Strategic Activites in Reading & Writing

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TEACHING FOR STRATEGIC ACTIVITY

Marie Clay defines reading as a message-getting problem solving activity which increases in power and flexibility the more it is practiced correctly.

In her new Literacy Lessons books 1 & 2 she states that children are developing an active, constructive way of learning by engaging in strategic activites. These strategic activities are the beginning of a self-extending learning system.

Ø “In reading we sometimes consciously search for a word or a meaning or a connection, but most of the time our active search is a fast reaction in our brain that appears to be automatic and is rarely conscious. I use the words strategic activities to describe this fast brainwork.” (Clay 2005b, p. 103) “I reserve the word ‘strategy’ for in-the-head neural activity initiated by the learner and hidden from the teacher’s view." (Clay, 2001, 0. 128) Given this definition of ‘strategy’, teachers cannot teach or demonstrate strategies; they can infer them from the behaviors they record, and they can encourage learners to be strategic by the ways in which they teach.’ [Change Over Time, pp. 127-128] “What (teachers) call ‘instruction’ does not extend the neural network! It is the successful strategic activity called up by the learner that creates the self-extending system.” (Clay, 2005b, p. 103)

Ø …A theory of reading continuous texts cannot arise from a theory of word reading. It involves problem solving and integration of behaviors not studied in the theory about analysing words. (Clay 2005a, p. 19)

Ø Fast visual processing is the goal: "Speedy access to visual information is of the greatest importance in literacy learning. . . .fast visual perception of forms is building up a network oflinks of what is seen to what is heard, that is the sound of language." (LLDI, Part 2, p.31)

Dr. Noel Jones describes Conditions for strategic activity in literacy

Ø What the learner needs

· Desire to learn to read and write

· Enjoyment of stories and books

· "Self-efficacy" as a learner

· Willingness to talk and interact with another

· Desire to get meaning from books and stories

· Just right books (level, type, topic, introduction)

· A high level of successful responding and opportunities to re-read familiar books

· Opportunity for trial, error, revisiting, exploring

Ø What teachers need to do

· Observe very carefully (Marie Clay's Literacy Lessons # 1, P. 11)

· Establish learning opportunities: Pose just right challenges to the child, Allow approximations, self-corrections, react-interact contingently; continually analyze, reflect and adjust.

Ø Strategic Activities In Early Literacy Learning

Directionality and sequence (Literacy Lessons Part 2, Sections 1,2,3)

Left-right directionality and sequencing.

One to one matching.

Finding what you know (or don’t know) in print.

Monitoring one’s own performance.

Checking one source of information against another.

Using what you know about reading to help your writing and vice versa.

Searching what you know and/or what's on the page.

Fixing up, confirming or self-correcting.

Using strategies which maintain fluency.

(See Change Over Time, Clay 2001, p. 198-199; Literacy Lessons Part 2, Section 10 pp. 99-118)

Clay cautions against teaching that a letter has one sound

· Most letters can represent more than one sound

· Combinations of letters represent sounds (/ch/ /sh/)

· Letters have different sounds in different contexts

· Children’s dialects and pronunciations may differ

· (Discuss: “Tell me the first sound of this.” p. 36)

The following strategies are recommended instead of telling your child to "sound it out."

Prompting Decisions

Remember that less talk is best

Consider the timing

Before a response is made

At point of difficulty

After an error or successful problem-solving

What do you think is the source of his difficulty?

Meaning

Language Structure

Visual aspects of print

Not attending to print

Discrimination or confusion issue

Linking sounds and letters (letters to sounds)

Strategic moves he is making or not making

Monitoring, Checking, Searching, Correcting

Does the child need a prompt (a call for action)?

Or does he need information he doesn’t have?

What level of help is appropriate? (Clay, LLI Part 2, p. 94)

Teachers & Parents need to learn how and when

to invite the child to do things independently

to give ‘helpful’ help

to back off and let the child take over the tasks

Below are the different prompts to help your child develop strategic activity. Don't expect your child to be able to use all of these strategies at once.

In choosing prompts, try to ‘unpack’ a child’s thinking

What do you think he is focusing on now?

What do you want him to attend to?

What language will call attention to what you want?

One - to- one Matching

Prompt
“Point and read.”
“Did it match?”

Meaning- Reading is supposed to make sense.

Prompt
“Are you thinking about what’s happening in the story while you're reading?’
“You said______. Does that make sense?”
Where can you look? (Checking the pictures for a clue.)

Self-correcting is the process of going back and accurately rereading text when it is not making sense. Self-correction does not take place unless there is an error.

Prompt
“I like the way you fixed that.”
“You made a mistake. Can you fix it?”

Cross Checking is checking one source of information against another.

Prompt
“It could be_____ but look at____”. (For example it could be cat but look at the “k”.)
“Check it! See if what you read looks right (or looks right and makes sense, (or sounds right and makes sense).
“Could it be___ or ___?" (Parent inserts two possibilities)

Self-Monitoring is the student’s ability to monitor his/her own reading by rereading.

Prompt
“Why did you stop?”(When child hesitates.)
“What did you notice?’
“I like the way you did that, but can you find the hard part?”
“Are you right? (After correct or incorrect words) How did you know?”
“Try that again.”

Stopping at a New Word allows the child to problem solve.

Prompt

"What could you try?"

"How do you think it would start?"

"What do you know that might help?"

"Do you know another word that sounds like that?"

"Do you know a word that starts (ends) like that?"

Ø “Usually the gain is not that the child gets a particular word right but that he has strengthened the range of ways of solving new words he will use in the future.” (Clay, LLDI 2, p. 61.)

Fluent and Phrased Reading sounds like talking. Encourage the child to read text naturally, pausing appropriately with expression.

Prompt
“Can you read this quickly?”
“Put them all together so that it sounds like talking.”
“Read the punctuation.”

Using the sound/symbols relationship of language.

Prompt
“What would you expect to see at the beginning? At the end?”
“Do we say it that way?”

Ways of Solving Words for Writing

1. Write quickly the words you know

2. Analyze the sound of the word and write the sounds you hear

Make it like another word you know

3. Listen to your teacher on special words

Dealing with errors in writing

· Impulsive errors – Anticipate and prevent if possible

· Confusions -- “…Intervene to prevent old errors from occurring”

· Encourage the child to monitor his own performance and make decisions about his knowledge and ways of working on it

Helpful prompts for word solving (LLDI-2, p. 65)

Prompt for the mental operation (or form) you want the child to pay attention to

“Usually the gain is not that the child gets a particular word right but that he has strengthened the range of ways of solving new words he will use in the future.” LLDI 2, p. 61

Expanding a Meager Knowledge of Words

Develop fluency and flexibility with ‘known’ words (in both reading and writing)

Recognize (locate) known words in texts.

Using magnetic letters to break known words.

Foster left-right directionality and sequencing

Lines of print, words, and letters

Develop concepts: word, letter, first, last

Foster visual processing through the word

Introduce ‘new’ words: trace, write, manipulate, look

Words selected for learning activities need to be in the child’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) – words over which he has partial control or productive words that should be easy for him to control

A) expanding the knowledge of particular words and

B) learning how to learn words

Strategic activities with words in reading and writing (locate, monitor, check, search, fix)

Make connections across reading and writing.

Breaking Words

An early sequence with Magnetic Letter’s

· Known words for directionality and sequence (pp. 19-20)

· Known words for word concepts (42-43, & 140-141)

· Known words to learn that words can be broken into parts in more than one way (pp. 43-45)

word endings

breaks within words (can be onset and rime)

· Known and/or partially known words to begin to see connections across words

look for similarities

substitute initial letters (pp. 141-142)

change onsets and rimes

A child needs to understand that words can be broken in different ways.

Then he is ready to see parts he knows within words.

Word solving by analogy involves taking parts from two known words to form a new word (e.g., dog (known) + not (known) = dot).

Solving words by analogy comes later in lessons after hearing sounds and breaking words are well under control.

Words used for analogies have to be really well known so that borrowing from them requires little attention.

Words used should be productive (members of a large and frequently used set) and consistent in both sound and spelling. Which is better: rug or night? sand or snow?

Demonstrate and show; talk only to point to things. Teacher explanation requires extra attention and gets in the way.

Word solving by analogy focuses on the visual and sound (V to V, and Ph to Ph); decisions on correctness in reading need to involve V, Ph, and M(eaning) and S(tructure).

Teacher prompting will be necessary (at the start) to connect to known words.

Be clear about prompting for looking (for reading, “Do you know a word that looks like that?”), or hearing (for writing, “Do you know a word that sounds like that?)

What the child knows

Meaning	Language	Print Conventions
The world	Structures	Letters/Words
Story meaning	Concept names	Patterns


Monitoring	Checking	Searching

How the child is working on text

How Teaching Can Help

Help the child try out possibilities:

If he is ignoring what he knows, use a prompt

If he lacks information, supply just that information

If he needs a strategic activity (mon, ch, srch), call for it

Help the child learn to verify his decisions

Prompt for strategic activity on the known M, S, V, Ph

For what is unknown, supply information, then ask the child to decide if it fits

Work toward independence in decision-making

Reading Strategies (These strategies were written by Barbara H. Bell, Ph.D.)

How Do Strategic Readers Differ from Poor Readers?

1. Before Reading, Strategic Readers...
Build up their own background knowledge about reading and the topic
Set purposes for reading.
Determine methods for reading, according to their purposes.
Poor Readers...
Start reading without thinking about the process of reading or the topic.
Do not know why they are reading but merely view the task as "ground to cover."
2. During Reading, Strategic Readers...
Give their complete attention to the reading task
Check their own understanding constantly
Monitor their reading comprehension and do it so often that it becomes automatic
Stop to use a fix-up strategy when they do not understand
Use semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic cues to construct meanings of unfamiliar words
Synthesize during reading
Ask questions
Talk to themselves during reading
Poor Readers...
Do not eliminate distractions from reading
Do not know whether they understand
Do not recognize when comprehension has broken down
Seldom use fix-up strategies to improve comprehension
Skip or ignore meanings of unfamiliar but crucial words
Do not integrate text with prior knowledge
Read without reflecting on meaning or text organization.
3. After Reading, Strategic Readers...
Decide if they have achieved their goals for reading
Evaluate their understanding of what was read
Summarize the major ideas
Seek additional information from outside sources
Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant ideas
Paraphrase the text what they have learned.
Reflect on and personalize the text
Critically examine the text
Integrate new understandings and prior knowledge.
Use study strategies to retain new knowledge.
Poor Readers...

Do not know what they have read
Do not follow reading with comprehension self-check
Rely exclusively on the author's words
Do not go beyond a surface examination of the text.
Apply no conscious strategies to help them remember

1. Before Reading, Strategic Readers... Build up their own background knowledge about reading and the topic Set purposes for reading. Determine methods for reading, according to their purposes.	Poor Readers... Start reading without thinking about the process of reading or the topic. Do not know why they are reading but merely view the task as "ground to cover."
2. During Reading, Strategic Readers... Give their complete attention to the reading task Check their own understanding constantly Monitor their reading comprehension and do it so often that it becomes automatic Stop to use a fix-up strategy when they do not understand Use semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic cues to construct meanings of unfamiliar words Synthesize during reading Ask questions Talk to themselves during reading	Poor Readers... Do not eliminate distractions from reading Do not know whether they understand Do not recognize when comprehension has broken down Seldom use fix-up strategies to improve comprehension Skip or ignore meanings of unfamiliar but crucial words Do not integrate text with prior knowledge Read without reflecting on meaning or text organization.
3. After Reading, Strategic Readers... Decide if they have achieved their goals for reading Evaluate their understanding of what was read Summarize the major ideas Seek additional information from outside sources Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant ideas Paraphrase the text what they have learned. Reflect on and personalize the text Critically examine the text Integrate new understandings and prior knowledge. Use study strategies to retain new knowledge.	Poor Readers... Do not know what they have read Do not follow reading with comprehension self-check Rely exclusively on the author's words Do not go beyond a surface examination of the text. Apply no conscious strategies to help them remember