Basic skills belong in context.--Lucy McCormick Calkins, 1980
Background
Teachers, researchers, parents, and the public agree that children need
to develop and use what are sometimes called "basic skills,"
such as the ability to use phonics knowledge in reading, the ability to
spell conventionally, and the ability to use grammatical constructions
effectively and according to the norms of the communities with which they
want to communicate. What many people do not realize, however, is that
the ability to use these skills is best fostered by teaching them
in the context of their use. Research demonstrates that skills taught,
practiced, and tested in isolation are not used as consistently or effectively
as skills taught when children are actually reading and writing.
Phonics
Recent research demonstrates that in classrooms where phonics is taught
in the context of rereading favorite stories, songs, and poems, children
develop and use phonics knowledge better than in classrooms where
skills are taught in isolation. Similarly, phonics knowledge is developed
by encouraging and helping emergent writers to spell by writing appropriate
letters for the sounds they hear in words (for a summary, see Weaver, 1994b).
Effective phonics instruction focuses children's attention on noticing
the letter/sound patterns in initial consonants and consonant clusters
and in rimes (the vowel of a syllable, plus any consonants that might follow,
such as -ake, -ent, -ish, -ook). Focusing on rimes rather than on
vowels alone is particularly important in helping children learn to decode
words (for a summary, see Adams, 1990).
Effective reading instruction helps children learn to use phonics knowledge
along with their prior knowledge and context, rather than in isolation.
For example, children can be encouraged to predict words by using prior
knowledge and context along with initial consonants, then look at the rest
of the word to confirm or correct their prediction.
Both teachers and parents can do various things to help children gain
phonics knowledge in the context of reading and writing. For example: (1)
read and reread favorite nursery rhymes to reinforce the patterns of the
language, and enjoy tongue twisters and other forms of language play together;
(2) reread favorite poems, songs, and stories and discuss alliteration
and rhyme within them; (3) read alphabet books to and with children, and
make alphabet books together; (4) discuss words and make lists, word banks,
or books of words that share interesting spelling/sound patterns; (5) discuss
similar sounds and letter/sound patterns in children's names; (6) emphasize
selected letter/sound relationships while writing with, for, or in front
of children; (7) help children write the sounds they hear in words, once
the children have begun to hear some separate sounds; (8) when reading
together, help children predict and confirm as explained above (Mills et
al., 1992; Powell & Hornsby, 1993; Wagstaff, n.d.; Griffith & Olson,
1992; Weaver, 1994a and b).
Spelling
Children who are encouraged to spell words as best they can when they
write typically score as well or better on standardized tests of spelling
by the end of first grade than children allowed to use only correct spellings
in first drafts. Meanwhile, the children encouraged to spell by writing
the sounds they hear in words seem to develop word recognition and phonics
skills sooner (Clarke, 1988). They also use a greater variety of words
in their writing.
At least in grades 3-6, it is not clear that spelling instruction has
much of an effect beyond what is learned through reading alone, if children
are reading extensively (Krashen, 1991).
Emergent writers benefit from help in writing the sounds they hear
in words. Gradually, with extensive writing experience, their early invented
spellings will give way to more sophisticated invented spellings and to
conventional spellings.
Extensive exposure to print and reading helps children internalize
not only the spellings of particular words, but spelling patterns (Moustafa,
1996). Just as children learn the patterns of the spoken language from
hearing it, children learn patterns of the written language from reading
and rereading favorite texts. Texts with regular patterns like "Nan
can fan Dan" are not necessary, however, nor are they even as readable
as texts written in natural language patterns.
In the long run, teaching children strategies for correcting their
spelling is far more important than giving them the correct spelling of
any particular word. Such strategies include: (1) writing the word two
or three different ways and deciding which one "looks right";
(2) locating the spelling in a familiar text or in print displayed in the
classroom; (3) asking someone, consulting a dictionary, or using a computer
software program or a hand-held electronic speller (Wilde, 1992).
Discussing spelling patterns and drawing spelling generalizations as
a class will also help children develop an ever-growing repertoire of words
they can spell correctly in first drafts. Such interactive, thought-engaging
lessons are likely to be more productive than spelling lists and tests
(e.g. Wilde, 1992; Wagstaff, n.d.; Cunningham, 1995; Buchanan, 1989).
Grammar
Decades of research demonstrate that teaching grammar as a school subject
does not improve most students' writing, nor even the "correctness"
of their writing (Hillocks and Smith, 1991). What works better is teaching
selected aspects of grammar (including sentence variety and style, punctuation,
and usage) in the context of students' writing-that is, when they are revising
and editing their writing (Calkins, 1980; DiStefano & Killion, 1984;
see summary in Weaver, 1996).
For improving editing skills, it is most effective and efficient to
teach only the grammatical concepts that are critically needed for editing
writing, and to teach these concepts and their terms mostly through minilessons
and writing conferences, particularly while helping students edit their
writing.
Research shows that systematic practice in combining and expanding
sentences may increase students' repertoire of syntactic structures and
may also improve the quality of their sentences, when stylistic effects
are discussed as well (Hillocks and Smith, 1991; Strong, 1986). Thus sentence
combining and expansion may be taught as a means of improving sentence
variety and style. However, isolated activities are not necessarily any
more effective than minilessons and writing conferences in which teachers
help students rearrange, combine, and expand their sentences for greater
effectiveness.
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
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