Dr. Tony Evangelisto, Professor
The College of New Jersey
Developing Literacy and Language Skills:
A Process Approach that Uses Interaction and Active Learning
Dr. Tony Evangelisto, Professor
Educational Administration and Secondary Education
The College of New Jersey
Introduction
This paper presents specific teaching strategies that classroom teachers may use in their classrooms to help
students develop literacy skills. These strategies are not only useful as a means of helping students develop
literacy skills, but they are also beneficial in assisting culturally different students to become more fully
assimilated into the English-speaking community of the school. They have been used successfully in a
variety of settings and at the elementary, middle, and high school levels of instruction.
The discussion will begin with an exploration of the challenges facing classroom teachers in providing
appropriate instruction for all students. This will be followed by an overview of the language development
process and by a cursory review of principles of learning that are pertinent to the topic at hand. Finally, the
strategies are presented and explained.
Challenges faced by classrooms teachers
Many teachers at every grade level face two major challenges in their classrooms. The first challenge
comes in the presence of students with limited proficiency in using English; the second appears in the form
of students who originate from cultures that are markedly different from the prevailing culture in the
classroom. These two phenomena are often combined within individual students and may serve to impede
students’ learning. The challenge facing classroom teachers is to discover ways to help students to
assimilate into the culture of the classroom and to develop proficiency in using the language of the
classroom. This helps in socializing the child into an English-speaking world and as a means of facilitating
the learning process which is conducted in the English language.
As teachers plan lessons in their respective disciplines, they are encouraged to plan activities that will bring
students together into social interactions that will enable them to learn from each other. Interaction among
students also allows students to learn the academic content from each other even as their relationships with
each become closer. It is hoped as well that students will become mutually respectful and supportive. It is
a clearly established principle in pedagogy that children learn a great deal from each other. Making
provision for student interaction in the classroom allows for more extensive learning, both social-cultural
and academic.
Social interaction is of vital importance to the culturally-divergent student. It enhances the individual’s
sense of belonging. It builds a sense of trust and confidence. It provides opportunities for students to
practice their use of the English language with other students who are accepting and supportive. It allows
for more successful learning of academic content as a function of increased facility in the language of
instruction.
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Dr. Tony Evangelisto, Professor
The College of New Jersey
Some fundamental notions regarding the development of language and literacy
skills
The teaching strategies presented below are predicated upon the author’s beliefs regarding the development
of language in individuals. Developmentally appropriate instruction proceeds from an understanding of
human development; for purposes of the present discussion, language development is the critical focus.
Language development proceeds in an orderly progression over a period of time. It begins at birth as the
child inherits the physical and intellectual capacities that are required for the production of speech.
Initially, the child produces random sounds and takes in a great deal of auditory sensory data while
listening to family members and others using language. Over a long period of time, the child produces a
narrower range of sounds, essentially mimicking and repeating the sounds that are being heard at home. A
critical aspect of this process is that language learning involves a great deal of social interaction between
and among individuals in the child’s environment.
Eventually, certain sounds take on special meaning; this is the early vocabulary development that
progresses dramatically in time. The sounds that the child ascribes meaning to are sounds that label
familiar objects, persons, or experiences in the child’s world. In effect, concrete objects and direct
experiences are connected with the words that the child learns initially, and the oral/aural learning that
occurs is powerful and indelible. In the process, the child internalizes the grammar of the native language,
inferring and replicating the syntactic structures at work within the native language and uses that
knowledge to produce new utterances to convey the child’s experiences, utterances that are not being
memorized and repeated. Once again, it is significant to note that social interaction is a vital component of
the language learning process.
As the process of learning to read begins, the child must learn the graphemic representations for the sounds
that have been learned earlier. That is, the child must recognize the letters of the alphabet and be able to
produce the sounds that they symbolize, and ultimately understand the words that they spell out. This is a
critical juncture, for the language process becomes more abstract than ever before. In the earlier stage of
the process, the child learns sounds (words) that stand for concrete objects or experiences. Now, the child
must learn to recognize the printed symbols that represent the sounds which signify the concrete objects or
experiences. The degree of abstraction has increased; so has the level of complexity and difficulty.
At this point in the child’s schooling, reading books and textbooks may rely less and less on visual and
concrete representations that aid in understanding (i.e., pictures or illustrations). The words themselves
become more of a central focus, and children are required to function at a more abstract level of languaging
with fewer aids to assist them.
For the child who is learning to read and write in the native language (L1), this process is challenging
enough. For the child who attempts to learn reading and writing in a second language (L2), the challenge
increases exponentially. I.e., ESL or bilingual students do not have the many years of language
development in English (from birth to the start of schooling) to provide them the basis for reading and
writing in English. Rushing them through a language program cannot replace the lack of the initial
language development experiences in English that their English-as-a-first-language classmates possess.
The basic realization that emerges from these realities is that students who have not developed a strong
language base before facing the prospect of learning how to read and write, must be provided opportunities
to develop that language base in a manner that replicates the process of learning language in the early
childhood years: it must be built upon lots of experience and practice (a constant process of languaging in
all of its forms) and it must be as concrete as possible so that the connections between words (as they sound
and as they look in print) and the real world are as overt and as obvious as possible. Multiple experiences,
extensive practice, and concrete learning activities are essential.
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Dr. Tony Evangelisto, Professor
The College of New Jersey
Some teaching implications that derive from concepts related to language
development
1.
2.
Teaching processes which replicate language development processes are more likely to succeed
than those which do not. Teachers are advised to:
a.
Provide abundant repetitions in using language – i.e., if we learn language
originally through the constant exposure to and use of the elements of the language,
then common logic dictates that this same mechanism works in learning a second
language.
b.
Begin with concrete experiences related to words – if words are abstract symbols
for sounds, which in turn are symbols for real objects or phenomena in the real
world, then the degree of abstraction inherent in words is likely to present a
challenge to learners. Connecting words to concrete referents is a means for making
the learning more accessible to students. Concrete learning serves as a foundation
for abstract learning.
c.
Rely upon social interaction as a means of developing language facility – human
beings learn from many sources, and one of the most powerful sources of learning is
other people. Social learning is an effective and powerful medium of instruction.
Teachers are certainly well aware of the effects of peer interaction and peer learning.
The success of Cooperative Learning and other varieties of group activity gives
credence to this notion.
d.
Encourage students to construct meanings as a vehicle for practicing the use of
language skills within a context that is familiar, concrete, and flexible. In this way,
students are employing a constructivist approach that requires thinking, using their
creative abilities, problem-solving, exchanging ideas with others in social
interactions, and then framing their ideas in words and sentences.
Teachers may help their culturally different students by:
a.
Recognizing that the L2 student (the student for whom English is not the first
language nor the dominant language) does not have the language base that L1
students have and require the repetitions, concreteness, and social interaction even
more than their L1 counterparts do.
b.
Remembering that culturally different students/L2 students are
also faced with a sense of isolation and frustration that often occur in individuals
who are not native or not born into the dominant culture. For this reason, teachers
are encouraged to help these students by providing more opportunities for interaction
with classmates as a means of fostering socialization and language skills.
Teaching reading/writing skills with Comic Strips
1.
Provide students with scrambled comics to arrange into order and write a sentence to express the main
idea of the combined frames. Students read the visual cues along with the verbal cues as presented in
the "dialogue balloons" [the part of the comic which expresses the words of the characters] and must
construct meaning from them. The visual, concrete illustrations provide information that assists the
reader in understanding the verbal content]. The teacher may ask the students to write a single
sentence to convey the main idea of the comic strip.
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Dr. Tony Evangelisto, Professor
The College of New Jersey
2.
Provide students with scrambled comics to arrange into order and write a paragraph based on it – one
sentence per frame. This activity represents a higher level of challenge than the activity presented in
the preceding one.
3.
Provide students with comics with empty dialogue balloons to write dialogue for each balloon. The
visual clues help the students to determine the meaning (albeit, at a highly idiosyncratic level) of the
comic strip; adding the verbal content allows students to construct meaning and give language to it in a
concrete situation.
4.
Have students read comics and then write captions for the idea(s) contained in them. Again, students
are asked to construct meanings related to the visual clues that are provided.
5.
Cut out pictures of four comic strip characters with an arrow to spin for writing dialogue – students in
groups take turns at spinning the spinner (arrow mounted so that it can spin) and writing dialogue for
the character that the arrow indicates when it stops.
6.
Create a comic strip to tell a story. This activity provides students with an opportunity to develop their
own story, draw their own cartoons, and supply the content for the "dialogue balloons" in which the
characters speak. Students may be encouraged to create these on the basis of individual or shared
experiences.
7.
Use a partial comic strip, with the last frame omitted, and have students create the frame based upon
the preceding frames. This allows students to practice the skills of reading for main idea and detail
as well as for predicting outcomes.
8.
Provide students with a complete comic strip and ask them to create and perform a rap song for it,
capturing and conveying the main ideas contained in it.
Teaching reading/writing skills with trading cards
1.
Provide students with a pack of baseball (or other sport) trading cards; have them arrange the cards
alphabetically by the name of the player. Students are then asked to transcribe the names onto a sheet
of paper to be submitted for checking by the teacher. The extra step of writing the names down in
alphabetical is a means of adding a kinesthetic element to the process of learning the alphabet.
2.
Using the statistical data and other information provided on a pack of trading cards, write a brief
biography of one player (of the student’s choice).
3.
Provide students with a simple short story and have them create trading cards for the characters in the
story (draw a picture of the character on the front, then a brief statement about the character on the
reverse side of the card, based on information provided in the story).
4.
Interdisciplinary activity: Provide students with a map of the United States and have the students
organize and alphabetize the players by region of the country or by State.
5.
Interdisciplinary activity: Provide students with a map of California and 15 to 20 trading cards of
players from that state and have the students write a listing of the players in terms of birth place from
north to south.
6.
Interdisciplinary activity: As students read about historical figures in social studies class, math or
science class, or elsewhere, have the students prepare trading cards for them (with drawings of the
historical figures on the front and biographical data and sketches on the reverse side)
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Dr. Tony Evangelisto, Professor
The College of New Jersey
Using various visual materials or concrete objects for teaching reading and writing
skills
1.
Have students read a short story/poem/short novel/play and have them create posters (similar to
posters that are used to advertise motion pictures in movie houses).
2.
Have students create book jackets for a short story/poem/short novel/play and have them draw
illustrations for the front and analytical or evaluative comments about the contents, much as critics’
comments appear on the backs of book jackets. Biographical sketches of the authors, or plot
summaries may also be provided on the book jackets.
3.
Have students illustrate scenes from a story, novel, or play, then provide a caption for their
illustrations (the captions are to be excerpts taken verbatim from the source that are appropriate for the
drawings that have been done).
4.
Interdisciplinary activity: As students read about historical events, have them create movie posters for
those events, providing highlighted information regarding them.
5.
Interdisciplinary activity: For historical events that students have read about, have them write and
perform rap songs about those events.
6.
Interdisciplinary activity: As students read about various cultures of the world, or countries, have them
develop travel brochures not only contain visual representations of the cultures or the countries but
also factual data or descriptive data related to them.
7.
Provide students with several small beany babies, plastic animals or figures, or similar objects and
have them write dialogue for them to tell a story.
Assessing Student Products/Performances
Each activity is intended to yield a product or a written record that can be assessed to ascertain a student’s
level of proficiency. Teachers are reminded that the measures of performance with reference to literary
skills need to be reasonable and flexible. In many instances, multiple possibilities of interpretation exist, so
students’ responses should be evaluated on the basis of the logic supplied by the student rather than against
an absolute rigid standard. The rubric should allow answers to be counted as correct if they can be
substantiated by a logical defense by the student. For instance, in arranging comic strip frames into their
“proper” order, the student may interpret the contents differently from the originator’s intention and can be
given credit if it can be defended successfully. The process is the primary emphasis of the activity; the
product merely provides evidence that the process has been accomplished effectively.
As students complete activities, and as results are assessed, teachers may track students’ progress over time
by keeping a record of assessments on each skill. The difficulty levels may then incrementally increase as
students show mastery at lower skill levels.
Summary remarks
There are many theories and beliefs regarding how individuals learn and how teachers might teach
accordingly. The suggestions presented here are intended to provide classroom teachers with some ideas or
approaches that may be helpful in facilitating literacy skills in students. These ideas are also proposed to be
used within the context of student interaction in pairs and in small groups so as to foster interaction among
culturally different students. The interaction, it is hoped, will facilitate social learning that has a beneficial
effect on developing literacy skills along with greater cultural awareness and acceptance among the
students themselves. Fundamentally, the activities are intended to put into practice the basic tenets of
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Dr. Tony Evangelisto, Professor
The College of New Jersey
behaviorist and classical conditioning types of learning theories which contend that drill-and-practice and
constant repetitions are the means whereby we learn, and also to implement the basic notions of gestalt and
similar learning theories which suggest that insight learning, problem-solving, and constructing meanings
(constructivism) foster higher-order thinking skills.
It is the author's hope that teachers will find these ideas helpful and that their students will learn the vital
skills that they need for success in a complex and challenging world. The strategies presented above have
been used successfully. Students develop literacy skills and learn to respect each other by participating
together in a process that is highly motivational, challenging, and concrete in its focus.
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