Notes from Michele Whaley’s lecture “Scaffolding Literacy: An Australian CI Methodology”.
What is Scaffolding Literacy?
Authors: Misty Adoniou and Mary Mackin-Horarik.
Developed to take aboriginal students from oral to literate language.
Especially helpful for Russian teachers, who are not able to use very simple texts.
Scaffolding is like an hourglass. It starts at the top with a very broad picture of story, or a text of any kind. It narrows down to the phrases, and to the words, or even the chunks of the words that make meaning. And then broaden out by spelling into phrases, and into more complete writing.
When is Scaffolding Literacy a solution?
When reading is complex.
When students must move beyond leveled readers.
When curriculum is at higher level than students.
Why Scaffolding Literacy?
To reduce effects of leveled readers.
To provide pre-reading and post-reading.
To build a structure around a text.
To give all students access to the same text.
To support progress in writing.
Emphasis on communication
Both reading and writing are communicative acts.
“Communication is the expression, interpretation, and sometimes negotiation of meaning in a given context.” - BillVanPatten
Text selection
The text can be at higher level than we might expect students to be able to read.
The text should be one that the teacher enjoys.
Narrative texts are easier for readers: they have a beginning, middle, and end.
Text selection is also based on the writing outcome.
Steps:
1. Text orientation (what)
Discuss genre, author and era when the text was written.
Underscore the fact that writing and reading are communicative acts.
Voice of the author: a young girl or ...
Plot, including setting and characters (like Embedded Reading).
Why teacher chose the story.
2. Text orientation (how/why)
Use similar vocabulary.
Avoid distracting tangents.
Frontload for aural reading.
My adaptations: parallel story, acting inadvance.
3. Aural orientation
Model fluent reading.
Students are encouraged to follow along but not required to do so.
Use printed text, projected, or big book.
4. Language orientation
Extract of the text.
One or two sentences or one or two paragraphs.
“You remember that the story is…”
“Which words tell us…” (Ss hold a marker and with a copy of reading in front of them.)
“Underline the words that mean…”
“What words does the author to say…”
Frame questions so that learners can answer with exact words from the text.
Do not ask learners to speculate or predict.
5. Fluent reading
Exact of the text.
Groups read in unison.
Lead fragile reader through questions; mark the section of text that they answer correctly.
Students reads marked sections. (for lower level or to make them feel comfortable and confident)
6. Transformations (sentence analysis)
Same text that readers can read fluently.
Materials: copy of text for each student, strips of paper of cardboard, pen and scissors.
Step 1: Identify units of meaning.
Ask questions in sentence order.
Write the sentences.
Cut off the separate chunks as students identify.
Step 2: Discuss structure and sequence.
Take out phrase.
“Does it still make sense? Why / why not?”
“What don’t we know if that is left out?”
“Why is this section at the beginning?”
“Can you still put a period here?”
Step 3: Play with structures and meanings.
Take out individual words.
“Does it still make sense? Why / why not?”
“What don’t we know if that is left out?”
7. Spelling preparing
Check that students can read words by predicting (individual work with teacher).
Your pile: the words they can read easily /my pile.
Turn over words; student still has text.
8. Scaffolded spelling
Read in chunks.
Start by cutting apart.
Write in chunks.
Check in chunks; use whiteboards.
Students always have access to the text.
Word selection:
chunk the words. (winter: w-in-t-er)
Students and teacher say the sound chunks.
(What is the first sound in winter? What is the next / last sound?)
Students write while saying the chunks.
Visual checking:
Underline while saying the letter patterns.
“Does it look right?” (Explain in advance)
9. Shared reconstruction.
Individual work only; students write only parts they are confident about.
10. Scaffolded writing.
Step 1: Prepare a writing plan.
Base it on author’s use of language, not grammatical function. (Grammatical function is about linguistics, and we aregoing to use CI.)
Step 2: Reconstruct.
Use the writing plan to ask studentsquestions:
“Who can remember how (the author) …”
…introduced the character
…described the setting
…gave information about the job
…explained what was happening
Cover the text so students cannot see it until they are checking the work.
Step 3: Generate new text
Do as a group first.
Students write in pairs or on their own.
Step 4: Feedback
Teacher reminds of original text to prompt students to add description or dialogue.
Students of weaker level can try to mimic while stronger students can try to create, that’s why it fits all levels.
Conclusions:
Every student benefits.
More output means appropriate at higher levels.
Personalization comes only at the end.
Community develops through the exercise.
Movement, hand-eye coordination.
Satisfaction.
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