Continuo de adquisición de la lectoescritura

Yesterday I posted about Pinnell and Fountas' The Continuum of Literacy Learning Grades PreK-8 and mentioned that I am excited to share it with teachers at my school. However, hearing about great resources is always bitter sweet for Spanish side or bilingual teachers. While many aspects of resources/concepts can be directly translated over to Spanish, that involves time and effort, not to mention, carefully considering aspects that should not just be translated over. It will be so nice to introduce the English and Spanish Prompting Guides and the Continuo de adquisición de la lectoescritura: Grados PreK-2: Guía para la enseñanza, alongside the English continuum resource. I am hoping that eventually Pinnell and Fountas will have a full PreK-8 version available in Spanish.

Like the English PreK-8 version, this Spanish adaptation is neatly divided by card stock dividers with tabs, though the resource is much thinner since it only has a PreK-2 range. The tabs are also for grade levels, rather than type of continuum, with the exception of one guided reading tab; however, the same seven continuums are represented in the book. The introductory and background information about each of the continua is the same or almost exactly the same, but as marketed, there are differences in the continuums, specifically tailored to Spanish literacy development.

Much like the Spanish Prompting Guide,  the vast majority of the book is actually in English. At first I was surprised with the amount of English, which shifts the target audience to teachers who have a high level of English proficiency, rather than monolingual Spanish literacy teachers or bilingual teachers with a high level of Spanish proficiency who prefer a resource in Spanish. I would have liked to have seen more Spanish, especially with literacy language, as there are some words that bilingual professionals, even if they grew up in a Spanish speaking country, might not know if they have received all of their teacher education/literacy background in a US English speaking context. When I started teaching in English and Spanish, there were a lot of words specific to talking about literature and writing that I had to look up. It would be nice to have those translations already available in this resource. In some cases it is, but it would be nice to have it consistently throughout.

However, I would rather see a resource such as this that truly examines what is relevant in both languages vs. what is unique to Spanish, rather than having a full English resource directly translated completely into Spanish without regards to differences in language development. I can also see the advantage of having the explanations and background information in English for teachers who may prefer to read the majority in English but have the specific Spanish language adaptations for the continuum, as presented.

I am excited about the potential for this resource to allow for common language for grade level English side and Spanish side teachers having conversations about literacy levels in two languages. It will really help to give a detailed picture of strengths, areas for support, and aspects that students are (or aren't) transferring between the two languages. The introduction says, "The basic descriptions of behaviors and understandings to notice, teach, and support for grades prekindergarten through 2 have been revised and adapted to meet the developmental literacy needs of Spanish-speaking children" (p. 1). I love the wording notice, teach, and support, as it so accurately highlights benefits of the tool. In dual immersion settings, the continuum actually has a farther reach than native Spanish-speaking children, as it will also provide valuable insights for students who were monolingual English speakers upon entering school who are emerging as bilingual learners.

I can see how this Spanish adaptation in conjunction with their Sistema de evaluación de la lectura would be very powerful because again, for the Spanish student books they did not just translate their English Benchmark Assessment System books. Instead, they created new, authentic books in Spanish that are responsive to the uniqueness of Spanish literacy development. I look forward to checking back later to see other resources that Pinnell and Fountas develop in Spanish.

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The Continuum of Literacy Learning Grades PreK-8

Earlier this summer I got a taste of Pinnell and Fountas' Continuum of Literacy Learning Grades PreK-8: A Guide to Teaching second edition through the section they included in Literacy Beginnings. As I was reading through the full book, I noticed that I was switching back and forth between reading like a mom and reading like a teacher. I often looked at the PreK to think about where my five year old is coming from and the kindergarten to see where she is heading this year, I looked at second grade thinking of my older daughter, and of course, I looked at the 6-8 thinking of my students.

I am impressed with the overall resource that is packaged much like Literacy Beginnings with the durable card stock and tab dividers for different sections. After a general introduction, the book is divided into a series of seven continuums, such as shared and performance reading, writing about reading, and oral, visual, and technological communication. Each continuum is detailed by grade level, with the exception of the final continuum Guided Reading (Level A-Z), which breaks it down by guided reading level. In addition, each continuum is broken down into further categories. Some are consistent through multiple continuums, such as thinking within text, thinking beyond text, and thinking about text. As such, the different continuums each have something unique to offer, while complementing each other well, forming a cohesive whole. Pinnell and Fountas took special care in the beginning and throughout the book that the stages are not exact as students progress at different rates, as well as the possibility of being at different places for different aspects.

I love that the resource gives teachers a chance to intentionally think about various aspects of individual students. For example, this would be a powerful resource to use with reading workshop to consider which support would be most appropriate for any given student, as well as really pinpointing strengths and areas of growth. I can see how there would be aspects on the continuum that teachers might not have thought of but upon skimming through, the information could give valuable insights, automatically making perfect sense once the continuum brings it to a surface level of awareness. Over time the resource would definitely be a valuable tool to continue building teacher capacity for meeting student literacy needs.

This is another resource that I am excited to share with teachers next week in our reading and writing workshop course, as well as keeping in mind as I talk with teachers about literacy. Tomorrow I will be posting about the Spanish version for PreK-2.

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The Spanish Fountas and Pinnell Prompting Guide

Yesterday I talked about The Fountas and Pinnell Prompting Guide, and now I am going to talk about the Spanish edition and what it has to offer.

The Spanish version has explanatory text in English but provides the student prompting example dialogue in Spanish. Thus, the target audience is bilingual teachers, rather than monolingual Spanish teachers. This is also apparent when looking at the front covers and seeing the blend of languages on the Spanish cover. The tabs of both resources are exactly the same with writing in English for both versions. In addition, everything I loved about the crisp, clean lay-out of the English version, is also the same. Much of the introductory text is also the same in both versions, although there are some subtle differences appropriate to biliteracy in the Spanish edition.

Though not the main intended audience, the resource still has the potential to be a powerful resource for monolingual teachers, as well as a scaffold for Spanish speaking parents to become more involved in their children's literacy learning if schools provide sufficient background information to guide parents on how to utilize the tool.

The English and Spanish versions have much in common, but what stood out to me about Fountas and Pinnell resources provided in Spanish is that the authors don't just translate the English version to Spanish word for word. Instead, they make sure to consult with many native Spanish speakers to have high quality translations and they intentionally think about what is unique to biliteracy in comparison to literacy. For this specific resource they also have a statement in the introduction explaining the need for teachers utilizing the guide to be cognizant of regional variations of Spanish and the vocabulary that students will understand. Yet, they took it a step further by providing lexical variations in parenthesis throughout helping to raise the level of awareness for teachers while using the guide. I appreciate that they did not choose to just go by one variation of Spanish but instead took the time to really think about what would be most beneficial to students as individuals.

In my position at a dual immersion school, I teach in both languages, as does the kindergarten teacher. However, the rest of the Spanish immersion teachers only teach in Spanish, as they have a teaching partner that does the English side of the immersion. While Spanish immersion teachers would be able to take high quality resources in English that are relevant to Spanish and translate them (and often need to do so), it is so nice to find high quality resources already translated for bilingual teachers. It can often be draining teaching solely in Spanish in the United States, when there is such a disparity between resources in Spanish vs. resources in English. Thus, even though teachers could have taken the English version of the prompting guide as a scaffold for Spanish literacy instruction, I am grateful that the authors and Heinemann took the time to provide bilingual teachers will a little bit more support, especially since they are not just providing a word for word translation. I am excited to share this resource with teachers at my school.

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The Fountas and Pinnell Prompting Guide

In The Fountas and Pinnell Prompting Guide: A Tool for Literacy Teachers, Part 1 the authors provide a resource for teachers to aid in getting to know their students as individual readers and writers and then intentionally make instructional decisions to meet the needs of students. In the introduction they explain, "Your role is to notice each student's precise reading and writing behaviors and provide teaching that supports change in what she can do over time. As you infer from the behaviors how a reader or writer is building a system of strategic actions, you can make effective instructional decisions" (tab 1). I love that the authors refer to it as inferring from behaviors; I had not thought about it with that term, but it is precisely what teachers do when closely paying attention to students.

The guide is constructed on thick paper with a cover that can be used to set the guide up on a table for teachers to easily flip through it utilizing the convenient tabs during instruction. The tabs provide various summarized focal teaching points for both reading and writing, including left/right, voice-print, word beginnings, rate pausing, placing words, and monitoring/correcting. In addition, each tab lists the broader goals such as early reading behaviors, general problem-solving, and constructing words.

The pages have an easy to follow lay-out that is simple in order to avoid making the page too busy. Each section provides a brief introduction and instructions for teachers about what to observe in students. They also have headings with the full versions of the focal teaching points, as opposed to the condensed versions on the tabs. The pages are divided into three columns under each heading that mirror the cover words and color scheme: teach (in purple), prompt (in red), and reinforce (in green).

It is clear that Fountas and Pinnell decided to keep a clean, crisp layout to match their purpose of classroom utility vs. other professional development resources meant to provide detailed explanations. While the resource on its own is powerful, it would be even more advantageous for those using it to have a rich foundation in literacy learning as well. Luckily, the authors provide a list of professional references in the introduction which will be valuable for teachers who do not yet feel confident with their level of understanding behind the teaching points in this prompting guide.

The product is marketed as a scaffold for k-6 teachers. While some of the tabs are definitely relevant only to emergent literacy, such as reading left to right or the verbal path for letter formation, I agree that many of the other tabs are appropriate and helpful for the upper grades. As a mom, I appreciate the resources for younger grades because it is farther from my comfort zone when it comes to literacy. For example, the verbal path for letter formation is helpful because I have never had to explain how to form letters as my students already know how, so it is a tool that will help me as a parent.

Fountas and Pinnell also have the prompting guide available with Spanish components for bilingual literacy teachers. Tomorrow I will post more about that version.

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Literacy Beginnings

Literacy Beginnings: A Prekindergarten Handbook by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene C. Fountas is one of those books that surprised me with its size when I pulled it out of the box. Though I often notice page length when I am looking at books, I must not have with this one. As soon as I received it, the handbook part of the title was apparent. With 462 pages and 8 card stock weight pages with tabs to divide the sections, the book is a comprehensive introduction of main concepts, as well as organized in a way that it is user friendly.

The chapters are quick and concise with a Key Understandings to Think About and a Notes section at the end of each one. There are many pictures and illustrations to support the text, including a color insert showing various pictures of classroom set-up and student writing samples. Each chapter starts with a quote from educational and literacy leaders. A little less than half of the book is set aside for the appendices, which has a plethora of support to the ideas mentioned in the earlier sections of the book, including nursery rhymes, poetry, and songs, inquiry projects, literacy and language lessons, lists, and templates. It is apparent that the authors and Heinemann carefully thought out how to package the resource in order to make it highly useful.

I love the book for all of its possibilities! I was reading it more from a parent angle, looking for ideas for summer learning with my daughters (almost 5 and almost 8). While reading I was noticing that many of the ideas and the philosophy behind them reminded me of the Marie Clay resources that I have read, including her newest set of three books. I was going to write myself a note about this toward the front of the book, and coincidentally the first page that seemed to have enough space to write my note was a dedication page to none other than Marie Clay.

As a secondary language arts teacher, I loved that I could see how this resource aligns with the reading and writing workshop that my students do as 6th - 8th graders. I appreciated that I could envision the strong foundation that the ideas Pinnell and Fountas suggest would build for prekindergarten students before they even start kindergarten. By valuing children as readers and writers, even when their reading consists of talking about the pictures or retelling what they remember from a favorite book and their writing is mainly drawing, children will continue to grow into confident readers and writers.

Most importatntly, by following the books ideas, teachers will work toward a life-long love of reading and writing, rather than relying on drills and rote memorization that while it might show desired results on standardized testing will not necessarily mean that they are highly skilled readers and writers. Though the target teaching range is prekindergarten, I also believe the resource would be valuable to primary teachers for its literacy philosophy, balanced literacy in the classroom, and possibilities for workshop teaching in the younger grades components.

One final note is that I already know my daughters are going to love what we do this summer inspired by this book. Last night I called my younger daughter over to do the letter recognition sheets with her (pp. 432-433). Of course it ended up not being the best scenario because my older daughter ran over and though I told her that I wanted to see what her younger sister knew, she still would not provide sufficient wait time and started either blurting out or whispering letters to my younger daughter a lot of the time. Nonetheless, when we were finished, my younger daughter wanted more. I thought to flip to the front of the appendices and told her that we could sing some songs together, which she loved. This morning as I had the book to the side of the computer so that I could type my review, she just came by, saw the book and said, "Hey, can we do more fun stuff from your book?"

I am looking forward to blending some of their ideas with mine, as well as differentiating for my older daughter this summer. I think that we are going to start with a focus on food since the handbook had many ideas throughout, and summer is a perfect time for the concept. My older daughter was saving her apple seeds the other day, saying she wanted to plant them, which lends perfectly to many literacy and inquiry activities. We also receive a lot of produce each week from Bountiful Baskets, so we talk about all the different fruits and vegetables. They also enjoy cooking and baking with me, and we will have more time for that during the summer.

I highly recommend this comprehensive resource to parents, prekindergarten teachers, and primary teachers - another great book from Heinemann!