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COMTECH UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

EARLY GRADE READING INSTRUCTION CURRICULUM (EGRIC)

OBJECTIVE

To develop, pilot-test and infuse Early Grade Reading Instruction Curriculum into teacher education programs aimed at building teachers’ capacity to teach and assess reading in the early grade using high quality, culturally relevant, age-appropriate materials and resources.

EGRIC 001: FOUNDATIONS OF READING - LEARNING TO READ AND READING TO LEARN

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course is one of four (4) units aimed at equipping the learner with requisite knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes relevant to reading instruction. Specifically, it gives the learner a thorough grounding in foundations of reading with specific reference to how children learn to read and later read to learn from different information sources as outlined below:

  1. Learning to Read
  2. Scheme of Work for Reading Instruction
  3. Planning a Reading Lesson
  4. Phonemic Awareness Activities
  5. Alphabetic Principle and Phonics Activities
  6. Word Knowledge Activities
  7. Fluency Activities
  8. Reading Comprehension Activities
  9. Reading to Learn
  10. Lesson Planning
  11. Strategies to Enhance Comprehension of Narrative Texts
  12. Strategies to Enhance Comprehension of Informational Texts
  13. Fostering Literacy Within and Outside Classrooms;
  14. Balanced Literacy Instruction: Engaging Children with Books through Read-Alouds, Shared-, Guided- and Independent Reading and Writing;
  15. Responding to Literature/Literate Activities: Discussion, Journaling, Chants and Rhythms, Creative Movement, Art, Book Clubs, LitFests, Literature Circles, Buddy Reading Clubs, Cross-Age Tutoring, Sustained Silent Reading (SSR)/Drop Everything And Read (DEAR).

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Course Books

  1. Barone, D. M., & Morrow, L. M. (2003). Literacy and Young Children: Research-Based Practices. New York: The Guilford Press.
  2. Raises issues surrounding literacy and young children such as staff development for early literacy teaching, sociocultural approaches to literacy, book acting, use of non-fiction/expository texts and recommendations for early literacy instruction.
  3. Combs, M. (2002). Readers and Writers in the Primary Grades: A Balanced and Integrated Approach. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson.
  4. Highlights the importance of a balanced and integrated approach to teaching reading and writing.
  5. Shares reading strategies for whole-class, small group and one-on-one including read aloud to children, shared reading, shared and interactive writing, guided and independent reading/writing and literature study.
  6. Also talks about word study: developing phonological awareness and phonics base and integrating phonics and structure.
  7. Guides on helping children make connections between what they read and their experiences.
  8. Denton, C., Bryan, D., Wexler, J., Reed, D., & Vaughn, S. (2007). Effective Instruction for Middle School Students with Reading Difficulties: The Reading Teacher’s Sourcebook. Texas: University of Texas System/Texas Education Agency.
  9. Provides valuable information on assessing the five components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and reading comprehension.
  10. Also guides on using assessment results to plan instruction.
  11. Outlines components of effective instruction and how to deliver effective instruction.
  12. Has sample lesson plans and how to use different types of questions to increase reading comprehension.
  13. Other valuable tips includes use of graphical organizers and text structure to promote word knowledge and reading comprehension.
  14. Gunning, T. G. (2005). Creating Literacy Instruction for all Students (5th Edition). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
  15. Shares information on evaluation including types of tests, methods of assessment and assessing instructional materials on pages 22 – 83.
  16. Discusses working with at-risk learners including building on their strengths using technology and challenging the academically gifted and talented - pages 522 – 549.
  17. Focuses also on techniques for teaching words and building learners’ vocabulary – pages 156 – 273
  18. There is plenty of information on reading and writing in the content areas and study skills on pages 360 -407.
  19. Inyega, H. N., &Inyega, J. O. (2011). Learning to Read and Reading to Learn: A practical Teachers’ Guide. Nairobi: Riverbrooks Communication Network.
  20. Provides a brief background to literacy instruction that includes the main theoretical framework undergirding the thinking in the book on pages 11 -22.
  21. Provides sample lesson plans for reading lessons in Chapter 3.
  22. Shares strategies for teaching beginning readers and for those who already know how to read so that they can learn from different information sources. For instance teaching letter names and sounds and vocabulary in Chapters 4 and 5.
  23. Includes principles of active learning and how a literacy teacher can determine their professional growth against set knowledge and performance standards in Chapter 9
  24. The book provides sample literacy objectives to be used in lesson planning in Appendix B.
  25. Leslie, L., & Caldwell, J. (2006). Qualitative Reading Inventory – 4. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
  26. Helpful for reading assessments across the grades. Contains word lists and reading passages at different readability levels and attendant information on administration and scoring reading inventory.
  27. Moore, D. W., Moore, S. A., Cunningham, P. A., & Cunningham, J. W. (2006). Developing readers and writers in the content areas of K-12 (5thedn.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
  28. A good resource for content area reading and writing. Other tips on reading materials and exhibiting responses, studying, student inquiry and differentiated instruction are provided.
  29. Morrow, L. M. (2001). Literacy Development in the Early Years: Helping Children Read and write. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
  30. Shares insights on family literacy partnerships; Also showcases developmental trends in literacy acquisition, the relationship between language and literacy development and motivating reading and writing.
  31. Has an interesting CONFUSABET lesson that challenges the way we teach alphabet knowledge.
  32. Taberski, S. (2000). On solid ground: Strategies for teaching reading K-3. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
  33. Guides you on understanding roles and goals of the teacher and learners with regard to reading
  34. Has information on assessing children to determine their strengths and needs
  35. Shares reading strategies for whole-class, small group and one-on-one including those for teacher read alouds, guided reading and shared reading. Also guides you on offering children opportunities for practice and response to books – matching a book to a child’s reading level, providing time for independent reading and responding to books.
  36. Temple, C., Ogle, D., Crawford, A., Freppon, P. (2005). All children read: Teaching for Literacy in Today’s Diverse Classrooms.
  37. Talks about the literacy process, the various aspects of reading and organizing and managing literacy prgrams.
  38. Chapter 7 focuses on Reading to Learn: Content and study reading.
  39. Tompkins, G. E. (2006). Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach (4th Edition). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson.
  40. Highlights 8 principles for one to become an effective teacher of reading on pages 1 -40.
  41. Provides tips for teaching reading and writing processes on pages 42 – 73.
  42. Show you how you can help learners crack the alphabet code (with a specific focus on phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling) on pages 10 – 147.
  43. Also shares tips on word knowledge development on pages 150 – 214.
  44. Shares insights on assessing pupils’ literacy development including assessing pupils’ spelling, writing and attitudes and motivation. Additional tips are provided for involving learners in self-assessment and portfolio development on pages 292 -326.
  45. Has lots of information on reading to learn from areas and how to develop thematic units– pages 426 -464
  46. Checkout the compendium of instructional procedures from pages 467 - 504
  47. Windsor, P. J. T., & Crawford, A. N. (2011). Guidebook for Reading Ghana: Emergent Literacy and Beginning Reading and Writing. Lead Trainer’s Guide. Ghana: Ghana Book Trust.

Articles

Check out the other articles uploaded to get a good idea of what has been said by researchers about the components of reading.

Websites

Also check out these websites for videos on these components of reading: Phonemic Awareness; Phonics; Vocabulary; Fluency; Reading Comprehension (Teacher Read Aloud; Shared Reading; Guided Reading; and Independent Reading)

PHONOLOGICAL AND PHONEMIC AWARENESS VIDEOS

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS, PHONEMIC AWARENESS AND PHONICS VIDEOS

PHONEMIC AWARENESS ACTIVITIES VIDEO

This video shows how you can use the body to teach rhyme and awareness of different sounds.

PHONETICS VIDEO

Phonics Videos

This video teaches the sounds of small letters using song.

This video is teaches sound of small and upper case letters using song. Good to show whether capital or small letter the sound remains the same.

WORD KNOWLEDGE VIDEO

This video teaches on how to use word families to teach rhyme. More importantly is how the teacher asks learners to explain how they figured out how to read the word. Also ensuring more students get a turn to participate.

Teaches rhyme in a playful way.

Phonemic segmentation – how to use sounding to figure out words.

Good for blending or putting sounds together to make a word with the help of pictures. Focus on vowel e.

This video teaches blending of short vowel sounds into words. Furthermore, you get to learn the importance of auditory and visual closure in blending sounds to read words.

FLUENCY VIDEOS

Tells us about the meaning of fluency. It draws in research that shows a positive correlation between oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. Look out for that activity on colors activity. Also determine the meaning of the word automaticity.

Fluency Activity videos

This video helps you understand the meaning of fluency and automaticity. Check out the four main activities for building fluency – Reader’s Theatre; choral reading, echo reading. What do you think about fluency cards activity?

Shows you how you can measure fluency in a child and the importance of repeated reading.

RUNNING RECORDS

ASSESSING PHONEMIC AWARENESS VIDEOS

Reading Strategies

This videotalks about reader response, text coding, readers theatre, double entry organizer, anticipation guide, think-aloud (in math).

Teacher Read-Aloud videos

This video provides background on read alouds. Look out for her explanation on modeling what good readers do, how to set a purpose for reading and using a thematic approach to reading.

Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham – silly but look out for rhyme

Rendition of The Wolf and the Three Little Pigs

Big books and read alouds – gives a taste of predicting using title and picture on cover

Shared Reading

Discusses what shared reading is and how to teach different strategies with mutli-genre texts across the curriculum and use of cuing systems to enhance understanding among learners. What is a picture walk? How is it different from a book walk? What does semantic cuing system? What other systems are there for helping children understand text? She mentions repetitive text. What does that mean? What was the sentence repeated. See how she weaves in a mini-lesson on punctuation such as a full stop and contractions “Am” in place of I am. What does she say shared reading can be used for?

Interactive Reading

This strategy is used for engaging children to be readers with the teachers. What things do you need to do to make the most of the interative read aloud

Speaks about getting children hooked to reading. What name does she give to picture walk? What she says about multi-genre texts and setting the purpose.

Talks about how you establish a relationship with the children and prepare them for reading

Story telling by a professional.

Guided Reading Videos

Classroom Management

good for giving tips of classroom arrangement and tapping into learners’ names

What do you see on the tour to this classroom? What can you borrow for your class?

ABCs of a good teacher

The two videos talk about qualities of a good teacher

ASSESSMENTS

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Fixed Obligation Grant (FOG) Award No. AID-OAA-F-12-00024

Under SOL-OAA-12-000010 All Children Reading