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One of the major focus areas for CEEE work in recent years has been
the improvement of literacy achievement. CEEE has addressed this issue
by continually developing its literacy knowledge
base and applying this knowledge in its technical assistance activities.
To
learn more about the resources upon which CEEE staff rely, please consult
the menu to the right.
Primary and elementary focus
-- CEEE's work at the primary and elementary levels is premised on scientifically
based research which indicates that children who do not learn to read
during the early elementary years will face greater challenges in attempting
to "make up" for this deficit in later years.
Young children who are learning to read must understand and become skilled
at 5 areas: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading
comprehension (National
Reading Panel, 2001). To develop skills in these 5 areas, students
need
- direct teaching of decoding,
comprehension, and literature appreciation;
- phonemic awareness instruction;
- systematic and explicit instruction in the code
system of written English;
- daily exposure to a variety of texts,
as well as incentives for children to read independently and with others;
- vocabulary instruction that includes a variety of complementary methods
designed to explore the relationships
among words and the relationships
among word structure, origin and meaning;
- comprehension strategies that
include prediction of outcomes, summarizing, clarification, questioning,
and visualization; and
- frequent writing of prose
to enable deeper understanding of what is read. (Moats,
1999)
Middle and high school focus
-- For middle and high school students, learning to read and write
is a complex task that continues into the middle and high school years.
(A common misconception of reading is that students learn
to read in the early elementary years and then read
to learn in the upper grades. This misconception assumes that literacy
development is complete when students enter sixth or seventh grade.) In
actuality, during the middle and high school years, literacy tasks take
on new forms and increased complexity.
Issues for adolescent readers include:
1) Motivation
Engagement
Self Efficacy
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The cluster of personal goals, values,
and beliefs that adolescent readers hold pertaining to the topics,
processes, and outcomes of reading. |
| 2) Alphabetic Principle |
The difficulties that some struggling
adolescent readers continue to have with the phonological aspects
of word analysis. These difficulties are compounded by the tendency
in adolescent readers to rely more heavily on guessing words from
context as opposed to applying word analysis processes. |
| 3) Fluency |
The ability to read quickly, accurately,
and with appropriate expression. |
| 4) Vocabulary |
That component of comprehension that
is dependent upon word knowledge. This aspect of vocabulary is distinct
from the phonological analysis processes critical to decoding words;
rather it refers to the adolescent reader's oral language vocabulary. |
5) Comprehension
Prior Knowledge
Strategic Capability
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The adolescent reader's abilities to
understand and think critically about multiple forms of text (i.e.,
narrative, expository, etc.). These abilities are partially dependent
upon the two subthemes of prior knowledge and strategic capability.
"Strategic capability" is defined as ability to apply a
repertoire of comprehension strategies appropriately, efficiently,
and effectively. |
| 6) Developmental Nature of
Reading |
How a reader's ability to learn from
text changes over the course of one's educational and life experiences. |
| 7) Native Language Literacy |
The impact that first language literacy
has on the development of literacy in English. |
| 8) Second Language Learning |
How vocabulary and oral language development
in a second language, such as English, impacts literacy development
in the second language. |
| 9) Culture and Community |
How family, peers, culture, and community
impact literacy development. |
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