A PROPOSAL FOR A RESPONSIVE APPROACH TO LITERACY IN NIGERIA

BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION:

Literacy is the cornerstone of education. When children cannot read with understanding or
critically examine a text, they cannot excel as students of any other subject matter, no matter
how naturally skilled or talented they are in that field. It is an uncomfortable truth that in
Nigeria, an unacceptable number of children are completing their primary education
(especially in public schools) without ever learning to read. Even more are functionally
illiterate in the sense that they understand the mechanics of reading, but have never learnt to
read with the fluency necessary for comprehension, engagement and critical evaluation of
texts.

In many cases, the problem lies in improper foundations which were laid in their early years.
Most families are double income families, so almost all children attend pre-school. But the
pre-school sector is largely unregulated. It’s an all-comers affair with very few guidelines and
no minimum qualifications for practitioners. The regulating agencies are more concerned
with regulating the proliferating numbers of private primary schools, leaving the preschools
and kindergartens to their own devices. Therefore, the basics of literacy are often ignored in
these classes. Phonics, reading comprehension and writing are usually neglected in favor of
hours spent perfecting letter and number formation, endless drills memorizing social studies
facts (such as states and their capitals, continents of the world, countries in the world) and
mathematics (times tables). All of these practices in our system of early years education,
while not altogether bad in themselves are not quite developmentally appropriate. More
importantly, they are neglecting crucial foundation-setting skills in Literacy and setting
children up to struggle with their reading and writing. Struggling readers will eventually
struggle throughout school in every other subject and are more likely to lose interest in
formal education and drop out.

This paper is a Literacy plan for Year 1, covering one school year. It will contain the
curriculum targets children need to have attained by the end of the year, as well as the
methods we intend to apply to get there. It will also contain a number of broad principles
which should serve as guides as we create our unit plans and daily lessons plans. At the end
of the paper will be a weekly schedule detailing how we can attempt to put Literacy at the
center of our school day.
TARGETS:

By the end of the school year, children should be able to meet the following curriculum
targets:

 Read most common words accurately without overtly blending at a rate of 90 words
per minute.
 Sound out and blend unfamiliar words.
 While reading, self-check for meaning, and auto correct self when meaning is lost.
 Retell stories after reading and answer simple questions about the text.
 Write simple stories using their own story ideas or retell a familiar story
 Re-read their writing and check for meaning.
 Use simple adjectives in their writing and use the conjunctions like ‘and’.
 Use basic writing conventions like proper use of upper-case letters, spacing between
words, and a full stop at the end of a sentence.

ASSESMENT:

Formative assessment to ensure that these targets are being met shall be continuous and
constant. Formative assessments involve closely observing the learners, documenting and
assessing observations, conferring with them on their reading and writing progress and
constantly revising lesson plans and strategies based on the information gathered from this
process. Thus, formative assessments focus on learning methods – on the process rather than
results. The aim of type form of assessment is to uncover what teaching method provides the
greatest progress for each child and to strategize and re-strategize in response to the
information uncovered. (Meeham & Sorum, 2021, p. 11).

Reading Assessments:

During independent reading time (last thirty minutes of the school day), spend 10 – 15
minutes conferring with individual learners. Listen to them read, and carefully document their
development of syntax, fluency and comprehension as readers. (A sample assessment tool is
the OTS – over the shoulder miscue analysis tool which can be downloaded here.) This tool
helps to keep track of reading miscues (mistakes), analyze them for learner’s reading
strengths and needs (Harvey & Ward, 2017 p. 221), and plan for subsequent instruction.
Spend some time (at least 5 minutes) conferring with the learner, identifying strategies to
help them improve on areas needing consolidation and setting goals for them to work
towards. Aim to have at least one reading conference with each child a fortnight (two
children per day).

Create Student Portfolios and Case studies.

As the school year progresses, carefully curate evidence of the children’s developing Literacy
skills. Important records that can be kept including reading logs that show how many books
and how long learners have spent reading, samples of learners’ writing, transcripts of reading
and writing conferences, pictures of the child engaging in reading, writing, sharing or any
other literacy activity, new vocabulary picked up from books, and any other memorable
learning events the learner has undergone. (Harvey & Ward, 2017, p. 226). These records are
not only an important planning tool for the teacher, they prove invaluable for helping children
reflect on their learning, become aware of their thinking and progress as well as set learning
goals for themselves on the way to becoming self-directed independent learners.

BROAD GUIDING PRINCIPLES

I. KNOW YOUR LEARNERS:

The focus of the first 6 weeks of the school year, and indeed the entire school year, should be
getting to know the learners in the class as intimately as possible. While the teacher already
has some basic knowledge about the new class members gleaned from staff meetings with the
previous grade teacher and results/transcripts from the previous class, it is important to avoid
pre-conceptions and biases. Do not assume that because a student struggled in kindergarten,
he/she is going to continue to struggle. Throughout the school year, build your knowledge of
your learners and the worlds they inhabit. Listen attentively to them, get to know their
neighbourhoods, watch t.v. programs you hear them talk about, listen to their current
favourite music. (Meeham & Sorhum, 2021, p.156). Understanding your learners is
invaluable in being equipped to provide truly responsive instruction. The following activities
will help the teacher get to know their students as ‘individuals with unique needs, interests,
challenges and strengths.’ (Harvey & Ward, 2017, p. 209).

i. Get to Know Parents/Caregivers

Schedule individual ‘coffee morning meeting’ with parents three days a week during Lunch
(10 – 11). Procedure:
 Have light refreshments (coffee/tea sandwiches) available
 Ensure comfortable sitting.
  Explain clearly the aims of the meeting. If you are going to be taking notes or
otherwise documenting the meeting, explain to parents before hand what you are
going to be doing and why.
 Use open-ended questions to find out unique circumstances of family, special
characteristics of children, literary lives of the children at home (e.g. do children read
at home, do parents read with children etc) if parents are available to play a more
active role in the classroom e.g.as resource persons or class helpers for literacy hour
etc.
 Encourage parents to share goals and expectations they have for their children this
school year
 Outline the literacy program for the school year and get their buy-in and support for
giving children access to books – not school or textbooks but books of their own
choosing which they read for pleasure.
 Document results of these conferences in a chart or table which teacher can easily
access.

ii. Build connections to the students:

The early weeks of the school year should be directed towards getting a feel for the class and
building connections. It is important to know your learners as students and as humans. There
is a wide variety of activities that can be undertaken to get to know your learners and help the
children get more familiar with themselves and each other.
 Identity webs/heart maps/ all about me classroom displays.
 ‘Show and tell’ where children bring important personal items to school and tell their
classmates about it and why it is important to them.
 Class interviews – children interview classmates and display results in easily
accessible charts.
 Close observation – observe children closely and document throughout the school
day. Listen in on lunch time conversations, during play out in the playground etc. (See
Harvey & Ward, (2017) pp 55 – 61 for details on these ideas and more).

An important facet of building connections is opening up our own selves for scrutiny. This
may be difficult as many teachers are used to being a remote authority figure. It has however
been shown time and time again that children thrive in classrooms where they feel connected
to their classmates and their teachers. If children are going to feel safe enough to share their
thoughts and ideas on paper, these bonds have to be created. Teachers should therefore
participate fully in whatever self-identity and self-exploration activities are being carried out.
If children are creating identity webs of themselves or sharing personal artifacts that have
special meaning to them, we should be doing the same. While opening up ourselves in this
manner may involve being vulnerable, that is where relationships are built and strengthened.
(Paul Shirk, an educator quoted in Meehan & Sorum, 2021, p. 161).

II. EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION:

Teachers should explicitly model whatever reading strategies or writing techniques they want
children to learn. Children need to see and hear your thinking process in order to replicate the
same in their journey towards literacy. Therefore, at the beginning of the school year, when
introducing children to independent reading, model the thought process you went through to
pick the books that you choose to read (Harvey & Ward, 2017 p.274). During read-aloud
time, model making connections with, and drawing inferences from text. During writing
workshops, share your thinking process and model the decision-making process that goes into
the writing technique that is being taught. Create demonstration texts that highlight elements
of a genre under consideration or that demonstrate how to apply a writing strategy or
technique being taught. The most effective demonstration texts of course are those that are
co-created with student input during the course of writing workshops. (Meehan & Sorum.,
2021, p. 147).

III. GRADUAL RELEASE OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR LEARNING

The aim of our instruction is for children to become independent, self-aware and self-
motivated learners who learn because they are excited about their subject matter and are fully
engaged in the subject matter. A good method for achieving this is the Gradual Release of
Responsibility framework. Known by various names, what this teaching strategy involves is
basically a lesson plan in which the teacher demonstrates the skill or strategy being
introduced (I do, you watch). This is followed by group work in which the class collaborates
to apply the strategy or skill (We do). Children who can work independently progress on to
working independently, children needing further guidance do group work applying the skills
learnt. (You do). The benefit of applying this framework is it frees teachers to devote the
extra time and personalized attention needed to respond to striving readers and writers’ needs.
Teachers can confer, assess, and coach learners according to their needs during this
Independent/Collaborative practice sessions.
 IV. CREATE MULTIPLE POINTS OF ENTRY

A key part of providing responsive instruction is tailoring lessons to suit the learners you
have. Using information from your formative assessment processes, create opportunities for
children to access your lessons at their individual levels of attainment. Curriculum books,
mentor texts, demonstration texts and teaching strategies should be differentiated according
to the needs of each unique learner in your class. This will involve being flexible and
adaptable. Align curriculum and materials to children’s cultural backgrounds, to their current
interests and socio-emotional needs, and to their current levels of academic achievement.
(Meehan & Sorum, 2021, p. 50)

V. CREATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR WRITING ACROSS THE

CURRICULUM

Apart from writing workshops twice on Monday mornings, writing should be an integral part
of the school day. Ideally there should be lots of free time for children to make their thoughts,
hopes and goals visible by writing about any subject matter of their choice. (Meehan &
Sorum., 2021, p.171). In our context, however, finding time for a daily writing workshops is
not yet feasible. We have a very rigorous timetable because we run a blended curriculum
where we try to incorporate requirements from two distinct and sometimes contradictory
curricula. However, we can find daily opportunities for children to write by using materials
from other subjects as writing provocation. Science, History, PSED and Citizenship
education classes often include videos, powerpoint presentations, pictures and other media.
At the end of these classes, instead of the usual quiz or activity sheet used to round up the
lesson, we can provide opportunities for children who wish to write or draw their
thoughts/response to the subject matter. This can serve the dual purpose of consolidating
subject matter in the minds of the children and providing writing practice:

i. Understanding the World (Science). Science is done three days a week. After each
understanding the world lesson, rather than quiz the children on the details of the
videos or powerpoint watched, (usually a presentation about some phenomenon of the
natural world), hand out paper and encourage children to write or draw a story about
anything they want to write about. Most children will probably respond to the
provocation and write about what they have just watched.
ii. PSED (Physical, Social, Emotional Development): PSED topics are examined as a
weekly focus and discussed for about thirty minutes every morning. On weeks when
 there are videos or powerpoints or pictures, at the end of the weekly focus, hand out
paper for children who wish to write their thoughts or a story about the weekly focus.
iii. History: History lessons should also conclude with opportunities for children to write
or draw about what they learnt.

IV. MOTIVATE CHILDREN TO WRITE

KG/1 students are often hesitant to write because they are aware that they do not know their
letters and how to spell and can tell that their writing is not as good as the adults around them.
Some are also not yet aware of their likes and dislikes. Especially with the pandemic,
children have had limited opportunities to be exposed to many experiences. It may therefore
be difficult to identify children’s interests. The following may help with motivating children
to write:

No Pressure: Children should not feel pressurized to write. Writing about the things just
discovered should be one of many options. We usually have class activities to consolidate
learning such as puzzles, colouring sheets, matching boards and so on. Writing about what
they saw should be just one of these options and children should feel free to choose some
other option if they don’t feel like writing.

Model Curiosity and Wonder: As we watch the provocation (video or powerpoint

presentation), teacher should pause once or twice to talk about something they wonder about.
Write your question on the whiteboard and tell the children you will try to find out more
about it. This will help children realize that asking questions does not ‘reveal some personal
deficit’. (Harvey & Ward, 2017, p. 76). Teacher should report back on the inquiry process
and how they found the answer to their question(s). Children will soon imitate this process
and begin to express their curiosity about subject matter. We can now leverage on this
curiosity in two ways:

i. Provide access to books that address the subject matter of their curiosity. Children
are more likely to persevere in completing a book when it contains answers to
their questions.
ii. Encourage children to share the information they found. A child is more eager to
write when he has important information to share.

Offer Choices: Children should have choices of writing materials, paper and writing spots.
Younger children are still developing fine motor skills and regular sized writing material may
be uncomfortable. (Meeham & Sorum p. 56). Offer crayons, markers, different colored
pencils in a variety of sizes. Include pencil grips to help with the physical challenges of
writing. Offer variety of paper as well – coloured, white, lined, with and without borders and
so on. Encourage children to move around the class and find their spot where they feel most
comfortable writing. Arrange a few quiet and comfortable spots e.g. a cushion and floor table
in/beside the supply closet (ensure it’s well lit) for children who prefer to work in isolation,
encourage children who want to work in groups to do so etc.

Build up Stamina Gradually: Start with small pockets of time – 5 to 10 minutes as children
can endure and slowly build up stamina. Track children’s writing. It may be a good idea to
display this in visual form on a chart as this can serve to motivate children to stay on task
longer.

V. READING AND WRITING REINFORCE EACH OTHER

The use of mentor texts can greatly improve children’s writing. Carefully selected mentor
texts can serve as demonstrations of writing strategies or skills that are currently being taught.

BROAD WEEKLY SCHEDULE: This subsection will give a broad outline of what a
week’s literacy program should look like.

I. REGULAR LITERACY CLASSES:

Literacy classes during the week will continue to follow the normal schedule: Phonics
instructions for 15 minutes and the rest of the class dedicated to Listening, sharing, reading
and writing as dictated by the textbook and other curriculum materials.

In addition to the regular Literacy classes, we shall have these additional periods to focus on
Literacy throughout the week:

II. WRITERS WORKSHOP (MONDAY MORNING: 8:30 – 9:15)

This period, which is usually used for spelling drills and dictation will serve a better purpose
as a Writer’s workshop. The teacher starts with a short whole-class lesson in which they
demonstrate a target skill e.g. proper use of punctuation or use of pronouns. Children are then
allowed to free choice in what to write about. Usually, the PSED weekly focus has just been
discussed and children may choose to write some responses to the videos and powerpoint
presentations, or they may choose to continue some other piece.
 III. LIBRARY MORNING AND READ ALOUD (TUESDAY MORNING: 8:00
a.m to 8:30 a.m).

Children are guided to choose books from the class library for their book bags that they will
be reading for the week. Highlight the three key questions to ask when choosing a ‘just right
book’: ‘Am I interested in the book?, Can I read and understand most of the words and
ideas? Does it give me something to think about?’ (Harvey & Ward, 2017, p. 275).

Once children have made their choice, have an interactive read-aloud from a teacher-chosen
text. Selected text must be one that speaks to the interests of one or more of the kids, and if
possible one that is culturally responsive. Care should be taken when selecting local texts that
they demonstrate good literary practice and are properly edited. During this read aloud,
teacher attempts to model their thinking about the texts, pausing to note questions, draw
connections and make inferences. (Harvey & Ward, 2017, p.180). As children develop in
their comprehension strategies, their attempts at connecting and engaging with the texts
should be welcomed and honored. The importance of interactive read alouds cannot be over-
emphasized. Reading to children should actually be a daily affair. According to author
Adrienne Gear, she was so affected by her college professor who read aloud to the class at the
beginning of every lecture that she

‘…made a commitment to myself that, when I became a teacher, I was going to do

just what Clare Staubs suggested. In my more than twenty years of teaching, I have
made many mistakes, but reading aloud to my class every day was something I have
been committed to and never regretted. No matter what the grade, no matter what
was going on in the day, I read aloud to my students every day they walk into my
classroom.’ (Gear, 2015, p.34).

While our school schedule at present may not permit for a daily read-aloud, there are
immense benefits to this practice, and hopefully as time goes by, we can find a ways to work
it into our daily routine. When teachers read aloud to children, we model fluent reading.
Children can hear that reading is meant to sound like talking, and children can easily see that
books tell a story, convey a message and are not just random letters on a page meant for
sounding out. (Harvey & Ward, 2017, p. 184).

IV. DAILY CHORAL READING (Harvey & Ward, 2017, p. 184):

Prepare a ‘poem of the week’ on an anchor chart, and read them aloud as a group each
morning while teacher points to each word. This helps to build fluency, while exposing
children to beautiful poetry.

V. DAILY WRITING ACTIVITIES ACROSS THE CURRICULUM

Understanding the world, History, PSED and Citizenship education classes should culminate
in opportunities for children to write or draw their thoughts about the subject matter, rather
than a quiz or test. Children should be encouraged to ‘have a go’ at writing even when they
feel insecure about their spelling skills, though care should be taken not to pressure children
who do not feel like writing at the time. Children who do not want to write can engage in any
of the other planned ‘end of lesson’ assessment activities.

VI. INDEPENDENT READING AND READER’S CONFERENCE: (DAILY

2:00 – 2:30)

Children should be encouraged to read the books they picked from the Library or to continue
their writing if they have any unfinished writing from the writer’s workshop or their daily
writing activity from the day. Teacher will have reading conferences with children on an
individual basis to see how they are coming along with their book and to get further insights
into their abilities, challenges and interests.

VII. TAKE HOME BOOKS:

During parent teacher’s conference at the beginning of the year, get parental buy -in for
children to have some time during everyday for children to read their books for the week.
Emphasize the need and benefits if parents read together with their children. To make room
for this, homework should be sent home thrice a week, rather than everyday.

CONCLUSION:

Our Literacy program, while accomplishing most of the curricular goals, is deficit in
providing opportunities for children to grow into independent and self-regulated learners who
self-identify as readers and writers. Children write in school because they have to not
because they are bursting with information they want to share. It is hoped that by making
these few tweaks to our school schedule we can get on the path to creating a more vibrant
literacy program in which all our learners will thrive, and none will be left behind.
REFERENCES:

Gear, A. (2015). Reading Power: teaching students to think while they read. Pembroke.

Harvey, S., & Ward, A. (2017). From striving to Thriving. Scholastic

Meehan, M., & Sorum, K. (2021). The responsive writing teacher: Aligning instruction to the
writers in your classroom. Thousand Oaks:Corwin.