THE PURPOSE OF WRITING IN READING RECOVERY

We must not think of writing as a separate part of the Reading Recovery lesson any more than we think of it as a separate part of the child’s learning.

The purpose of both reading and writing activities in Reading Recovery lessons are to develop for the child an effective literacy processing system.

The realizations the child makes about reading through writing, and about writing through reading, are dependent upon you, the Reading Recovery teacher, helping children to make those connections.

Short writing detours during reading may help a child learn or see relationships, just as short reading detours (re-readings of the story) can be helpful learning aids during the story-writing segment.

TEACHING THROUGH SCAFFOLDING

Writing in the Reading Recovery lesson is a prime illustration of teaching through scaffolded performance.

The teacher helps a child generate a story.

Teacher and child share the writing of the story.

The child writes as much as he can independently

The teacher writes things the child cannot

Teacher and child work in tutorial ways, e.g.:

Repeated writing to learn words

Hearing and recording sounds in words

Generating new words from known words

Monitoring work on the message is shared initially

The teacher carries the main burden for tasks at the start of a child’s program, but shifts that responsibility to the child as quickly as can be easily achieved.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS IN SCAFFOLDING

Recruitment Frustration control while maintaining independence

Interesting the student in the task Keeping things easy enough to be motivating

Getting commitment to the task as a goal Helping with decisions when student is frustrated

Reduction of degrees of freedom Demonstration

Narrowing the task or the next move in the task Demonstrating how a step is done

Direction maintenance Demonstrating the object of the task

Keeping the student focused on the goal Contingency management

Marking critical features Offering praise and/or encouragement as needed

Bringing attention to critical features

Showing the student where to focus attention

WRITING DECISIONS IN READING RECOVERY

Generating the story Word learning Generating words

Teaching the task Taking words to boxes Linking reading and writing

Using space Transition to letter boxes Decisions on cutting up the sentence

Letter formation Transition to working without boxes. Decisions on language and conventions

Allowing the child to monitor writing performance.

OTHER DECISION AREAS

· Developing independence

· Recording and studying the writing behaviors

· Making transitions back into the classroom

GENERATING THE STORY

The important thing is that the child must compose the message and feels he/she owns it.

First talk with the child. Guided by what you know of the child start up a conversation ...

Arising from this genuine but short conversation, and at an appropriate point when the child shows he has something to say, you might shift to an invitation...

(See Guidebook, p. 29.) Don’t make the work too hard

Avoid questioning Praise the product

Demonstrations may be needed Remember the importance of child o

Grab what comes out of his mouth Help the child remember the story

Talk on the way to the lesson Work for productivity and writing fluency

PROBLEMS WITH STORY GENERATION

Child cannot generate long sentences

Child is reluctant to generate sentences

Engage child is conversation

Model conversational roles to get full sentences

Provide scaffolding to generate sentence if needed

Accept short sentences initially

Give lots of praise for what is accomplished

Child cannot remember the story

Make a point of writing down the story as the child says it

Use blank lines on a separate sheet as tangible reminders

Say the sentence several times while pointing to lines

Prompt child to re-read, using the lines if needed.

Child keeps changing the story

Explain why it is important not to change (within reason)

Emphasize writing down the story on lesson record

Have child repeat the sentence several times

Use the blank lines as tangible reminders if necessary

Have child monitor the story for meaning and structure

Child’s sentence is ungrammatical or nonsensical

Don’t change unless the child accepts the change

USING SPACE

How the child uses space, or attempts to use space, gives us a window into how the child’s understands linguistic organization.

Offer good demonstrations in Roaming

Compare the child’s writing with published books

Observe the child’s ideas about how language fits together

Use the cut-up story to demonstrate spacing.

Get the child to monitor his own spacing

Use tangible reminders at the start, but shift to mental models as soon as possible

Use contingency management to move gradually to conventional spacing -- (Demonstrations; Praise, etc.)

LETTER FORMATION

The writing segment is not just about letter learning or word learning. Remember your (and the child’s) objective is to write a story.

If a child doesn’t remember how to make a letter, give him the help he needs.

If the child doesn’t know how to make a letter, pull out a magnetic letter and say, “It’s like this.”

If the child is slow in forming a letter you have been working on, take that letter to fluency on the practice page

Get the child to monitor his formation of letters (whether they resemble the correct form)

Expect quick, fluent writing of what he knows

Quickly offer help and support as needed

Keep the writing task up beat, productive, successful, and communicative

WORD LEARNING

Writing is a primary vehicle for word learning, yet we must not distort the purpose of the story-writing segment by converting it into a word learning time

If the child is in the Meager-word stage here is another chance to work on a targeted word through tracing and slow writing (Guidebook, p. 27).

Take partially known words to fluency again during writing if you see any lapses or hesitations

Choose words from levels 4, 5, 6 for repeated writing rather than from levels 1, 2, and 3. The aim is to build solid word knowledge, which will translate into consistent use of word knowledge during reading.

DEVELOPING WORD KNOWLEDGE

Gradual progress from unknown to known (Paraphrased from Marie Clay.)

UNKNOWN

NEW (never seen before)

SEEN BEFORE (can recognize as familiar)

WORKED WITH BEFORE (Teacher can refer back to this)

ALMOST UNDER CONTROL (Needs more work to make it solid)

CONTROLLED WITH LAPSES (Confusing items are particularly susceptible)

CONTROLLED, CORRECT (Requires conscious attention, interferes with fluency)

FAST, FLUENT (Almost no attention required)

KNOWN

TEACHING THE TASK

The child must learn to ...

Write quickly what he can write by himself

Re-read the sentence (as necessary) to generate the next word

Decide whether he needs help on the up-coming word, and ask for help as needed

Use the practice page to try out a word or letter of which he is unsure

Manipulate tokens in boxes to hear and record sounds in sequence

Write into his story quickly the things he has decided on or practiced on the practice page

Think of a word similar to the word he wants to write and use that pattern to help him generate the word

Re-read to monitor, edit, and punctuate and make sure everything fits together

RATIONALE FOR USE OF BOXES AND TOKENS

Sound segments (phonemes) are not distinct (they are melded with neighboring sounds) and they are abstract (sound different in different contexts)

Learning something abstract is much easier if it can be represented in concrete, tangible form

Elkonin’s procedures help the child become aware of speech sound units smaller than the word

The use of tokens and boxes makes it easier for the child to understand the alphabetic principle

Going from the sounds to letters is easier than going from letters to sounds

Tactile contact and motor movements are easy and natural ways of learning for children

Focus on sequence of sounds is important

The boxes and tokens should become an independent learning tool for the child

Boxes are a temporary phase for children who must internalize the process of hearing and recording sounds

INAPPROPRIATE DECISIONS WITH BOXES

Avoiding using boxes because teachers are unsure or hesitant about their use

Reverting to classroom practices like Sound Quizzing or Phonics Quizzing rather than using boxes

Being too helpful and not developing independence

Taking inappropriate words to boxes, or use boxes when boxes won’t help

Taking tokens away too early (before letter boxes)

Making the use of boxes too difficult so the child develops resistance

Not helping the child transition to saying the word slowly and recording the sounds as he writes new words

Avoiding boxes because the child has immature speech or is learning English as a second language

THE IMPORTANCE OF HEARING SOUNDS IN WORDS

The ability to hear sounds in sequence is critical in learning to read and write. Sounds are one of the information sources available to young learners as they learn to read. Beginning readers must learn to try out a response to a new word, analyze the sounds of that word, anticipate the letters to represent those sounds, and compare that to the printed word.

See the diagram on page 42 in Guidebook.

GENERATING WORDS

Sometimes you have to make it like another word you know which means get it by analogy with a common spelling pattern used in English. Guidebook, p. 35

Parts of the lesson that help with generating words

Making and breaking words (Section 10)

Taking words apart while reading (Section 11)

Generating words during writing (Section 6)

Testing for control of letter groups (Section 11, p. 51)

LINKING READING AND WRITING

Children in Reading Recovery are not good at making connections; Reading Recovery teachers have to continually demonstrate and prompt for connections in order for them to begin to occur independently. Below are some of the activities useful for linking:

Writing a word as a means of recall Making and breaking words

(See Guidebook. p. 35) Making analogies (M & B) – TWAWR etc.)

Writing as a means of word learning Cut up sentence

During reading of a book Analyzing running records

After reading of a book Analyzing writing interactions

Verbal prompts during searching Conversations about the links

E.g., That’s a word you can write

Word checking after the running record