L A N G U A G E ,

L I T E R A C Y , A N D L E A R N I N G I N C O N T E N T A R E A S

Literacy Handbook
Kari Williams

Literacy is a bridge from misery

to hope. It is a tool for daily life in
modern society. It is a bulwark
against poverty, and a building
block of development, an
essential complement to
investments in roads, dams,
clinics and factories. Literacy is a
platform for democratization,
and a vehicle for the promotion
of cultural and national identity.
Especially for girls and women, it
is an agent of family health and
nutrition. For everyone,
everywhere, literacy is, along
with education in general, a basic
human right.... Literacy is, finally,
the road to human progress and
the means through which every
man, woman and child can
realize his or her full potential.

Kofi Annan

The purpose of this handbook is to provide information,

background, and instructional techniques on facing literacy in
the classroom.
For more information, you may refer to Classroom Strategies
for Interactive Learning, Doug Buehl, International Reading
Association, ISBN 9780872076860

That is the Question

What is Literacy
The ability to

understand and
comprehend
information that has
been received and
then is applied to
any given situation.

What is reading?

What is a text?

The ability to read a

text in a known or
familiar language
within a certain
content area.

Any source that

transmits
information,
whether written,
aural, or visual.

LITERACY HANDBOOK

KARI WILLIAMS

Comprehension
Students retain information when it is used often. Teachers can use before, during, and after
activities. This allows the teacher to gather previous knowledge from students, an activity to build
their understanding, and an activity to formatively assess their understanding of what was
presented.
Effective comprehension instruction builds students metacognition. Metacognition is the ability to
actively monitor and regulate your thinking as you read. Metacognitive readers tend to have
stronger comprehension.
Strategies may include guided imagery, scenarios, list/group/label, alphabet brainstorming, analogy
charting, and think-pair-share activities. These activities address different learning strategies, allow
for individual and group participation, and builds on past knowledge.
As students read, you can have them: predict, infer, summarize, use text features (i.e. headings) to
determine importance, ask questions, make background connections, visualize, re-read to further
comprehension.

Vocabulary Instruction
Students, and people in general, learn vocabulary best when it has been presented, explained, and used
frequently in its context.
There are four types of vocabulary instruction:
Developing in-depth understandings of core vocabulary related to the big ideas in the course
Teaching students strategies for approaching difficult or unfamiliar vocabulary words
Teaching vocabulary necessary for understanding individual texts
Teaching general vocabulary, such as those seen in standardized tests.
Vocabulary instruction is both direct (meaning you are explicitly defining words) and incidental
(meaning words are naturally acquired through well-planned activities). In order for instruction to be
effective, students should have upwards of 40 instuctional encounters with terminology.
Examples for instruction: word webs, analogy charts, possible sentences, semantic feature analysis,
teaching connections between morphemes (ex: Latin roots and meanings)

LITERACY HANDBOOK

KARI WILLIAMS

Writing Instruction
Writing should never be used as punishment; a good teacher finds ways to promote writing and facilitate
positive writing experiences. When giving a writing assignment, include a rubric and/or writing
checklist to communicate expectations. Comments on writing should be specific and concrete. A teacher
may include strengths, insights, and improvements to help the student improve their work.

Students may respond to writing more when they have the freedom to choose what they write about.
They may feel engaged more when the writing assignment is directed toward a specific audience.

Writing should have before, during and after activities. Before activities may consist of brainstorming
ideas, students sharing ideas, or listing questions. During activities could include annotating text, graphic
organizers during reading, and/or asking questions or comments on sticky notes. After activities should
allow students to respond to each other and evaluate their work. These may include: annotating their
own texts using the 6 traits of writing, evaluating each others work with a rubric, writing reflections of
the activity, or sharing their writing with others.

There are 6 traits of writing:
1. Ideas and content: What is the central idea? What is being shared?
2. Organization: How does it flow? Does it have a beginning, middle, and end?
3. Voice: personality, tone for the occasion, consistency of position throughout the piece
4. Word Choice: each word and phrase is carefully chosen, and is what a professional practitioner
would use.
5. Sentence Fluency: how a piece of writing flows when read aloud; varied sentence structure,
length, and beginnings
6. Conventions: The icing on the cake, so to speak. What is the style of writing?

Levels of Writing:
1: Informal sketches, to be responded to, not evaluated, daily (i.e. notes, post-lesson summaries)
2: More formal, often evaluated on one characteristic, once or twice a week (i.e. letter based on
concepts, journal entry)
3: Formal writing that has been revised and edited for several characteristics, one per term (i.e. safety
brochure for the school, imagined article for journal or magazine)

Effective Writing Prompts: specific genre (letter, Facebook page), audience (Congress, newspaper,
parent), subject of interest, broad enough that students can find multiple responses.

Critical Literacy

Critical literacy is the ability to question how conclusions are drawn,

how things are done, and the ability to examine perspectives. When
critical literacy is implemented, students learn to challenge text
content, effect social change, develop the skill to perceive situations
empathetically, and argue with and/or against assumptions that
normally are not challenged. Students should be able to approach
everyday topics and issues with a critical viewpoint.
3

LITERACY HANDBOOK

KARI WILLIAMS

Oral Language
Classroom discussions often follow the IRE model, that is, Initiate-Respond-Evaluate. These
discussions are considered to be monologic, meaning the teacher is the one that is primarily speaking.
On the other hand, dialogic discussions involve the whole class, and everyone has a chance to speak.
Open-ended questions may help start dialogic discussions.
Teachers can change whole-class IRE discussions to dialogic through: cognitively challenging
questions (What, who, where, when, what, why, how); authentic questions (teacher does not have
right answer); student-generated questions, higher-level evaluations (elaborating on student
answers instead of saying right), and teachers and students building on each others comments.
Examples for instruction: have students take turns reading passages; split students into pairs and
have one visualize and the other summarize passages; playing cards with concepts, such as in a
matching game

Digital Literacy
Digital literacy is usually multimodal, social, mobile, up-to-the-moment,
driven, and involvement. It allows students to address a broader audience.
It requires a high degree of critical literacy. It strengthens critical thinking
skills through the use of comprehension strategies. Students need pre-
writing skills, including knowledge of the six traits of writing. Students will
be able to use the Internet to locate reliable information.

Teaching English Language Learners

English learners develop basic interpersonal communication skills within roughly 1 year. However, it
can roughly 7 years to develop cognitive academic language proficiency that is required for success in
schools. Some can read and write English better than they can speak it, and vice versa.
Some ways teachers can help English learners could include:
Allowing journals for questions to review
Provision of adapted or easier texts
Provision of bilingual texts or text in their native language
Peer tutoring
Inclusion of students culture, background, familial history
Creating a welcoming environment
Use of graphic organizers
Multiple methods of assessment (performance, visual, written, oral)

Reading

There are 3 levels of reading:

1. Independent: Students can read without teacher instruction. They can read orally over 99% of
the words correctly, and with at least 90% comprehension.
2. Instructional: Students can benefit from comprehension instruction. They can read over 95%
of the words correctly with 75% comprehension.
3. Frustrational: the text is difficult to understand, thus the students may likely become
frustrated. Students can orally read over 90% of the words with 50% comprehension.
Texts may be easy or hard to read based on: concept complexity, vocabulary complexity, vocabulary
explanations, availability of graphic or visual aids, font size, number of words per page, etc.