Skills: Teaching and Reinforcing Literacy Skills Carol Nichols, Metropolitan State College of Denver, [e-mail]

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Skills Teaching and Reinforcing Literacy
SkillsCarol Nichols, Metropolitan State College
of Denver, nicholsc_at_mscd.edu

• Using whole pieces of text to provide the
  foundation for skill lessons and skill practice
  activities

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Why use a whole piece of text as the foundation
for skill lessons?

• 1. The skill lesson activity should look as
  much like the reading act as possible. Skill
  instruction should be based on examples taken
  from meaningful texts the stories children
  write and read.
• Harp, Bill. Why Arent You Using the Phonics
  Workbooks? The Reading Teacher. International
  Reading Association, 1/89, p. 326.

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Students should be able to see the connections
between word attack instruction and creating
meaning when they read. Harp, Bill. Why
Arent You Using the Phonics Workbooks? The
Reading Teacher. International Reading
Association, 1/89, p. 326.
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Phonics instruction should be an outgrowth of
ongoing reading activities, not something done
apart with separate materials.Harp, Bill. Why
Arent You Using the Phonics Workbooks? The
Reading Teacher. International Reading
Association, 1/89, p. 326.
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Method 1Using pieces of whole text to teach or
practice skills--

• Stories or other text which have multiple samples
  of words that contain the phonic element that
  will be taught can be used. On the next slide is
  a sample of a poem titled Little Charlie
  Chipmunk written by Helen C. LeCron, book source
  unknown. This is an example of an excellent text
  to teach the letter-sound association of ch.

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Little Charlie Chipmunk by Helen C. LeCron,
book source unknown

• Little Charlie Chipmunk was a talker. Mercy me!
• He chattered after breakfast and he chattered
  after tea!
• He chattered to his father and he chattered to
  his mother!
• He chattered to his sister and he chattered to
  his brother!
• He chattered till his family was almost driven
  wild!
• Oh, little Charlie Chipmunk was a very tiresome
  child!

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While the process may be broken down to examine
the individual pieces, before the instruction
ends the process should be put back together so
that children see the the relationships between
the parts and the whole. Harp, Bill. Why
Arent You Using the Phonics Workbooks? The
Reading Teacher. International Reading
Association, 1/89, p. 326.
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I Love Cats by Catherine Matthias, Childrens
Press, Chicago.
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I Love Cats can be used for the vowel
generalization VC final E,

• Generalization If the word has a vowel, a
  consonant, and a final e, the first vowel may
  be long and the final e may be silent.

• Sample words from the I Love Cats text
• nice
• like
• mice

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Identifying books containing text useful for
analytical skill instruction or skill practice

• Some teachers collect and categorize their
  childrens and adolescent trade books according
  to skills that could be taught from text in the
  book.
• On the next two slides is a sample of one
  teachers categorization system.
• The source of this work is unknown.

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Some of the abbreviations used by the teacher to
categorize books according to skills and type of
content AlAlliteration, HHyperbole,
IImageryCCircle story, NPNarrative
poemAAntonyms, HHomonyms
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Samples of part of the teachers categorization
of childrens trade books are on the next slide
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(No Transcript)
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Method 2 Teachers can write short passage
using multiple samples of words that contain the
phonic element to be taught or practiced.
Samples are on the next several slides.
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A sample of a teacher-written passage to practice
punctuation and capitalization is on the next
slide. The 4th grade students had read If You
Say So, Claude by Joan Lowery Nixon. The teacher
pulled out a selection from the story for this
worksheet.
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(No Transcript)
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Teacher-written passage written to practice
prefixes.