Chapter Six Supporting the Acquisition of Reading and Writing Skills

1. Reaching and Teaching Children Who Hurt: Strategies for Your Classroom by Susan E. Craig Foreword Susan F. Cole Chapter Six Supporting the Acquisition of Reading and Writing Skills

2. Chapter 6: Introduction • Childhood trauma can have detrimental effect on the acquisition of reading and writing skills. • Learning to read is first and foremost a social practice that many children begins in the emotional context of shared reading experiences with parents. • Through shared reading within a secure and stable environment, parents help children begin to understand how meaning is constructed from print. • Children traumatized by family violence are often deprived of the early literacy experiences enjoyed by other children. • Even when reading takes place, the interactions between parent and child is often strained if correction tactics are harsh and interactions are limited. • (Hart & Risley, 1995) Cumulative Vocabulary of 3 year olds by Socio-Economic Group *Welfare Families 500 *Working Families 750 *Professional Families 1,100

3. Reading Instruction Strategies • Provide children with numerous opportunities to explore the context if the stories they are going to be reading i.e. bring in food or tools that are similar to those described in the text • Read stories to children that are about the town where they live or about the natural habitat around them, this helps children who are living in difficult home situation realize that they are apart of a larger, gentler world • Read stories about people who overcome great adversity to go on and make an important contribution to their communities • Integrate characters from favorite books into problems children are trying to solve in the classroom. Have discussions about what they think their favorite character might do and why • Find books that remind you of students best qualities and attributes. Share these with each child on an individual basis • Make reading a really special time for children Involve them in the selection of the books you read to them. Explore the book before you read t together. Look at the pictures and try to imagine what the book will be about. Talk about the story and who the characters remind you of. Model asking questions of the text, and encourage the children to do the same. • -No: Child-Parent reading programs Child-Independent Reading Units

4. Oral Reading Instruction Strategies • Institute “Fancy Fridays.” These are days when the teacher and a select group of children, instead of have a pretend restaurant and converse • Have a group storytelling time, during which one person gets the story going and then hands a baton to another student, continue with the topic, record the story as a teacher and then ask questions to the students • Use Mad LIBS practicing the parts of speech- • Provide opportunities for children to have reading partners • Have students practice reading by learning the words to folk song, Broadway show tunes, or other music they enjoy • Rethink reading assignments –assign books that interest students

5. What we know & What’s new? • You know that the home environment influences children’s ability to learn how to read and write • The emotional tone that surrounds shared reading experiences between parents and children affect children’s literacy development. • You know that mediated learning experiences with caring adults help children learn to be purposeful readers • Traumatized children often lack a history of mediated learning experiences, making it more difficult for them to become purposeful readers

6. Comprehending Text Strategies • Children traumatized by family violence may have limited background experiences to draw on when undertaking a comprehension task. They need teachers to provide more opportunities for connections. • Provide explicit instruction in perceiving patterns and connections in text. Help students notice the structures in literature • Provide additional time and support for one on one time • Provide children with access to age appropriate magazines that give them opportunities to read and appreciate nonfiction • Children become better readers when adults continue to mediate their reading instruction, helping them work in their zone of proximal development: the area between their independent reading level and their level of potential development -provide children reading materials that contain more complex narratives and language structures than those found in remedial texts. • Connections –BRAIN RESEARCH

7. Tovani, C. (2000). I read it, but I don’t get it: Comprehension strategies for adolescent readers. Portland, M.E: Stenhouse • This reminds me of • I wonder • This is important because • I thinks this means • I think this looks like Making connections helps children visualize the action, interact with the author, and bring their own meaning to the words

8. What we know & What’s new? • You know that children who have strategies for approaching text are capable of comprehending text in an accurate and efficient manner • When children grow up in unpredictable environments, they often need direct instruction in strategic reading to help them approach text in a purposeful manner

9. Strategy Instruction • Stock your classroom with a variety of books-diversity is important-access to the library • Model how you connect with text • Use readers theatre- acting • Provide students with frequent opportunities for interactive note taking • Provide question making stems, brainstorm questions about text, and provide guided readings

10. Set Goals with Students • Traumatized children are described as those who act instead of plan, the reality is they although they care, they can see no way to improve their performance or change the circumstances in their lives • Provide rubrics • Certificates for completions • Assign students a realistic goal in reading improvement • Predictable and Routine-Provides safety

11. What we know & What’s new? • You know that putting words to paper can be difficult for many children. They may be afraid that they do know the “right” answer or that their work will reflect what they do not know • Traumatized children may be afraid that what they write will reveal something about themselves or their family that will get them in trouble. They may be too unaware of their own thoughts and feelings to complete writing assignments that require a personal response

12. Writing Instruction Strategies • Offer writing choices, “how was the weekend” “Family Trips” “Holiday Vacation” • Use storyboards to help children sequence their writing • Write stories in small groups, with each student contributing several sentences • Introduce students to journal writing- communication tool ‘for their eyes only” • Set up pen pals through letters or emailing, old-young -young- very old