Group Instruction to Support All Readers and Writers, PreK-5 here