ERDG 655: Early Literacy Development, B-2
Program Requirements and Prerequisites: This is a required course for students in the Literacy B-6 and B-12 programs. It is also a required
course for the Early Childhood Education program, and an elective for students in the Childhood Education program.
Practicum: 5 Hours.
Course Description: This class examines literacy development in very young children in school, preschool and home. Literacy development is
addressed as acquiring situated, changing, social practices. Topics include: conditions and materials for literacy learning, developing responsive
literate relationships with and among young children, observing and documenting growth in early literacy, the reciprocal relationships among early
writing, reading and speaking, the relational and emotional dimensions of early literacy, intentionality, play, drama, identity, and picture books and
their use. The course addresses effective teaching practices for both preschool and kindergarten classrooms. This course has a 5-hour required
practicum component. Students in the literacy programs must receive a B or better in practicum courses before being allowed to take the capstone
class.
Attributes
 Literacy as Social Practice**
 Equity
 Generate Productive Learning Communities*
 Engagement*
 Reciprocal Relationships Across Modes of Communication**
 Strategic Teaching to Promote Self-Extending Learning*
 Assessment of Literacies and Their Development**
 Research Based Professional Learning*
Core Content
Understanding the Nature of Early Literacy
Development
 Literacy as a local social practice
 Literacy development as increasing
participation in social practice vs. readiness
 Positioning children as authors/readers
 Intentionality
 Relations among reading, writing, listening
and speaking acquisition
 Concepts about print
Attributes (continued)
 Respectful Representation of Students, Families and Communities*
 Critical Literacies*
 Disciplinary Literacy/Knowledge Building*
 Data Based Decision Making**
 Technologies and Digital Media**
 Materials and Resources*
 Prevention and Intervention**
 Standards*
Possible Assignments
The following are examples of assignments that
are used in this class.
Practicum Case Study
Students will conduct and write up a case study
of a young child (from age 3 kindergarten) who is
emerging into the world of language and print.
The case study report requires conducting and
analyzing (a) a set of informal observations of the
child engaged in literacy activities at home and/or
Possible Readings
Pianta, R.C. (2006). Teacher-child
relationships and early literacy. In D.K.
Dickinson & S.B. Neuman (Eds.), Handbook of
early literacy research, volume 2. New York,
NY: Guilford.
Clay, M.M. (1998). Conversation as one
model of teaching interactions. In A. Watson
& A. Badenhop (Eds.), Accepting the literacy
challenge. Auckland, New Zealand: Ashton
Scholastic.
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Word knowledge in reading, writing and
speaking (including vocabulary, phonological
and phonemic awareness, knowledge of
graphemes, morphemes, alphabetic principle)
Composition and comprehension
development
Critical and new literacies in the early years
Noticing, Documenting, and Assessing Early
Literacy Development
 Arranging for children to reveal their thinking
and theorizing
 Noticing and documenting literate processes
 Noticing and documenting word knowledge
(including vocabulary, phonological and
phonemic awareness, knowledge of
graphemes, morphemes, alphabetic principle)
 Noticing and documenting composition and
comprehension development
 Systematically recording children’s literate
development
 Assessing and testing children’s literate
development
 Representing early literacy learning and the
partially correct
Socio-emotional and Literacy Development
 The relationship among literate, social and
emotional development
 Social imagination, self-regulation and
literate interactions
 Identities, social practice, and literate
development
at school, and (b) a variety of assessments
designed to assist in understanding how literacy
emerges in general, and the literate development
or a particular student. The report will provide
relevant background information, documentation,
and justification for the assessment activities. (A
minimum of 5 hours contact time is required).
The report requires:
• Context information about the child.
• A description of activities engaged in with
the child with justification of decisions and
what was learned about the child’s literacy
development from the engagement. The goal
is to show what the child knows and can do
independently and with support.
• A summary of what was learned from the
experience of doing the case study – about
emergent literacy, and about teaching and
assessment – relating it to class readings and
discussions.
Emergent Literacy Interactions
Learning as much as possible about a child’s
emergent literacy requires sensitive participation
with the child. In groups, students will view and
analyze a video of a teacher working with a child
reading books together. The analysis requires
documenting what the child’s behavior means in
terms of the child’s emergent literacy
development, and the instructional moves the
teacher makes and their significance.
Philosophy of Emergent Literacy
A statement of the major principles and theories
used to guide instructional decision-making.
Digital Literacies
In this assignment you will choose one of the
critical/new literacy tools presented in the
Wright, T.S. (2012). The research-reality
divide in early vocabulary instruction. In A.M.
Pinkham, T. Kaefer, & S.B. Neuman (Eds.),
Knowledge development in early childhood.
New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Goodson, R., Layzer, C., Simon, P., & Dwyer, C.
(2009). Early beginnings: Early literacy
knowledge and instruction. Washington DC:
National Institute for Literacy.
Dickinson, D.K., Golinkoff, R.M., Hirsh-Pasek,
K. (2010). Speaking out for language.
Educational Researcher, 39(4), 305-310.
Teale, W.H., Hoffman, J.L., & Paciga, K.A.
(2010). Where is NELP leading preschool
literacy instruction? Educational Researcher,
39(4), 311-315.
Neuman, S.B. (2010). Lessons from my
mother. Educational Researcher, 39(4), 301304.
Shanahan, T. & Lonigan, C.J. (2010). The
National Early Literacy Panel. Educational
Researcher, 39(4), 279-285.
Leland, C. H.,& Harste, J. C . (2000). Critical
literacy. Enlarging the space of the possible.
Primary Voices, K-6, 9(12), 3-7.
Leland, C., Harste, J.C., & Smith, K. (2005).
Out of the box: Critical literacy in a first-grade
classroom. Language Arts, 82(4), 257-268.
Dweck, C. S. (2007). The perils and promises
of praise. Educational Leadership, 65(2), 3439.
Supporting Early Literacy Development
 Conversational interactions around texts
 Making books and other texts
 Teaching readers and authors vs. teaching
reading and writing
 Praise and children’s development - talk that
builds resilience and inquiry
 Meaningful teaching of print details
 Creating and expanding points of engagement
 Analyzing and enacting literacy interactions.
 Supporting independence and intentionality
 Building oral language
 Supporting English Language Learners
Constructing Contexts for Learning
 Literate learning spaces
 Books and songs that support early learning
 Forms of play and playfulness and literacy
development
 Literacy across home and school
 Contexts that embrace diversity
Early Literacy Policies and Research
 National Early Literacy Panel and research
 Evaluating research – esp. the case vs. the
average
readings or that has been presented in class. Based Harste, J.C. (2003). What do we mean by
on what you select, you will try out the tool, submit literacy now? Voices from the Middle 10(3), 8your product, and write a reflection on what it
12.
taught you about early literacy instruction. .
McGee, L. M., & Schickedanz, J. A. (2007).
Repeated interactive read-alouds in
preschool and kindergarten. Reading Teacher,
60(8), 742-751.
Beauchat, K. A., Blamey, K. L., & Walpole, S.
(2009). Building preschool children's
language and literacy one storybook at a time.
Reading Teacher, 63(1), 26-39.
Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G., (2001). Text
Talk: Capturing the benefits of read-aloud
experiences for young children. The Reading
Teacher, 55, (1), 10-20.
Doyle, B. G., & Bramwell, W. (2006).
Promoting emergent literacy and socialemotional learning through dialogic reading.
Reading Teacher, 59(6), 554-564.
Neuman, S.B. (2006). N is for nonsensical.
Educational Leadership, 64(2), 28-31.
International Reading Association (2009).
New literacies and 21st-century technologies:
A position statement of the International
Reading Association. Newark, DE:
International Reading Association.
Dalton, B. & Grisham, D.L. (2011). eVoc
strategies: 10 ways to use technology to build
vocabulary. The Reading Teacher, 64(5), 306317.
Cambourne, B. (1995). Toward an
educationally relevant theory of literacy
learning: Twenty years of inquiry. The
Reading Teacher 49(3), 182-190.
Bennett-Armistead, V.S., Duke, N.K., & Moses,
A.M. (2005). Literacy and the
youngest learner: Best practices for
educators of children birth to 5. New
York: Scholastic.
Schickedanz, J.A., & Collins, M.F. (2013). So
much more than the ABC’s: The early
phases of reading and writing.
Washington, D.C.: National
Association for the Education of
Young Children.
Scanlon, D. M., Anderson, K. L., & Sweeney, J.
M. (2010). Early intervention for
reading difficulties: The Interactive
Strategies Approach. New York:
Guilford Press.