Definition of a Balanced Literacy Approach

1. Definition of aBalanced Literacy Approach “Balanced does not mean that all skills and standards receive equal emphasis at a given point in time. Rather, it implies that the overall emphasis accorded to a skill or standard is determined by its priority or importance relative to students’ language and literacy levels and needs.” Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools (California Department of Education, 1999, p. 4)

2. Communicative Competence GRAMMAR phonology syntax PRAGMATICS morphology semantics lexicon

3. A Balanced Biliteracy Program(based on M. Halliday, 1975) The effective biliteracy classroom is designed and structured to guide and support students as they: • Learn language • Learn about language • Learn through language

4. Learning Language • A progression of linguistic and communicative competencies through identifiable stages of development • Interrelationship between linguistic and cognitive development • Occurs through structured opportunities for language acquisition as well as explicit teaching/learning experiences • Depends on comprehensible input at one level of complexity beyond the learner’s level of linguistic competence

5. Learning About Language • Develops metalinguistic awareness in the three cueing systems • Builds a knowledge base in phonology, morphology, grammar & syntax, and semantics in both languages • Makes explicit contrasts and comparisons between language systems • Focuses on acquisition of problem-solving strategies in literacy tasks • Involves on-going assessment of learners’ growth and development

6. Learning Through Language • Making schematic and conceptual connections through theme units • Eliciting and expanding responses to literature through core book units and genre studies • Planned for ample opportunities for aesthetic and efferent responses to literature • Based on an inquiry approach to multicultural literature and content themes • Content area reading expands vocabulary and builds critical thinking skills

7. Traditional Approaches to Phonics Instruction • Are synthetic approaches using part to whole with segmentation and blending of letters into words • Begin with teaching individual letters and letter-sound correspondences • May involve kinesthetic activities, i.e., Orton-Gillingham, Zoo Phonics • Require direct instruction based on a behavioral analysis of decoding. I.e., Distar

8. Contemporary Phonics Approaches • Spelling-based principles such as Word Study or Making Words that involve sorting or making words based on students’ developmental level • Analogy-based approaches where students decode words based on known words or word parts • Embedded phonics where students where instruction occurs in the context of authentic reading and writing experiences

9. The Spanish Alphabet • 29 letters spell 24 phonemes • Highly regular and rule governed, with a few “letras difíciles” that have multiple phoneme-graphic correspondences • There are no “double letters”: ch, ll, & rr represent a single phoneme. The ñ comes from the Latin nn. • H is silent and u is silent after g unless it carries a “diérisis” (bilingüe, pingüino) and after q (queso)

10. One-to-one relations Phoneme Grapheme a /1/ /2/ b Phoneme to Grapheme Relationships One-to-many relations a /1/ b Many-to-one relations /1/ a /2/

11. Spanish Phonics • Phonemic awareness • Letter-sound correspondences • Spelling patterns • Syllabification • Diphthongs and syllable juncture • Categorization of words according to stressed syllable • Rules for the use of written accent marks

12. English Phonics • Consonants and vowels • Consonant blends and digraphs • Long and short vowels • R-controlled vowels • Vowel digraphs • Diphthongs • Homophones & homographs

13. Picture sorts Concept sorts Letter-sound correspondence sorts Same-vowel word families Mixed-vowel word families Word Hunt Word Bank Word Wall High-frequency word study Word strips Word Study Notebooks Dictation Word games Word Study in Dual Language Classrooms

14. Letras difíciles Parts of speech & changes of function Singular/plural inflections & noun/adjective agreement Classification by syllable stress & written accent Cognates Verb tenses, conjugation and agreement Diminutive and augmentation derivitives (ito, ón, ote, ísimo) Enclisis & apócope (cualquier, cualquiera, gran, grande) Word Study In Spanish

15. Spanish Phonemes Spelled Using Multiple Graphemes • Vowel phoneme i is written as i and as y (i griega) in diphthongs ending a word (soy, muy) • Labiodental /b/ is written as either b or v (haba, ave) • /k/ is written as c before a, o, u, or as k or as qu (casa, kiosco, queso) • /s/ is written as c before e, i or as s or as z (cerro, silla, zorro) • /h/ is written as g before e, i or as j (gigante, jinete) and as x (México, Don Quixote) • /y/is written as ie, ll or y (hielo, lleno, yodo)

16. Spanish Graphemes That Spell Multiple Phonemes • The letter b spells the bilabial b as in burro and the labiodental b as in arriba • The letter c spells /k/ as in casa and /s/ as in cita. • The letter g spells /g/ as in gallo and /h/ as in general • The letter y spells the vowel sound i at the end of words as in soy and the consonant sound y as in yegua

17. Spanish in Spain and Latin AmericaX, Y, Z and Thee • The x has respresents a number of phonemes: /h/,/x/ and in Mexico /sh/ for words from Náhuatl and Otomí. • In Latin America, the ll and y in initial position are pronounced the same (llama, yerno) • In Spain, the z before a, o u represents a soft /th/ sound. This sound is also spelled ce & ci. Words ending in z change to c when forming the plural (pez-peces; lápiz-lápices)

18. Phoneme Before a Before e Before i Before o Before u /k/ ca que qui co cu Hard g ga gue gui go gu /h/ ja ge, je gi, ji jo ju /kw/ cua cue cui cuo /gw/ gua güe güi guo Spanish Spelling Patterns

19. Spanish Structural Analysis • Word derivations: roots, prefixes and suffixes • Inflection and agreement (subject-verb, adjectives, possessives) • Enclisis (combining two classes of words) • Contractions (conjunción) • Shortened forms of words (apócope) • Compound words • Cognates

20. Spanish Syllable Patterns • A single consonant occurring between vowels is joined to the vowel or vowels that follow. • Two separate consonants between vowels are divided. • A strong vowel (a,e,o) combined in a syllable with a weak vowel (i, u) forming a diphthong or triphthong are not separated. • Consonant blends (consonant with l or r) are not separated • When s is in a prefix, it forms a syllable with the prefix

21. English Syllable Patterns • Closed: Short vowel ending with consonant • Open: Long vowel, no consonant ending • Vowel Digraph: vowel spelled with 2+ letters • C-le at the ends of words • R-controlled vowel • Vowel-consonant-e long vowel pattern • Idiosyncratic

22. Word Derivations immigrate migration immigration migrate immigrant migr-move migratory emigrate migrancy emigrant emigration