Content and Pedagogy: English Language Arts/Literacy

Standards #4 & #5: Reading, Writing, Comprehension, and Oral Language

(speaking/listening) Candidates demonstrate and apply understandings of the elements of

literacy critical for purposeful oral, print, and digital communication.

In one of my University of Alaska, Southeast Elementary Education classes the

professor posed the question- What is the purpose of language arts? At first glance this

seems like a pretty easy, straightforward question. Even so, it is an important one for

teachers to keep in mind as they teach language arts to students. The basic purpose of

language arts is to communicate clearly and effectively to another person your ideas,

thoughts, and feelings using speaking, reading, writing, and physical movement (i.e. sign

language). It can be easy for a teacher to lose sight of why we read and write as he or she

prepares lessons about punctuation or grades a student’s writing. As you will see from this

essay, I do believe there is a place for teaching the mechanics of writing and working on

reading skills. However, I am a big proponent of getting a lot of time simply practicing

reading, writing, and speaking. For example, if I were to break it down into a percentage

students should spend 75% of their time writing and 25% of their time working on areas

such as punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. In regards to reading, Nancy Atwell

(2010) stated, “It is frequent, voluminous book reading that makes readers” (p. 9). When I

teach language arts my goals are for students to have a lot of time to practice reading,

writing, and speaking in a variety of ways to encourage engagement and create a well-

rounded student. For this paper, I will look at the ways I seek to accomplish this in

speaking, reading, and writing.

school they already bring with them the ability to communicate through speaking. They

are probably comfortable speaking with others in their lives, such as family members or

friends. It is important to encourage students to speak freely with you as their teacher and

with their peers. Especially with younger classes, the teacher sets the tone of what the

class will be like. A teacher who listens respectfully to their students and helps them to

share their ideas will encourage an environment where students practice this with each

other. Clay (2014) says, “Good teachers have to play both roles- sometimes speakers and

sometimes listeners” (p. 14). Once students feel comfortable speaking in ways that are

familiar to them, the teacher can challenge them to grow into new areas.

There are many different areas where we practice speaking in my class- speeches,

presentations, sharing, discussions, performances, etc. Students have written speeches on

President’s Day using the prompt “If I Were President . . .”, then gave their speech at a

podium, performed a play in front of an audience, created a movie with speaking roles, and

gave a PowerPoint presentation to the whole school about a topic they chose. This last

school year I had a kindergartener that was so nervous to share in front of others that he

would ask me to come stand by him during show-and-tell. I would have the others

students ask him questions about his item because he would not share himself. He would

give one-word responses to the questions. It was really neat to see him grow throughout

the year, as he now raises his hand at opportunities to share in front of class, does show-

and-tell independently, and even had a speaking role in our school Christmas play. This

skill to speak and share in front of others is not just for young kids in school, but it is the

first step in preparing them for their future as adults. The ability to comfortably and
effectively speak in front of others is a valuable skill that can be used in many areas as an

adult; and it is a skill that many adults are not comfortable performing.

One of my favorite things I encountered in my graduate experience was the idea of

dialogic reading. Dialogic reading is the idea of using a book to create dialogue (Lonigan,

2014). Every person has done this to a degree if they have read a book to a child; naturally

the reader asks the child questions and the child talks about the book. Dialogic reading, as I

learned in the program, has the focus of the dialogue being the goal and the book being the

tool to create the dialogue. I have practiced this with students and it is an incredibly

effective way of engaging them. This year the class does a shortened, adapted dialogic read

for fifteen minutes before lunch. Students take turns picking a book from their book box

for me to read. As I read, students have opportunities to talk about the book, ask questions,

share things from their life, and so on. When I think back of this time what comes to mind

is all the conversations and talking we did, not about the actual topics or stories of the

books themselves. This time is very non-constrained as to what it needs to look like. A

third-grade girl picked a joke book and a book of poetry; it is neat to see how different

types of books create different experiences. This girl also asked to read the book herself,

which she and others have done a little. Next year, I hope to expand on this idea of the

students taking the lead. When students have a voice and are comfortable speaking and

sharing they add to the idea and you end up at a place you had not even considered. One of

my favorite things about teaching is seeing an idea you came up with that was good become

great after students add their thoughts and plans. This is more likely to happen when

students are comfortable and capable sharing their opinions and ideas.
 In my class students spend time just about every day being read to, reading silently

to themselves, reading with a classmate, and reading out-loud with myself in a group. A

study by Cipielewski and Stanovich (1992) stated, “It appears that the extent to which

individuals engage in literacy activities is a significant contributor to developed reading

ability” (p. 1). One of my favorite times of the day, and perhaps most productive to

developing the students’ reading, is right after lunch when we take turns reading out-loud

as a class from the Magic Tree House series by Mary Osborne Pope; this year we read

through the first twenty-eight Magic Tree House books. The National Reading Panel (2000)

study found that there was significant evidence that guided reading developed fluency.

When we read as a group, the students both get to practice reading out-loud in front of a

group, but also get to hear myself model reading. Also, as we read I will give suggestions,

such as the importance of pausing at a period before starting the next sentence or how to

read sections with quotation marks. Hasbrouck (2006) stated that “having students read

aloud along with a model of well-paced, expressive reading and receiving specific feedback

through systematic progress monitoring also helps improve students’ fluency skills” (para.

3). I give suggestions, or have students reread a section with a certain inflection, or ask or

answer a question about vocabulary. Still, I make sure that these small interruptions are

quick and infrequent so that the cohesiveness and cadence of the story is not damaged.

The last area of reading I want to talk about, though the students do other things, i.e.

read a passage and answer comprehension questions, is the use of assessment to gauge

student growth. With a class size of only five students, I am able to do a lot of informal

formative assessments; on average, I spend about an hour working one-on-one with each

student in the area of language arts each week. In addition, most of my students I have
taught for multiple years, so I get to know them very well. That being said, I like to use

standardized formal assessments that are used extensively around the country to measure

how they are progressing by others’ standards and compared to students their age. One

assessment I use is the DRA assessment (Beaver, 2006). I primarily use it to measure

speed and miscues. I like the DRA assessment because it requires the students to read for a

bit longer than other similar assessments, it has both fiction and non-fiction passages, and

can be used as early as kindergarten. I try to do one DRA assessment every 2-3 weeks for

each child and I record their results in a chart. The students like to see their chart and how

they are progressing. Some students ask to enter their results into the chart themselves.

For reading comprehension assessment, I use the MAP assessments three times a year. The

MAP assessments have both a reading assessment and a language assessment; the language

assessment covers various areas related to writing skills, such as grammar, punctuation,

etc. I like the MAP assessment because it gives me a tool to compare my students’ abilities

and progress compared to other students their age. It is not uncommon for me to have only

one student at a grade level, so I like to be able to see how they might fit in with a class

outside of our small community and school.

Similar to reading, the most important thing a teacher can do in the area of writing

is simply give students the opportunity to write. Fletcher and Portalupi (2001) share about

this idea:

Through his books and his research, Donald Graves has had a major impact on the

teaching of writing. One day a teacher asked Don, ‘How should I teach writing if I

can only sandwich it in one day a week?’ ‘Don’t bother,’ Don replied bluntly, ‘One

day a week will teach them to hate it. They’ll never get inside writing.’
 It is crucial for students to have frequent, predictable time set aside for them to

write. Plan to schedule a minimum of three days a week for about an hour each day.

Four or five days is even better. (p. 8)

They recommend this breakdown for times in a one hour writing workshop- 5-10 minutes

for a mini-lesson, 35-45 minutes of writing, 10-20 minutes of sharing. In my class we do a

variety of writing- fiction, non-fiction reports, journaling, speeches, email, letters, etc.

When we write I try to keep my mini-lessons or instructions as short as possible. This is

something I am still working on perfecting, as it is so easy to look at the clock and realize I

have spent too much time teaching the mini-lesson. Students do not need to achieve

mastery over a skill the first time after being taught. The example of a person being taught

how to dribble a basketball comes to mind. If for two hours you taught a person who had

never held a basketball how to dribble a basketball, and then gave them a chance to

attempt it, they would not be very skilled at the task. Yet, there are children who have

never had a formal basketball lesson, who play basketball on a daily basis, who obtain

tremendous skill at the task. This example does not say that there is not value in formerly

teaching basketball skills or in teaching writing skills. Rather, the focus should be on

finding a variety of ways to allow students to write and finding ways to infuse small lessons

into those times. For example, at times I will require a specific task on a free-choice journal

writing day, something as simple as the students needing to use three adjectives in their

writing and identify those adjectives by underlining them.

As I teach writing I am always looking for new ways to incorporate writing in ways

that my students will get excited about and enjoy. These writings and illustrations are

student work from an idea that came about last year while we were reading through the
Magic Tree House series. We would finish chapter 6, being careful not to see the title of

chapter 7. The students would continue the story themselves, providing their own title,

and adding an illustration after they completed the writing. Before we read the actual

chapter 7 in the published book the students would go around and read what they had

written and share their illustrations. The students were very intentional about not seeing

anything from chapter 7, as well as keeping their own stories secret till they revealed at

sharing time. I gave the kindergarteners the option of dictating to me a story; one

kindergarten chose to create this story and the other opted to do other work. Even though

the kindergarten did not having the writing skills necessary to write out the story

independently, she clearly had the ability to create the story.

Another thing I did in this activity, which I almost always do in writing assignments,

is model writing by joining in the assignment. By joining with the students in this writing

activity it enhanced the experience because it was something we were all doing together; I

genuinely looked forward to when we shared our writing. Spandel (2004) states, “Nothing,

absolutely nothing you will ever do as a teacher will be more powerful than modeling

writing in front of your students” (p. 164). And it is not just about a teacher showing

students how to write, it is about keeping the teacher connected to the writing. When I give

the students an assignment to write, and I get to write, and they see me enjoying the

writing, it both keeps me connected to the heart of why we are learning to write and

encourages the students to join me in having fun writing. Teaching the same lesson

multiple times can get mundane, but when I am creating a new piece of work each time

along with the kids, it is much easier to engage in the teaching.

different words can change the same story. I wrote a story about a boy going to the park

and playing with his friend. I purposefully had written the story in the most boring,

undetailed way I could. The students then had to take that story and find ways to enhance

the interest level for the reader; before they did this themselves I modeled this task on

another piece of similarly uninteresting writing. They could not change the actual core

story, just use different words and add simple details. First, the students worked

independently and changed the story to make it more interesting. Then they took their

first draft and had two peer conferences with other students, who gave them ideas on their

writing. Then the student met with me for a last student/teacher conference. Lastly, the

student took all the ideas he or she received and wrote a final draft to share with the class;

one thing I emphasized to the students is that it was their writing and they had final say on

what ideas they wanted to incorporate into their story. Again, I also did the assignment

with the students, and we all shared our final drafts with the class. Just like creating a new

piece of writing can be a challenging, fun, and exciting, creating new ways to teach and

engage in writing can be the same experience. Just doing one or two types of writing is not

inclusive of all the various writings students will do in their lifetimes.

When I think back on the language arts teaching I have done, there are so many

things I have done that I am happy about. Even so, there is so much more I can do and that

I want to do. For example, next year my class is going to do a whole year language arts unit

that I had been wanting to develop for 2 or 3 years now; this year I had some time to

develop the unit. It will involve students learning about how books are made, writing

letters to authors and illustrators, connecting with publishers and editors, writing their
own book to be self-published, and marketing and selling their book. When I considered

doing this unit I had two thoughts- this is so exciting, and this is going to be a lot of work in

unfamiliar territory. However, the fact that I will be learning and trying new things right

along with the students makes me look forward to next year. At the end of next school

year, we are taking a school trip outside of Alaska. I hope to do some book readings in

bookstores where we travel, where the kids will read their own books and sign them. As I

prepare for all the work ahead, I keep in mind the idea of a student selling and signing their

book for someone who wants to buy their book. As I teach language arts I am always

looking for ways to connect the students to the world of words that exists outside of them,

and show them they don’t have to wait till adulthood to start engaging it.
 References

Atwell, N. (2010). The case for literature. Education Week, 29(21), 32. Retrieved at

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/02/10/21atwell_ep.h29.html

Beaver, J. (2006). DRA2: Developmental reading assessment. Parsippany, NJ: Celebration

Press

Cipielewski, J., & Stanovich, K.E. (1992). Predicting growth in reading ability from children’s

exposure to print. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 54(1), 74-89.

http//:doi:10.1037/0012-1649.33.6.934

Clay (2014). By Different Paths to Common Outcomes: Literacy Learning and Teaching.

Stenhouse Publishing

Hasbrouck, J. (2006). For students who are not yet fluent, silent reading is not the best use

of classroom time. American Educator, 30(2). Retrieved at

https://www.readingrockets.org/article/developing-fluent-readers

Fletcher, R. & Portalupi, J. (2001).  Writing workshop, the essential guide.  Portsmouth,

NH:  Heinemann.  

Lonigan, C. [Reading Rockets]. (2014, April 28). Implementing Dialogic Reading [Video].

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2FLrq8YIyY

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read: An evidence-based assessment on the scientific research literature on reading

and its implications for reading instruction. Washington DC: National Institute of

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