Effective Techniques for Developing Letter Recognition

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  The goal for Grade Primary is for each student to develop a comfortable familiarity with at least 15 letters.
  

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  The majority of letter work should take place through shared reading (charts, big books, environmental print, and shared writing).
  
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  Interactive word wall activities are beneficial.
  
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  Intentional exposure to print (drawing students’ attention to print often and in many ways) is crucial.
  
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  “Letter of the Week”, phonics sheets and letters taught in isolation are not recommended practices.
  

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  Students should be writing from the first day of Primary.
  
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  Students’ reading and writing vocabularies are not necessarily the same.
  
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  Students should be taught from the first day how to use classroom resources such as word wall, alphabet chart, name tags, calendars, etc.
  

In grade Primary, word study is really the development of word awareness. This happens through oral word play and exposure to print.

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  Student creates sketches/drawings which reflect content of a text (characters, setting, an event). (visualizing)
  
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  Student writes short sentences that respond to text (e.g. a prediction, opinion, feeling, or any interesting aspect of the text). (inferring)
  
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  Student writes something in his/her own life when prompted by the text (connecting)
  
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  Student represents a character (with some detail) through drawing or writing (visualizing, determining importance, synthesizing)
  
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  Student infers how a character feels. (inferring)
  
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  Student remembers information from a text to produce lists, simple sequence of actions, and directions. (determining importance)
  
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  Student makes innovations to a text by changing events, characters, endings, settings. (synthesizing)
  
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  Student notices the way a text is written and models the style in his/her own writing. (synthesizing)
  

1. 
   These are instructional targets only. Not all students will reach these benchmarks with their classmates, but all students can learn to read.
   
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   In order to make progress as readers, all students must receive reading instruction at their own instructional reading levels.
   
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   During independent reading time, students read texts that are at their independent level (easy text).
   

1. 
   The instructional reading level with comprehension
   
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   The student’s demonstrated comfort with Grade One Reading Benchmarks
   

Students in Grade One have moved beyond patterned text and interact with text that carries a story. At this stage, it is important for teachers to understand the thinking process employed by students in order to determine whether readers are using visual cues, structural cues or meaning cues. Self-Monitoring Strategies should be evident.

Meaning cues relate to the reader’s ability to gather a book’s basic message by making meaning of it at the text, content, and word level. If readers are using meaning cues, they think about what they read. They check whether the sentence makes sense. If the student seems to be considering the story background, the information from the picture and the meaning in the sentence, then he/she is using meaning cues.

Readers who use structural cues rely on their knowledge of grammar and the structure of the language to make text sound right. Using this knowledge, readers check to see if the word or sentence sounds right. If the student makes errors which sound right considering the structure and syntax of the English language, then he/she is using structural cues.

Visual information includes the way letters and words look. Readers use their knowledge of the visual features of words and letters and then connect these features to their knowledge of the way words and letters sound when spoken. If the student makes errors which visually resemble the word in the text, (i.e. begins with the same letter) then the child is using visual cues.

A comprehensive writing program in the grade one year should include attention to:

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  Modes of Writing: expressive, transactional, poetic
  
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  Forms of Writing: journals, stories, reports, logs, poems, procedural text, persuasive text, etc.
  
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  Traits of Writing: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions
  

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  30-40 minutes, daily
  

Mini Lessons in the Grade One Writing Workshop focus on concepts like vocabulary development, letter and word recognition, conventions of print, as well as elements of form (e.g. this is how a story begins, a journal entry looks like this). Teachers are encouraged to use mentor texts at this time (picture books, charts, big books etc.)

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  The teacher holds the marker and demonstrates specific writing skills often using a chart.
  
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  Students learn that print is thoughts written down.
  
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  The teacher may demonstrate a particular form of writing.
  

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  The teacher holds the marker but the students contribute ideas.
  

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  The students learn that print is thoughts written down.
  
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  This is a perfect opportunity to model conventions of print, conventional spelling etc.
  

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  The teacher shares the marker with the students as they construct text together.
  
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  Students may write individual letters, word parts, or whole words, while the teacher writes the rest.
  
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  The teacher has an opportunity to work with spacing, letter formations, upper and lower case letters, high frequency words, spelling strategies etc.
  
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  This provides a perfect vehicle for the teaching of the traits of writing
  

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  Students work in small groups on a common writing task.
  
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  The teacher groups students according to: form of writing, topic, interest, strengths/needs
  
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  Students support one another.
  
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  Teacher provides support as needed.
  
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  The teacher emphasizes “No Excuses” words and notices words that are spelled incorrectly, but places most value on content.
  

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  Students must write daily.
  
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  The use of invented spelling is important as this is how students develop and assess their knowledge of sound-symbol correspondence
  

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  Students work on writing pieces independently.
  
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  The teacher confers with students to work on specific skills.
  
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  The teacher emphasizes the value of the content, but notices “No Excuses” words and words which are spelled incorrectly.
  
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  The teacher collects evidence to inform future instruction.
  

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  The author (student) brings an unfinished piece and tells the group where he/she needs help.
  
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  The author brings a finished piece and gets feedback to support revision.
  
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  This provides an excellent opportunity for the teacher to observe and assess speaking and listening skills.