Literacy is
for
ALL!
Presented by:
Exceptional Children’s
Assistance Center
NC’s Parent Training &
Information Center
2013
ECAC is home to North Carolina’s
Parent Training & Information Center - PTI
Our services include…
PURPOSE:
 The purpose of the North Carolina State
Improvement Project (NC SIP) is to improve the
quality of Instruction for students with
disabilities.
GOALS:
• Improve basic skills performance of students
with disabilities.
• Increase the percentage of qualified teachers of
students with disabilities.
• Increase graduation rates and decrease dropout
rates of students with disabilities.
• Improve parent satisfaction and Involvement
with, and support of, school services for
students with disabilities.
• Improve the quality of teachers instructional
competencies
www.ncsip.org
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What is
Literacy?
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Literacy is ...
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Traditional Model of
Literacy Learning
Readiness
Skills
Speaking
Listening
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Erickson, 1999
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“Literacy” for some
Students with Disabilities
can mean…
• Recognizing pictures or common
words
• Choosing books to be read
• Showing awareness of being
read to
• Paying attention to the
reader
• Tracking print
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But for
most students,
Literacy is
Reading
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Reading is a
Complex Process
Not ALL students with disabilities will
master ALL components of reading
• A student with Central Auditory
Processing Disorder or other
communication disorder may have
difficulty with phonics.
• Students with a reading disability,
such as dyslexia, will need “unique”
instruction based on the effects of the
disability.
• A student with significant
Cerebral Palsy might not
be a fluent oral reader.
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What helps
struggling readers?
• Current research shows that the
majority of children who struggle
in reading can learn to read IF:
– We identify that the student
has difficulty
– The specific reading problem
is correctly identified and
– Effective reading methods are
used over a long period of
time.
practice.. practice… practice!
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(that)
ALL students...
• Have access to the general
curriculum
– based on State Standards
• Be educated using
peer-reviewed research
based practices “to the
extent practicable”
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If needed by the
student,
literacy instruction
MUST be a part of
the IEP!
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And YOU
are YOUR
Child’s
Best
Advocate!
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3 things you need to
know?
1.
Know the Language
2.
Know the Questions
3.
Know Where to Find
the Answers
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Components of
Reading
•
•
•
•
•
Phonemic Awareness
Phonics
Fluency
Vocabulary Development
Text Comprehension
What do these
terms mean and
what do these skills
have to do with a
child becoming a
good reader?
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Phonemic
Awareness
..is knowing the sounds of
language.
– Understand that words are made up
of speech sounds, or phonemes.
– Before children learn to read print,
they need to become aware of how
the sounds in words work.
Individual sounds are
called phonemes
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Phonemes
Phonemes are the smallest
parts of sound in a spoken
word that make a difference
in the word’s meaning.
“Hat” has three sounds or
phonemes “h”, “a” and “t”.
 For example, changing the first
phoneme in the word hat from
/h/ to /b/ changes the word
from hat to bat, and so
changes the meaning of the
word.
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Phonemic
Awareness
Students need to learn:
•
The spoken word consists of sounds:
phonemes
•
How words can be:
1. segmented (pulled apart) into sounds
2. blended (put back together)
3. manipulated (added, deleted &
substituted)
•
How to use their phonemic awareness
to blend sounds to read words and to
segment sounds in words to spell
them.
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Phonemic Awareness…
What Parents Can do…
• Play clapping, rhyming and “what do
you hear?” games with your child.
• Ask your child to say words that start
with a specific sound, such as the
“sss..” sound.
• Play with sounds in all parts of words
(beginning, middle, and end): like "job,"
"joy," and "jog," where the difference is
at the end of the words.
• Listen for rhyming words in songs, rap,
and poems. Play a game: who can
come up with three words that rhyme
with "cool" the fastest?
• Reading and saying nursery rhymes
together
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Phonics
Phonics is the knowledge of
how letters represent sounds.
• phonemes
– the sounds of spoken language
and
• graphemes
–
the letters and spellings that represent
those sounds in written language.
Understanding these relationships gives
children the ability to recognize familiar
words quickly and to figure out words they
haven’t seen before.
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Phonics
Students need to learn:
•
Accurate and rapid identification of
the letters of the alphabet
•
The alphabetic principle
• an understanding that the sequence of
sounds (phonemes) in a spoken word
are represented by letters in a written
word
•
Phonics elements and how to apply
them as they read and write
•
•
•
•
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Letter-sound correspondences
Spelling patterns
Syllables
Meaningful word parts
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What parents can do…
• Point to letters and letter combinations
and ask your child to name them.
P h o n i c s
• Say a sound and ask your child to tell
you the letter the sound represents.
• Look for words on signs, maps,
billboards, cereal boxes, money, and
birthday cards. Point out words to
your child wherever you see them.
Say them out loud.
• Encourage your child to write notes,
e-mails, and letters.
• Talk with your child about the
“irregular” words; such as, said, are,
and was, that he needs to recognize
“by sight.”
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Fluency
Fluency is the ability to read
a
text accurately and quickly.
Fluency provides a bridge between word
recognition and comprehension.
– They can focus on the meaning of what they
are reading, rather than trying to decode word
by word. Fluent readers recognize words and
comprehend at the same time.
– Less fluent readers, however, must focus
their attention on figuring out the words,
leaving them little attention for understanding
the text.
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Fluency
Students need to learn:
•
How to decode isolated words
accurately
•
How to read connected text
automatically with appropriate:
– Speed
– Accuracy and
– Expression!
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What Parents can do…
• Help your child sound out words they
don’t know.
• You read the page first and have your
child follow along.
• Listen to your child read the same
pages repeatedly until your child
smoothes out all the "bumps in the
road." Reading those favorite books
over and over again
• Have your child read into a tape
recorders a number of times.
• Practice, Practice, Practice!
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Vocabulary
Development
Vocabulary refers to the words
we must know to communicate
effectively, and can be
described as oral vocabulary or
reading vocabulary.
– Oral vocabulary refers to words
that we use in speaking or
recognize in listening.
– Reading vocabulary refers to
words we recognize or use in print.
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Vocabulary
Development
Students need to learn:
• The meanings for most of the
words in a text
•
How to apply a variety of
strategies to learn word
meanings
•
How to make connections
between words and concepts
•
How to accurately use words in
oral and written language
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Vocabulary
Development
Students need to learn:
• The meanings for most of the
words in a text
•
How to apply a variety of
strategies to learn word
meanings
•
How to make connections
between words and concepts
•
How to accurately use words in
oral and written language
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Vocabulary Development…
What Parents can do…
• Lots of conversation.
• Lots of shared reading and
conversation about specific words.
• Refrigerator words to focus on.
• Study word parts. If your child knows
the meaning of a root word (“kind”),
then he’ll know what the new word
means when the prefix (“un”/not) or
suffix (“ness”/state of being) is added.
(unkind, kindness).
• Talk about the relationships between
words. Words with the same or similar
meanings (“bucket/pail”), and
opposites (“good/bad”).
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Text
Comprehension
Comprehension is the
understanding of what is read
Comprehension is the reason
for reading.
If readers can read the
words, but do not understand
what they are reading,
they are not really reading.
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Text
Comprehension
Students need to learn how to:
•
Read both narrative (stories) and
expository (factual) texts
•
Understand and remember what they
read
•
Relate their own knowledge or
experiences to text
•
Use comprehension strategies
•
Communicate with others about what
they read
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Text Comprehension
What Parents can do…
•
Have your child use words in
sentences to tell you something or to
describe an object.
•
Use “retelling”: Have your child read
a page or story to you and retell
everything they can remember.
•
Discuss what your child has read. Ask
your child probing questions about the
book and connect the events to his or
her own life.
•
Give your child many background
experiences. The more experiences a
child has had, the more he can connect
what he is reading to what he knows.
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Know the Questions!
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All Reading and
Literacy
instruction
should be
connected to
Common Core
Standards
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Know where to find
the Answers!
3.
• Your child’s Regular and Special
Education Teachers
• School Reading Specialist
• Child’s evaluation
• Child’s Evaluator
• Books, Library, Internet
• ECAC
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Working With Your
Child’s Teacher
• It is important to have a
positive relationship with your
child’s teacher.
• Effective and positive
communication is key to
student success!

Let’s review the Checklist !
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Literacy really
IS for ALL!
Know and Use Your
Resources!
• Use “trusted”
websites – NC DPI,
ECAC, LD Online,
etc.
• Identify your local
resources.
• And…….
ECAC Parent
Educators
39
2013
CONTACT US …
ecac Main Office:
907 Barra Row,
Suites102/103
Davidson, NC 28036
Parent Info Line
1-800-962-6817
704-892-1321
www.ecac-parentcenter.org
ecac@ecacmail.org
2013
2012
CHECK US OUT…WE
HERE FOR YOU!
www.ecac-parentcenter.org
ECAC
org
ECAC – North
Carolina’s
Parent Center
AskECAC.org
Our blog
41
Sources
• Exceptional Children’s Assistance Center
(ECAC)
Davidson, NC
• Karen Erickson, Ph.D.
Center for Literacy and Disability Studies
University of NC at Chapel Hill
• Public Schools of North Carolina
• Put Reading First
A publication developed by the Center for
Improvement of Early Reading Achievement
• Federation for Children with Special Needs,
Boston, MA
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