Chapter 14: Psychology of Literacy and Literacy Instruction

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Chapter 14 Psychology of Literacy and Literacy
Instruction

• Handbook of Psychology,
• Chapter by Michael Pressley
• Presentation by Gerry Appel

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Overview

• Emergent Literacy During Preschool
• First Grade and the Primary Years
• Comprehension
• Writing
• Encouraging Adult Literacy

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Emergent Literacy During Preschool

• When parents and preschoolers are securely
  attached, children are more productive in
  literacy situations
• examples - preschoolers more attentive and
  less distracted- More conversation about the
  readings
• Storybook readings have links to subsequent
  language development literacy interest

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Emergent Literacy During Preschool

• Study Superior language is detected in children
  from professional families
• Another study Children become more verbal if
  parents ask hard questions while reading
• Phonemic Awareness words are composed of blended
  sounds, example m a t mat- Includes
  ability to identify rhyming or non-rhyming words
  impacts reading later on in life

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First Grade and the Primary Years

• Debate Whole language (children should read and
  write from the start) or should skills be
  developed first?
• Word recognition children can recognize logos
  such as McDonalds or Coca-Cola
• Sounding out words very important
• Reading Recovery daily one-on-one instruction
  for struggling students, includes methods such as
  analyzing chunks and if student is skipping spaces

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More Reading Recovery

• Teacher makes sure student doesnt depend on
  visual similarity of word
• Sessions gradually move from release of
  responsibility form of scaffolding
• Doesnt always work, but when it does, the
  results are substantial

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Studies of Exceptional Teachers

• Lots of reading and writing
• Fine literature
• Assignments matched to abilities
• Students taught to plan, draft, revise
• Full list on pages 340-342

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Additional ReferenceThe Influence of Reading
for Fun

• National data was used to identify a link between
  African American students reading for fun, and
  test scores on reading assessments.
• Data taken from National Education Longitudinal
  Study in 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994,and 2000
• The NELS studies had three categories of reading
  levels used in this study

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Additional ReferenceThe Influence of Reading
for Fun

• Level 1 Simple reading comprehension including
  reproduction of detail
• Level 2 Ability to make relatively simple
  references beyond authors main thought
• Level 3 Ability to make complex inferences or
  evaluate judgments

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Additional ReferenceThe Influence of Reading
for Fun

• Results - 44 of African-American students who
  read for pleasure scored level 2 or 3 in 1988 -
  Only 32 of students who did not read for
  pleasure scored level 2 or 3
• Findings were consistent in subsequent years
• Reference Exploring the Influence of Reading for
  Pleasure on African-American High School
  Students Reading Achievement, by Tiffany A.
  Flowers, High School Journal, Vol. 87, issue 1,
  p.58

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Comprehension

• Fluent Word Recognition If readers are
  constantly trying to recognize each individual
  word, its hard to understand a sentence
• Vocabulary People with larger vocabulary
  understand more, and the more you read, the
  larger your vocabulary (wow!)
• Good readers also predict what is going to happen
  next in text, relate information in text to prior
  knowledge, ask questions, summarize, etc.

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Writing

• Writing instruction moving past just grammar and
  spelling--writing whole pieces
• K-12 writers lack focus, do not have goals
• Schools used to emphasize dumping information no
  planning or revising
• Elementary writers need guidance and support
  about how to plan, draft and revise

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Encouraging Adult Literacy

• Many illiterate adults have low psychometric
  intelligence few advances made to help these
  people read and write
• Many adults can read, but have comprehension
  problems-can help by creating maps, outlines,
  highlighting
• Many college-age writers fail to plan, draft,
  and revise

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The End

• Any questions?