The Language Experience Approach And The Science Of Literacy Instruction

The information contained in this text covers literacy instruction in kindergarten, primary grades, middle school, and secondary school. It gives the background on the developmental aspects of all attributes needed for successful reading. It presents a balanced body of information for instruction between wholistic approaches and traditional approaches for the total literacy curriculum. This book includes the complete developmental aspects of skills necessary for competence in all literacy tasks from birth to adolescent literacy, the need for availability for teachers to assess the progress of all these skills as they are presented in a wholistic fashion on a regular basis, the criteria of how decisions are made for remedial reading instruction, the interface of special education considerations for students experiencing literacy deficits, approaches for adolescent literacy programs, and extensive information on teaching English language learners.

This book considers Russell Stauffer's Language Experience Approach (LEA), an approach that must be judged by its impact on student learning and not on the age of conception. The nature of wholistic teaching in early childhood and beyond is explored, and developmental maturation for the different language tasks are explained.

The instructional framework presented in this book is intended to help teachers provide all young children, but especially English-language learners, with rich, meaningful, and interactive literacy instruction. Referred to as LEALE, the instruction is grounded in the traditional Language Experience Approach (LEA). It has been expanded to encompass principles and practices of research-based early literacy instruction as understood and presented in current professional literature. The approach is presented in an attractive, easily understood style that invites both beginning and experienced teachers to engage their students in literacy. The LEALE instructional framework presented here grew out of the many happy hours that the author spent working with children and their teachers over the years. Included are pictures and examples of classroom materials (chart stories and journals) from children in Belize, Central America, and children in urban centres in Alberta, Canada. This title also features: a brief history of LEA and its enduring merits an overview of the research that supports the enhancements of LEA included in LEALE a full description of LEALE, with examples a guide for planning instruction, including examples of unit topics and related resources descriptions of supplementary learning activities designed to enhance children's learnin recommended assessment procedures reproducible materials to aid teacher planning and record-keeping

The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.

Packed with lessons, sample texts, and strategies, this book helps teachers use ELL students' personal experiences to improve their oral language, reading comprehension, and writing skills.