Developing Early Literacy

Developing Early Literacy resources website under construction and online soon.

Free download available: Second Edition Annotated Contents

The very popular reader-friendly book has been updated with current research and findings
from national and international reports on the teaching of language, literature and literacy.

 
Based on the Australian National Curriculum new information is included on:

• oral language
• grammar
• children’s literature
• literacy strategies

There is an increased focus on comprehension and children’s use of comprehension strategies, vocabulary and active reading.

The changes include;
Chapter 1 Developing early literacy
·      New information on recent reports and major reviews into different approaches to teaching early literacy and the importance of differentiated instruction is included. This chapter combines a child-centred learning focus along with an evidence based approach where educators gather evidence by using a range of early literacy assessment procedures.
Chapter 2 Oral language
·      New content on the important connections between oral language and reading and writing. Overview tables with grammatical terms, definitions and examples. Examples of oral language text structures, features and teaching activities to promote a range of different oral language such as news talk, descriptions, reports, narratives, explanations and debates. New information includes vocabulary development and ways to assess children’s vocabulary development, syntax and narrative development is included.
Chapter 3 Homes and communities
·      Family literacy programs, parental involvement and intervention programs.  Recent research into culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) families, dialogic reading techniques and ways to incorporate home learning environments and family funds of knowledge.
Chapter 4 The literacy program
·      Retains emphasis on the importance of the four roles of a literacy learner is retained to show how teachers model, share, guide and encourage independent reading and writing. Reading aloud with literature, big books or the interactive white board; guided reading with instructional texts; language experience and a range of literacy teaching strategies for before, during and after lessons to develop reading and writing.
Chapter 5 Children’s literature
·      Levels of narrative complexity in picture books, visual analysis of picture books and critical literacy. Ways to involving children as critics of the visual design of picture books and five different ways that pictures and print interact links to the literature strand of Australian National Curriculum: English. There is also more on the importance of poetry, rhymes and songs.
Chapter 6 Phonological awareness
·       One of the critical links between oral language and early reading and writing. There are several assessment procedures for phonological awareness. There are video clips of ways educators may assess children’s phonological awareness on the accompanying Developing early literacy web-site. There is more information on using songs and rhymes to increase children’s phonological awareness
Chapter 7 Reading development
·       How to understand a child’s reading development and how to plan for the next step in teaching a child to read remains a focus. There is a series of short, easy to use assessing reading video clips on the Developing early literacy web-site. The video clips are of children reading and assessment of concepts of print, reading fluency and children’s knowledge of high frequency words. There are downloadable scoring sheets. Student teacher may use the video clips practice listening to children read and then plan an instructional program.
Chapter 8 Teaching reading
·       Retains the four roles of a reader to demonstrate how children integrate code breaking, meaning making, being text critic and text user when reading. Practical teaching strategies are used.
Chapter 9 Comprehension
·       Completely revised with attention to vocabulary and teaching comprehension strategies with fiction and information texts. This chapter covers teaching comprehension strategies, before, during and after reading. Vocabulary and how to teach vocabulary, the importance of children developing metacognition and new activities for increasing active reading. There are suggestions for explicit teaching of the comprehension strategies and a range of assessment procedures.
Chapter 10 and 11 Word work, phonics and teaching phonics
·       The content of phonics and different approaches to teaching phonics such as synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, using analogies and whole-to-part phonics are explored with a multitude of practical teaching activities.
Chapter 12 Spelling
·       Retains a focus on the development of spelling, teaching of spelling and a variety of procedures for assessment of spelling.
Chapter 13 The development of writing
·       New information on the development of punctuation and revised content of various approaches to assess the development of children’s writing. Examples of children’s writing at various stages may be assessed.
Chapter 14 Teaching writing
·       Extends on the information regarding moving from paper based writing to creating multimodal texts.
Chapter 15 Reading and writing different text types
·       Updated overviews of different text types language features and teaching activities. New information on the design features of information texts, both paper-based and web-based.  How to read and write information texts and how to critically analyse information in books and online.
Chapter 16 Multiliteracies
·       This chapter is updated with a unit of work showing how teachers can plan, teach and assess children’s multimodal texts according to visual, auditory and print forms of literacy. New information on ebooks and traditional paper books.
Chapter 17 Teaching English Language Learners
·       This chapter has updated references to recent research into children from culturally and linguistically diverse families and communities. The different teaching approaches remain a focus.
Chapter 18 and 19 Small groups and planning and managing literacy learning
·       Subject based, topic or multidisciplinary approaches and inquiry-based approaches to planning for literacy are described with practical examples for classrooms.