STANDARD COURSE OF STUDY

INFORMATION ON BEGINNING READING INSTRUCTION

Background

Information about beginning reading instruction was added to the English Language Arts Standard Course of Study in 1997 to implement public school law 115C-81.2. This law directed the Department to "...critically evaluate and revise the standard course of study so as to provide school units with guidance in the implementation of balanced, integrated, and effective programs of reading instruction." Furthermore, the law stated "...these programs shall include early and systematic phonics instruction."

Because of the great interest of the public in effective reading instruction and because of specific North Carolina legislation about the content of public school reading instruction, it is essential that those who teach beginning reading and those responsible for implementing reading instruction in each local school system become very familiar with this section of the curriculum and with the reading grade level goals and objectives.

Reading

Reading is the process of decoding print and constructing meaning and is based on the reader's prior knowledge. It consists of three interconnected processes-graphophonic, syntactic, and semantic processing-which do not function separately. With proficient readers, processing occurs automatically, redundantly, and more or less simultaneously. Reading development is interrelated with listening, speaking, and writing.

What Is A Balanced Reading Program?

A balanced reading program includes:

• Knowing students individually.
• Balancing both direct and indirect instruction.
• Balancing instructional activities including skills emphasis and meaning emphasis (Strickland, 1996).

Balanced reading is deep-rooted in the belief that teachers should be constantly aware of students' individual needs and progress. Toward this end, teachers should make full use of a variety of assessment tools such as teacher observations, oral reading samples, writing samples, spelling samples, and portfolios, as well as standardized and other tests. Teachers who know students individually provide many kinds of support, enabling students to move to higher levels of reading and literacy development. Teachers of balanced reading provide direct instruction to scaffold learning and make learning to read and write easier. They also provide ample opportunity and support for students to use and extend their instruction in functional reading and writing.

In the classroom, a balance of instructional activities for reading should exist. Modeled reading, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading, as well as direct instructional activities, are all included in the balance.

Children must spend time-both inside and outside the classroom-reading and writing under conditions for learning that are favorable for individual achievement. Likewise, some time should be spent in individual, small-group, and whole-group direct instruction to support children's literacy needs.

The reading program should balance an emphasis on helping children acquire relevant skills and knowledge and an emphasis on helping them learn to use those skills and knowledge in service of independent, productive, and thoughtful reading and writing. A comprehensive plan will be effective when teachers provide direct instructional support and the kinds of daily reading and writing that are needed for the complex process of learning to read.

A Balanced Perspective on Systematic Phonics

Phonics is the relationship between sounds in speech and spelling patterns. The power of phonics for word identification is largely dependent upon knowledge about the sounds of spelling patterns and surpasses simple letter sound correspondence and blending. For example, the sound of the vowel e in be versus bet depends upon the position of e in the long versus short vowel spelling pattern. "Phonics instruction," according to Marilyn Adams, "is not so much about correspondences between single letters and phonemes as it is about correspondences between spelling patterns and speech segments" (1997, p. 3).

Learning phonics is essential. Research shows that early phonics instruction produces students with superior word-identification skills which is a desirable outcome of the balanced reading program. Additionally, phonics knowledge supports spelling development. Phonics is not, however, sufficient for children's literacy learning. In a balanced reading program word-identification skills do not take dominance over reading comprehension (Routman, 1996). Time must be spent developing all aspects of reading including comprehension and fluency. To this end, time spent on early phonics instruction must be balanced to allow appropriate time spent on reading comprehension, fluency, and writing.

John Shefelbine reports, "Phonics instruction should be systematic and thorough enough to enable most students to become independent, and fluent readers, yet still efficient and streamlined" (1995, p. 2). While characteristics of systematic phonics instruction can vary, phonics should no longer be associated with stacks of worksheets and endless drills. Shefelbine provides the following general characteristics of systematic phonics:

• short but frequent teacher-led lessons
• the introduction, review, and application of an initially limited but growing set of spellingsounds relationships (rather than working on the entire alphabet at once)
• instruction in blending
• correlated work in spelling (students read what they can spell and spell what they can read) (Shefelbine, 1995, p. 5).

Phonics is directly related to the graphophonic cueing system, one of three generally acknowledged cueing systems that readers use. Balanced reading instruction pays credence to the importance of having children use all three cueing systems when reading. Knowledge about the sounds of spelling patterns-or phonics-is a powerful cue for the reader. In addition, meaning gleaned from semantic cues and grammatical structure gleaned from syntactic cues help the reader determine what a word might mean (Weaver, 1994; Clay, 1991).

Children should be helped to understand phonics skills and the use of graphophonic cueing strategies through direct instruction. To help them internalize phonics skills and strategies as an integral part of reading and writing, phonics skills should be practiced in meaningful context (Routman, 1996; Strickland, 1996) including leveled text (Clay, 1991) and decodable text (Adams, 1997). However, studying spelling patterns and words in and of themselves can also be valuable activity (Templeton, 1992).

A general developmental continuum for phonics and spelling instruction begins with rhyming and the development of phonemic awareness in kindergarten; and it continues with focus on short vowels, common consonants and consonant blends, and a few high-frequency long vowel patterns-all for single-syllable words in first grade. The general continuum provides for continued focus on vowel patterns and generalizations for single-syllable words in second grade and focuses on syllabication and structural analyses in third grade (Gentry, 1997; Shefelbine, 1995). Not all children need the same amount or same kind of instruction. In the balanced reading program, phonics instruction should fit individual needs. Local flexibility should be exercised in the decision making process for determining how best to incorporate systematic direct phonics instruction in the balanced reading program.

Types of Instruction

Direct Instruction, Contextual Reading, Guided Reading These types of instruction are spiraled in a classroom where children experience immersion in reading and writing, and all are needed in the balanced reading program.

Process Model of Reading

Graphophonic Processing, Semantic Processing, and Syntactic Processing

North Carolina Comprehensive Model of Reading

This comprehensive model recognizes the child's development of language through both direct instruction and contextual learning, and through both selective skills activities and extensive interaction with varied print materials. Young readers must experience success in every one of the components of this model. Proficient readers process these components automatically and simultaneously. Because reading is essentially a dynamic thinking activity in which the reader interacts with text to create a meaningful understanding of the writing, good readers seek to identify meaning.

In addition to this graphic representation, it may be helpful to make the analogy between the North Carolina Model of Reading and the performance of a symphony, an analogy borrowed from Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report on the Commission on Reading (1985). As in a symphony, reading takes place only when the components are put together in a smooth, integrated manner. Success in reading, as in a powerful musical performance, comes from systematic practice accompanied by constructive feedback over time.

Description of the Components Engagement and Motivation

Engagement and motivation are crucial components for children as they learn to read. Adults must foster joy in and purposefulness for reading because children will not become proficient readers if they do not enjoy the experience or see any value in it. Adults must also help students understand that print can reveal wonderful stories, knowledge, and insights-an understanding which can be strong motivation for learning to read (Brewer, 1995).

Some children have experienced as many as 1,000 hours of informal reading and writing encounters before they enter school (Adams, 1990). They have become engaged and motivated by literacy in activities such as being read to, watching adults write letters and lists, trying to write themselves (drawing or "scribble" writing), manipulating magnetic letters or blocks, and talking about environmental print such as labels and signs. Many children enter school without these experiences that all children need; they need to see literacy (reading and writing) as important to adults, as a useful and meaningful endeavor, and as an exciting and enjoyable activity.

Since children come to school with varying levels of knowledge about reading and writing, teachers of young children need to discover what each child knows about printed language and then plan individual, small group, and whole group activities and direct instruction that will develop rigorous proficiency and promote continued literacy growth for all students.

Young children also need to be developing formal knowledge about language and text. They need to be taught about the uses of print and about the logic and conventions of its spelling, its morphology and meaning, its syntax or grammar, and its larger rhetorical structures and genres. They need to hear quality literature and interesting, informational text, and they need opportunities to discuss-to select, interpret, and integrate ideas. Older children need to be engaged in reading. They need to read widely, critically, and reflectively, and they need to be given extended time to read and the opportunity to choose what they will read at least part of the time. They also need to be given guidance in thinking about and learning from what they read. They need to be able to support their responses to reading and share their responses through writing and discussion.

In addition, children need to write as they learn to read. There should be a strong connection between reading and writing, not only because children who read become better writers and children who write become better readers (Stosky, 1983; Tierney and Leys, 1986), but also because the reading and writing connection increases engagement and motivation. Children who are engaged in both writing and reading activities learn that meaning is what the writer is trying to communicate, and thus they read for meaning and write for clarity and understanding. Writing helps children to understand purpose and audience, which underlie good writing; that understanding translates into good strategies for reading. "Writers make more sensitive readers and readers make more informed writers" (Cunningham, p. 190).

It is extremely important that young readers have extended practice in reading. They need interesting and well-written books to read, time in which to read, and reasons for wanting to read. In addition, children are more likely to be motivated to read when they feel successful rather than frustrated and when they can sense their own growth and progress. In view of this, the North Carolina Public Schools must seek to develop in every student the knowledge and understanding, as well as the perspective and attitudes, that necessarily underlie true literacy.

Within the North Carolina Comprehensive Model of Reading, thoughtful engagement and motivation are absolutely necessary at all ages and thus provide a foundation for successful reading. Children will learn these attitudes from the context of literacy activities in which they are engaged and from discussions with significant adults.

Some ways to foster engagement and motivation include:

• Routinely incorporate activities that foster a desire to read, such as reading aloud books with predictable patterns, repetition, and rhyme; books that are related to students' life experiences; and books that stretch students' imaginations and sense of wonder.
• Provide time and opportunities for students to read a variety of materials representing appropriate reading levels and a variety of topics and genres.
• Engage in sharing and discussing texts read independently, in pairs, in small groups, and in large groups.
• Provide live and recorded models of adults and students reading.
• Share favorite books with other students and adults.
• Share nonfiction texts with students in a way that makes the information and puzzles they present come alive.
• Engage students in shared reading experiences from the beginning to foster feelings of success and membership in a community of readers.
• Help students learn to analyze the author's language and craft, to reflect on their understanding and reactions to what is read, and to wonder about the new thoughts and questions that the text invites.
• Demonstrate connections between reading and writing by asking students to create, discuss, and publish their own stories.

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