WHAT IS GOOD LITERACY INSTRUCTION?

1. WHAT IS GOOD LITERACY INSTRUCTION? Expanding Discussion to Issues of Learning and Academic Development Patricia A. Alexander University of Maryland

2. GOOD LITERACY INSTRUCTION IS ABOUT STUDENT LEARNING

3. ACHIEVEMENT = LEARNING • In the current test-driven climate, it is easy to confuse performance on high-stakes, standardized tests with learning • The type of instruction that may result in higher test performance for schools or classrooms can be detrimental to deep-seated or long-term learning • Thus, achievement, as measured only by test scores, does not equate to learning

4. GOOD LITERACY INSTRUCTION FOSTERS ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT

5. What is Academic Development? Academic Development … … the systematic changes that occur as a result of formal education

6. The path to academic development in literacy requires continuing attention to students’ domain knowledge, interests, and their strategic processing • No student can achieve competence in any academic domain without the strategies and skills to comprehend both traditional and nontraditional texts

7. THE MODEL OF DOMAIN LEARNING (MDL) DEPICTS ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT

8. STAGES OF DOMAIN LEARNING Early Middle Late Proficiency Acclimation Competence

9. COMPONENTS OF THE MDL • Subject-Matter Knowledge • Learner Interest • Strategic Processing

10. SUBJECT-MATTER KNOWLEDGE • All knowledge that an individual has relative to a specific domain of study or a topic drawn from that domain. • Types of Subject-Matter Knowledge • Domain Knowledge • Breadth of knowledge • Topic Knowledge • Depth of knowledge

11. LEARNER INTEREST • Interest is the energizing of learners’ underlying needs or desires • Individual or Personal Interest • Long-term investment or deep-seated involvement in a given pursuit, subject, or topic • Situational Interest • Temporary arousal or attention that is triggered by conditions within the immediate context

12. STRATEGIC PROCESSING • General cognitive or metacognitive/self-regulatory processes purposely invoked • Two Types • Surface-Level Strategies • Initial understanding • Includes rereading or omitting unfamiliar words • Deep-processing Strategies • Personalizing or transforming the message • Includes comparison to prior learning or questioning the author

13. STAGESOF DOMAIN LEARNING Domain Knowledge DK TopicKnowledge TK Deep-Processing Strategies D-PS Surface-Level Strategies S-LS Situational Interest SI SI Individual Interest II S-LS II D-PS TK DK EarlyMiddleLate Acclimation Competence Proficiency

14. WHEN IT COMES TO DOMAIN LEARNING, LEARNING TO READ AND READING TO LEARN ARE INSEPARABLE …and their instruction should be likewise!!

15. MENTIONING = TEACHING • Mentioning refers to the superficial treatment of essential content and strategies (Durkin 1978) • The high-stakes curricula of current public education may promote mentioning over teaching • Mentioning literacy components in domain instruction does not constitute effective literacy instruction • It is time to return to meaningful literacy teaching embedded within the instruction of other academic domains