Literacy Now

People will remember the U.S. presidential inauguration that occurred on January 20, 2021, for years to come. Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate who delivered the inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb,” may have been the bright spot of the day for many of us, but she’s not the only one we’ll remember. We will recognize and remember this inauguration for its inclusiveness that encompassed the day like the smiling sun after a storm has passed.

Throughout the ceremony, we witnessed examples of overcoming adversity, of being seen and heard after being made to feel invisible or unworthy, of appreciating and celebrating the diversity of our nation, represented in the following:

• A president who developed strategies to combat stuttering
• The first female vice president who is also the first BIPOC vice president (African American and South Asian)
• An African American poet who, like the president, learned to conquer a speech impediment
• An African American firefighter reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in two languages (English and American Sign Language)
• “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by a woman who identifies as bisexual
• “This Land Is Your Land” sung by a Latinx (Puerto Rican) woman
• “Amazing Grace” sung by a man who grew up in a blended family

In each of these snapshots, we could see ourselves. Most of all, children could see themselves.

Seeing ourselves

Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, professor emerita at Ohio State University, says, “Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience.” Literature is art, art is life, and the inauguration reflected both, enabling each of us to see ourselves and our experiences as an integral part of the human experience.

Just as it was important for us to see ourselves reflected at the inauguration, children need to experience this sense of belonging every day, especially in our schools—whether they are attending in person, remotely, or in a hybrid format. One way teachers and librarians can ensure this connection is by providing books in which children can see themselves. Curating a diverse list of books that is representative of all students is the responsibility of librarians and teachers. Even in a school where students may appear to be predominantly the same, differences exist.

Windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors

Students should not only see themselves in books, but also see and learn about those different from themselves. Bishop coined a phrase to describe this: “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors.” Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. Bishop says

These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.

Educators can evaluate their classroom libraries with this Equity Audit checklist to ensure that children have the opportunity to read a variety of accurate and representative experiences.

When children see themselves in stories

I have witnessed the connection and the glee of children when they see themselves in a book.

The reactions to my book Let’s Dance!, have been diverse themselves.

• “I have cerebral palsy,” a boy volunteered when I shared the inspiration for the illustration of a boy dancing in a wheelchair. I told the story of the young man I saw at a wedding in the middle of the dance floor, “zig-zag-zigging” in his wheelchair, and I mentioned that he had cerebral palsy. When the sixth grader chimed in with his personal connection, I wondered how often he’d read a book with a character who had cerebral palsy and who still zig-zag-zigged.
• “I’m Pakistani, but we have a similar dance.” A girl excitedly shared this in reaction to the page with kathak dance from India. I wonder if she’d seen this dance or a Pakistani dance in a book before.
• “I love the beautiful shades of brown. I’ve never seen a book like this before with so many children of color.” A mother made this comment and thanked me for writing the book. I didn’t have to wonder if she’d had this experience before. She made it clear that she hadn’t.
• “My mom wears one.” A girl said this about the ballet dancer wearing hijab. Thankfully, there are other books such as Mommy’s Khimar, The Arabic Quilt, and The Proudest Blue that normalize wearing a hijab. But we need more.
• “Why isn’t there a dance from Brazil?” a boy asked. To this I responded, “You can write the words for that page, or write your own story.”

Children need to see themselves in books. They need to know that their stories matter and that they can be authors as children and as adults. They need to know that they can be poets and singers—regardless of their race—even if they once struggled to speak clearly. They need to know that they can recite poetry or sing at a presidential inauguration. And, yes, they might even be inaugurated as president or vice president one day.

Let’s hope when they are, we won’t be surprised to witness the diversity on proud display as on January 20 but that we’ll be just as delighted, singing and reciting poetry in our souls.

Valerie Bolling has been an educator for 28 years and is currently an instructional coach for Greenwich Public Schools in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her debut picture book, Let’s Dance!, was published in March 2020, and she has two books scheduled for release in 2022 and two more slated for 2023. You can find out more about Valerie on her author website.

As a first-grade teacher for nearly a decade, I enjoyed nothing more than teaching early readers to unlock the code and discover the joy of books. Three years ago, I was hired as the literacy coach for my district. In this role, I led professional development sessions on teaching reading in the primary grades, training teachers and support staff on explicit, systematic instruction, and managed committees on English language arts curriculum.

Then in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, our district moved to remote learning. Everything I had been teaching other educators involved in-person, hands-on instruction. I was dismayed. How could we ever reproduce literacy instruction in a distance learning format?

But no matter the venue, whether on-site, remote, or a hybrid format, teachers can continue delivering high-quality literacy instruction. The following tips have helped me, and I hope will do the same for others tasked with teaching reading and writing virtually.

1. Remember your classroom must-dos.

When teaching reading, replicate good practices virtually. As you would with a traditional lesson plan, begin with your goal in mind and then consider how it can be achieved through the screen. What do you want the students to learn? How can you get them there? Then consider your learning plan, materials, and opportunities for practice and frequent feedback.

For example, our primary-grade teachers deliver daily phonics lessons with the learning goal that students will accurately encode and decode words with a targeted skill. Teachers must start with explicit instruction, just like they would in the classroom. In a remote setting, rather than using printed letter cards, use an online letter program such as Really Great Reading. Or, when it’s time for guided practice, have students create letter tiles on small pieces of paper to manipulate at home.

Encourage participation by asking different groups to answer a question using a cue such as “Everyone wearing a red shirt unmute yourself and share out.” For individual practice, have students submit a picture of written work through digital platforms like Seesaw or Google Classroom. As you would in the classroom, form small groups for remediation or enrichment. You can schedule a breakout room or office hours for students who need more one-on-one support.

2. Let parents in on the learning.

Understandably, most parents are not experts in reading instruction. Part of our job during remote learning has been to provide parents with tools to support their children and give parents context and background about the instructional practices we use. Sharing the purpose of strategies and routines and offering specific ways to help at home is critical.

I put together a bitmoji classroom for parents. This page includes a range of videos, from the technical side (the five pillars of literacy) to the practical (what is phoneme segmentation, and how can I do it at home?). When I communicate with parents, I offer this page as a resource for at-home practice. For those who are not easily able to help with work at home, they can at least build an understanding of the work their child is doing.

3. Mix it up!

One of the biggest complaints I have heard from teachers (and students) amid the pandemic is that they are teaching whole-group lessons for long blocks of time. This is not something we typically do in elementary school. So, let’s consider how that can be adjusted for virtual learning.

What if you create small groups for learning centers? After setting up expectations, create five breakout rooms. Just as you would in the classroom, pop into each room for a few minutes to answer questions, check progress, and monitor behavior.

Is there an opportunity for students to work in pairs, writing together? Create different Google slides, each with a prompt, and assign two students to each slide. To make it purposeful, come back together and have partners share out with the whole class.

Do the students need to work on something independently? Have the students turn on their cameras, set a timer on the screen, and let them work at their own pace. Then, come back together to check on their status and make instructional decisions based on their progress.

4. Take it off screen.

Students need to read to learn to navigate text. Reading aloud to students or just guiding them through activities is not enough. Give students time to read away from the computer screen. I know releasing that control over to students, not knowing what they are doing when you can’t see them, can be scary. But I encourage you to give them off-screen tasks and gather feedback on how they do. Make the learning purposeful, and the students will be engaged in the task.

For example, our third-grade students have to find text evidence from the nonfiction book Giant Squid: Searching for a Sea Monster by Mary M. Cerullo. When off screen, the students can look through the text to find interesting facts and write those down to share the next day. Students can use this information to create something—a paragraph, a drawing, or a diorama—allowing students to express creativity, own their learning, and demonstrate understanding.

That there is a lot lost during remote learning is true. I miss the clamor of a full classroom talking excitedly about a favorite book, the coming together around the carpet for meetings and lessons, and the expressions of friendship you see on the playground and in the cafeteria. But if we get creative, focus on what matters, and work diligently to meet students’ needs, we can still teach in joyful and effective ways.

Katy Tarasi is an elementary literacy coach in the Avonworth School District near Pittsburgh, PA, and a fellow with the Great Minds’ Wit & Wisdom English Language Arts team. In that capacity, she delivers professional development and coaching to educators around the United States.

As 2020 comes to an end, let’s reflect on the year behind us—a year full of new experiences, of meeting and overcoming new challenges. Throughout the year, we published a variety of Literacy Now blog posts to help educators through these tough times.

Here is a list of the top 10 most read Literacy Now blog posts of 2020:

• “Observing Young Readers and Writers: A Tool for Informing Instruction” by Alessandra E. Ward, Nell K. Duke, and Rachel Klingelhofer examines the LTR-WWWP, or The Listening to Reading-Watching White Writing Protocol, a new tool educators can use to assess students’ reading and writing skills when listening to students read aloud and watching them write. The LTR-WWWP is thoroughly explained for readers in this post, along with access to the tool and resources on how to use the tool and what it looks like in action.
• “Reading Rescue: Preventing the COVID-19 Slide With Lessons for Comprehension and Fluency at Home” by Lori Oczkus provides tips for helping students succeed in a virtual learning environment. Oczkus introduces the Fab Four comprehension strategies to improve literacy achievement: predict, question, clarify, and summarize. These strategies can be easily adapted for distance learning and show quick results.
• “Reading On: Free Resources for Virtual Learning” by Morgan Ratner compiled a list of digital resources for enhancing distance learning. Ratner provides resources to books and literacy instruction, community and library programs, and open access published content.
• “Encouraging Independent Reading Remotely in the COVID-19 Era” by Marie Havran suggests multiple ways to encourage students to read independently in a virtual classroom. Hosting a book show-and-tell, inviting guest readers, and encouraging book talks are just a few of the many suggestions that Havran makes.
• “Together Apart: Fostering Collaboration in Remote Learning Environment” by Katy Tarasi addresses collaboration challenges caused by COVID-19 and the need to remove students from the classroom and shift teaching and learning to an online format. Tarasi has come up with novel ways to bring collaboration between students into a virtual work space. By having routines, purposeful learning, modifications, and more, educators can effectively allow students to collaborate from a distance.
• “Meaningful Remote Learning and Literacy Practices During COVID-19” by Katie (Stover) Kelly examines the ways educators around the world have adjusted to teaching virtually, or at least from a distance. Along with this, Kelly provides tips for effective remote learning and meaningful resources for educators to share with their students.
• “Engaging Learning Through Disruptions” is a roundup of a variety of resources compiled at the beginning of sudden move to remote learning earlier this year. In response to having to adapt quickly to online learning because of COVID-19, educators, publishers, and other businesses rushed to provide resources for those who need them.
• “This Is Your Class on Zoom: Videoconference Literacies During COVID Quarantine” by Christy Wessel-Powell and Julie Rust evaluates the different forms of literacies faced when moving to digital learning. Students continued to learn social, digital, and artificial literacies through the obstacles of online and distance learning, and Wessel-Powell and Rust take a deeper dive into what these literacies mean for students and educators in a virtual world.
• “ILA Partners With #KidLit4BlackLives Community” introduces the Facebook Live event “How to Raise and Teach Anti-Racist Kids.” In response to nationwide protests in the United States calling for social action, children’s book author Kwame Alexander set to work organizing virtual town hall discussions. This free digital event, intended for educators and families alike, serves as an important teaching movement in the pursuit for equity in education for all learns.
• “The Importance of a Diverse Classroom Library” by Jerie Blintt examines how, now more than ever, addressing the diversity in our classrooms and how students could be affected by different events is vital. Blintt emphasizes the importance of having diverse classroom materials and introducing kids to learning about empathy.

Is a university reading clinic a physical space, or is it the practices, interactions, and connections that occur across spaces? As reading education faculty, we have regularly discussed this question and consistently argued the latter. Then in March 2020, our university closed all buildings to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and we found ourselves outside our clinic’s doors with the opportunity to put our theoretical stance into practice.

After only a week of brainstorming and planning, we began the reading clinic “Literacy-Casts.” These interactive, hourlong sessions occurred each weekday and typically drew 60 to 80 devices. The participants included school-age children, parents, teachers, administrators, teaching assistants, and graduate students. Despite our limited technical skills, imprecise pacing, and clumsy classroom management, our participants continued to engage and we continued to learn. In this post, we outline six key takeaways from our experiences in over 50 sessions.

Fail boldly

When we began our Literacy-Casts, we had limited prior experience with Zoom. Nor was there time to master this platform. Technological failures seemed certain. We reluctantly accepted the risk, jumped in, and failed more than a few times.

For example, we initially conceptualized our Literacy-Casts as spaces where children and adults could interact and speak in real time. Theoretically, this seemed the perfect embodiment of literacy engagement; in reality, this unmuted space produced deafening sounds of echoing and feedback. With time, we learned to mute participants and eliminate the option for participants to unmute themselves.

We learned that many of our participants knew how to annotate, screen share, and change their screen names to things like “Poopy Pants.” We lost Wi-Fi, power, and access to Google slides, and in the midst of each calamity, we felt the familiar panic that often accompanies failure. We also remembered that failure is an integral part of learning.

Leverage the chat

When we muted our participants, we solved one problem but created others. Without hearing from our participants, we had difficulty gauging instruction. In response, we started using the chat function in Zoom. Honestly, this should have been a key component of our original plan: It’s the perfect way for students to engage in authentic literacy practices.

Throughout our Literacy-Cast sessions, we frequently asked participants to contribute ideas in the chat. We also made an intentional practice of reading chat comments aloud and attributing the comments to specific authors. This simple acknowledgement significantly increased the authentic reading and writing that became a key component of our Literacy-Casts.

Cohost, coteach, collaborate

To leverage the chat function, we reconceptualized the roles we assumed. Initially, we intended to take turns leading the sessions, but we quickly learned that collaboration was essential. Although we rotated the role of host, we began assuming the role of cohost, too. The host planned and implemented the session. Cohosts adopted different roles. One cohost focused on the chat and gave voice to posted comments and engaged in authoring their own. Other cohosts monitored the virtual space and problem solved when technological issues arose. This type of collaboration allowed us to create experiences that were both layered and fast paced.

Establish the setting

In our efforts to envision the clinic beyond a physical space, we lost sight of the importance of setting. At first, we focused on engagement and gave little attention to predictable routines and sequences. Fortunately, one of our graduate students contacted us to explain that her student could not follow the Literacy-Casts because he could not make sense of what was happening. We realized that virtual instruction challenged meaning making in unique ways.

We then intentionally worked to establish a familiar order and obvious setting. This included an explicit, predictable routine (as you can see in the picture of the schedule). Although some days were devoted to comics and others to poetry, the sequence of activities remained the same and established predictable order in an unfamiliar space.

Extend invitations

When we conceptualized the Literacy-Casts, we thought about the kinds of literacy activities in which children were likely to engage when left to their own devices. Specifically, we sought engagement beyond the hour allotted to the Literacy-Cast. We intentionally invited participants to engage in reading, writing, and creating. At the conclusion of each session, we invited participants to create and publish their work through the clinic blog, our virtual BookCreator library, and our Poetry Padlet. We extended invitations on multiple occasions and offered a variety of ways to reply. As a result of these efforts, participants across grade levels engaged in reading, writing, and creating well after the Literacy-Cast concluded.

Create community

When we began the Literacy-Casts, we didn’t know what to expect. Would participants join? Would they return? In practice, yes, participants showed up and returned, but we suspect that this had little to do with us. Our participants engaged in behaviors that laid bare their true motivations. Children would regularly shout hello to their teachers. They eagerly greeted one another and welcomed pets, including Speedy the python and Emerald the lizard. They announced birthdays, broken bones, and weekend trips. First-grade teachers commented on lost teeth when they noticed the gap in a smile.

These participants were showing up for one another. They were attending for the community that they missed. After realizing this, we intentionally worked to increase this sense of connection and began enacting rituals that bound us together even more closely. At the start and close of each session, we unmuted everyone so that we could say hello and goodbye. We began including daily Zoom-dancing and opportunities for children to share jokes. We even developed our own way (i.e., “Author claps, poet snaps, and comic zaps!”) to applaud the work that children shared. All these practices created a community to which we wanted to return.

Since March of 2020, we have completed over 110 Literacy-Casts, and our community has grown to over 200 participants. Together we have written poems, created comics, read graphic novels, and hosted guest authors including Sara Varon and Raul the Third. We have shared jokes, celebrated student authoring, and grown in both community and literacy. The collaboration that we began over eight months ago has continued, and we remain convinced that our university reading clinic is not simply a physical space. It is instead the practices, interactions, and connections that occur across spaces.

ILA member Devery Ward is the director of the Anderson Reading Clinic at Appalachian State University.

Beth Frye is a professor of reading education and serves as the graduate program director for reading education in the Department of Reading Education and Special Education at Appalachian State University.

Jason D. DeHart is an assistant professor of Reading Education at Appalachian State University.

Beth Buchholz is an assistant professor in Reading Education at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.

In these stressful times, focusing on our main literacy goal for kindergartners—learning the alphabetic principle, which is the foundational skill of all writing and reading—is essential.

ILA’s Literacy Glossary defines alphabetic principle as the concept that letters or groups of letters in alphabetic orthographies (i.e., written systems) represent the phonemes (sounds) of spoken language.

Four decades ago, Carol Chomsky encouraged preschool, kindergarten, and first graders to try to write before they read because of the valuable practice they received from translating sound to print. Around that time, Charles Read demonstrated that some young children made up the spellings of the words they speak by listening to the individual sounds (phonemes) in words and then attempting to find written letters (graphemes) to represent those phonemes. Connecting sounds to letters in this manner is called invented spelling. Invented spelling not only helps develop the alphabetic principle but also is the best predictor of reading according to Charles Temple and colleagues, Donald Bear and colleagues, and Marie Clay.

Promoting invented spelling

As a literacy consultant who has worked in more than 100 kindergarten classrooms over the past 34 years, I have found that teachers understand students actively construct their own literacy learning about phoneme–grapheme correspondences when they engage in the process of meaningful writing of their own choosing. However, this leads educators to seek out ways to help their students write with inventing spelling.

Invented spelling can be challenging when students write random strings of symbols or mix numbers and shapes with mock letters. To help this issue, I devised Getting Ready, a daily learning structure that should precede writers’ workshop. Getting Ready uses two song strategies and three sound–letter connecting strategies.

Getting Ready: Two song strategies

The first song strategy, ABC Song Strategy, helps students find—and, when ready, write—letters of their choosing. It is sung to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and requires both an ABC chart for class use and individual ABC strips for each student to use as they write independently.

The second song strategy, The Name Song, helps students hear beginning individual sounds in spoken words (phonemic awareness). It is sung to the tune of “Skip to My Lou.” I begin teaching this strategy with sound matching by having students try to match the sound I say with the beginning sound in one of their classmate’s names.

When most of the class can successfully sound match, I proceed to sound isolation, which is basically a reverse of sound matching: I say a student’s name and the student’s classmates must isolate the first sound in the name. Students love playing with their classmates’ names like this.

Getting Ready: Three sound–letter connecting strategies

After kindergartners can isolate individual beginning sounds in classmate’s names, I proceed to teach three sound­­–letter connecting strategies.

The first strategy shown in the video clip is Connecting Sound to Picture. Students isolate the beginning sound in a classmate's name and then look for a picture on the class ABC chart that begins with the same matching sound. 

The second strategy shown is Connecting Sound to Letter Name. Students isolate the beginning sound in a classmate's name and then look at the class ABC chart and try to find a letter name that has the same sound.

The third strategy shown is Connecting Sound to Classmate's Name. Students isolate the beginning sound in a classmate's name and then connect the sound to the first letter of that classmate's name. 

I have observed kindergartners using these strategies on their own as they attempt to write in writers’ workshop. Continuing to guide students as they practice these strategies though the use of daily writing workshop conferences is most helpful.

Verify the value

To prove these strategies improve kindergartners’ understanding of the alphabetic principle, I use Clay’s Dictation Test as found in Clay’s An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement. This test is designed to check a student’s ability to hear individual sounds in words. However, it also checks the student’s understanding of the alphabetic principle.

When Clay’s Dictation Test is administered individually to kindergartners, they attempt to write what they hear in the following sentence as it is read aloud very slowly:

I can see the red boat that we are going to have a ride in.

One point is scored for each sound heard and recorded appropriately as a letter. A perfect score is 37. 

The following images, which are copies of tests I administered to students myself, show results from the student who scored the highest of the class (19/37) at the beginning of the year (image A) and who had a perfect score (37/37) at the end of the year (image B).

Compare this with the progress of the student who scored the lowest in the class (0/37) at the beginning of the year (test not shown). This student improved significantly (28/37) by the end of the year (see below).

Notice the progress both students have made. That the rest of the kindergarten class was equally successful and scored somewhere between a 28 and 37 on Clay’s Dictation Test is worth noting.

The results of Clay’s Dictation Test verify that all 20 students in this kindergarten class could write with invented spelling, which demonstrates an understanding of sound­–letter relationships, the alphabetic principle. All these students became writer–readers.

I have seen similar results across the many kindergarten classes where writers’ workshop and the Getting Ready strategy were used as I have described. Knowledge of the alphabetical principle allows every student to be a writer–reader, and the strategies I have described are a highly effective way to teach it.

Arlene C. Schulze is a longtime reading teacher and specialist. She holds a degree in elementary education from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a master's degree in reading from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point (UWSP).

She has been a K­–2 literacy consultant to three school systems in North Central Wisconsin and a literacy instructor in reading and language arts at UWSP for many years.  She is the author of the book Helping Children Become Readers Through Writing: A Guide to Writing Workshop in Kindergarten. She is currently coaching kindergarten teachers and tutoring struggling readers in northern Wisconsin.