Literacy Processing and Language Development
Lately I have been thinking about how principles of literacy processing and language development apply to the reader who is learning to read in a language she is also developing. Let me introduce a student Valeria. Valeria has the brightest smile of any child at our school. Valeria is a student at a two-way dual language immersion school with a 90:10 model. She received initial literacy instruction in Spanish, which happens to be her more “dominant” language. Now in third grade, Valeria is working on reading in both English and Spanish. Valeria’s teacher and I are participating in a coaching cycle together around improving reading outcomes for her English language learners.
One of the tools that the teacher and I are using to observe and plan teaching moves is a running record. We listen to a student read, and capture with tallies what she says for each word on the page. We can then analyze the reader’s attempts based on the linguistic cues she draws upon to solve the word. These cues involve meaning, structure, or visual information. Balanced processing draws upon all three sources. A running record tells us what the student is currently accessing so that we can then prompt her to use a cue she might be neglecting. (For a child who relies mostly on visual information by sounding out or slow syllable segmentation, the teacher might activate more meaning by asking the child to think about the story).
Yesterday Valeria read the story, “The Three Bears”. Let’s take a look at Valeria’s processing of text on a page from the story:
/ / / / tree / / / / / he /
The little girl saw three beds. “ I like this one,” she said.
/ tree beers come / / / went / / / / / /
The three bears came home. Mama Bear saw the bowls. “Oh no!” she said.
After reading the book, Valeria and I had a short conversation. Here is what she said:
View Valeria’s Oral Language Clip
In the beginning of Chapter 5 in Teaching for Biliteracy, Urow and Beeman discuss the fundamental link between oral language and literacy. Let’s see how the two might be related in Valeria’s example:
| Valeria’s oral language snapshot | Valeria’s reading snapshot |
| She can communicate her message! | She seemed to grasp the message of the story |
| Valeria pronounces some words in English with an accent | She read “tree” for “three” and “beers” for “bears”, which is exactly how she’d say it orally |
| She seems more comfortable in present tense, but tries on a handful of past tense verbs. She partially controls subject-verb agreement. (“she go to eat”) | She read correctly “saw” and “said”, but substituted “come” for “came” |
| She interchanges pronouns (“she sat in a chair and he broke it”) | She attempted with “he” for actual word “she” |
| Valeria uses multiple attempts and self corrects herself orally (“to the house about/to/of the bears”) | In this example, there were no cases of multiple attempts or self-correcting |
These above examples in Valeria’s reading, while not accurate, demonstrate balanced processing of text in that they all make sense, look similar, and sound the way Valeria would say it! However, when Valeria read “Mama Bear went the bowls”, it’s unlikely her oral language was to blame. It is more likely her processing broke down, and she may not have been accessing meaning or visual cues. Perhaps prompts like “Try that again and think about what’s happening” would support her in this and other cases.
Some implications for teaching Valeria and students like Valeria might be….
1) Interpret running records through the lens of oral language. When we look at accuracy alone, we don’t teach to the potential of the bilingual reader. Valeria’s accuracy might be 77% with all errors counted, and 96% when honoring approximations based on her oral language. Looking at patterns across reading and language give us insight about how to support the reader orally.
2) Choose texts carefully, and support accordingly. Valeria’s “instructional range” might be higher than assumed. We should not unnecessarily hold the child back due to errors that reflect their natural stage in language development. Rather, we should choose texts within the zone of proximal development of language, and offer opportunities for conversation, rehearsal of oral language structures, and developing vocabulary.
3) Teach for strategic activity in places where the reader can be set up for success. Valeria needs opportunities to develop language, and she also needs strategies to help herself as a reader. What strategic behaviors are right on her cusp? We could teach Valeria how to monitor her reading as she does in her speaking. At difficulty, we could prompt Valeria to reread, to think about the story, or to try a word that makes sense and looks right. We will need to be careful to teach and expect these strategies in instances where Valeria is indeed capable of drawing upon her own oral language.
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Great reflection on your work with this student! It makes me wonder if we are misinterpreting the ZPD of English Learners who fit a similar profile and therefore inhibiting their progression with text complexity in English.