ELA: Literacy- ED698

5.1 A teacher knows the teacher’s content area and how to teach it.
Reading, Writing and Oral Language
Candidates demonstrate a high level of competence in use of English language arts and
they know, understand and use concepts from reading, language and child development to
teach reading, writing, speaking, viewing, listening and thinking skills to help students
successfully apply their developing skills to many different situations, materials and ideas.

The beloved phrase “Every teacher is a reading teacher” is the first thing that comes to mind

when considering the topic of literacy. While once thought of as simply the ability to read and

write, in today’s world, literacy is more about being able to make sense of and engage in

advanced reading, writing, listening, and speaking. In this lesson on writing, I challenged 6th

grade students to get out of the habit of using overused phrases and vocabulary in their writing.

We played the game Taboo where they had to describe a thing without using any obvious or

“outlawed words”. Then, they were tasked with writing a paragraph or poem using the same

concept- no obvious or outlawed words. This exercise forced them to stretch their vocabulary

and turn to resources such as a thesaurus for help. Although this lesson was for a ELA lesson in

a 6th grade classroom, I use similar strategies in my own Spanish language classroom as well.

As students learn to read and write, their processing systems are changing as they

make new links and learn more each time they read or write. Close and careful observations

inform teachers about changes in a child’s literacy behaviors over brief periods of time (Clay,

2005). Often when my students are tasked with writing in my Spanish class, they want to simply

translate their thoughts line by line from English to Spanish. Instead, I encourage them to use

the limited vocabulary they have to demonstrate their connection to the words and writing. While

this is almost a reversal of the exercise above on outlawed words, it challenges students to think

of different ways to communicate their thoughts and ideas. This forces them to dig deeper to

express their concept using limited words.

 Reading and writing are taught together in most instances to develop the language

process and support literacy. A good literacy teacher, whether in Spanish or English, will

possess insights and teach decoding skills. Insightful teachers use appropriate materials,

methods and management and then integrate phonemic awareness, phonic knowledge, and

context use strategies. Also important is the use of captivating works of literature. This should

be a variety of text types that are linked to background knowledge and personal experiences

(Rennie & Ortlileb, 2013).

Vocabulary knowledge is vital in reading or listening comprehension. Vocabulary

instruction builds background knowledge to increase reading achievement (Ortlieb, Perkins, &

Verlaan, 2012). While I don’t drill on vocabulary lists in Spanish, I use stories and songs to

incorporate the vocabulary I am teaching. I rely on background knowledge and contextual clues

to enhance comprehension. In my classroom, it is essential to teach reading using different

kinds of texts. Readers and writers read continuous text-- not just letters, sounds or words in

isolation. Reading and writing continuous text requires the integration of many behaviors

essential for meaningful communication (Clay, 2001). This text can come from books, news

stories, videos with subtitles, or music.

Second language learners use a variety of strategies acquired in their first language to

construct meaning in the second language. Improving performance is not just about accessing

more complex texts, rather it is through using a wider variety of strategies to understand what is

heard, read, or viewed. These can be top-down strategies (using background knowledge and

context clues to figure out the meaning) as well as bottom-up strategies (discriminating between

sounds and letters or recognizing characters, recognizing word-order patterns, analyzing

sentence structure, examining parts of words to try to decipher meaning) (National Standards

Collaborative Board, 2015).

Contemporary definitions of literacy include more than basic reading, writing, listening,

and speaking, adding the purposeful uses of these skills in today’s media-rich environment.
Teaching literacy is increasingly a collaborative activity, where understanding and awareness of

the audience are as critical as understanding or creating a message. Literacy impacts people’s

ability to learn a second language and how they can connect with the world. When basic

reading, writing, and comprehension skills are not developed, it can be a real struggle to

communicate and learn a new language. Thus, in my Spanish language classroom we spend a

large part of our time together working on basic literacy skills. In short, we read!

References
Clay, M. M. (2001). Change over time in children’s literacy development. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Clay, M. M. (2005). Literacy lessons designed for individuals part one: Why? when? and how?
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Ortlieb, E., Perkins, D. R., & Verlaan, W. (2012). Investigating the effectiveness of vocabulary
strategy instruction on content-specific word acquisition. Elixir Psychology, 43, 6843-
6849.
The National Standards Collaborative Board. (2015). World-readiness standards for learning
languages. Alexandria, VA: Author. (See: http://standards4languages.org )
Rennie, J., & Ortlieb, E. (2013). Diverse literacy learners: Deficit versus productive pedagogies.
In E. Ortlieb & E.H. Cheek, Jr. (Eds.), Literacy Research, Practice, and Evaluation: Vol.
3. School-based interventions for struggling readers, K-8 (pp. 203-218). Bingley, UK:
Emerald Group.