COMPREHENSIVE LITERACY PLAN

Our job as educators is to develop a plan for our young learners to receive

the best education that fits their learning needs. Not all students learn the

same. As educators we need to adapt and change our lessons making it

beneficial for all students. Children need ample opportunities to read widely

and across genres to write texts for others to comprehend, and to engage I

thoughtful conversations. (Taberski, 2011 p.7). We need to provide our

students with the opportunities to experience a variety of text, be able to

write elaborately, to improve comprehension and be able to engage in

meaningful conversations. Students need to acquire a repertoire of meta-

cognitive strategies to help them navigate difficult text and reconstruct

meaning when it breaks down. These strategies should be presented in

developmentally appropriate and systematic ways. (Taberski, 2011 p.10)

After carefully looking over all the data that was given to me, I have found

that over half of the students are receiving inadequate scores on their

Phonological Awareness Skills Test. We need to increase their phonological

awareness skills. Building these skills will help students with their reading

and writing. The students that are struggling need more help and intense

instructions geared toward teaching them these necessary skills. Lessons

need to be adapted to how the students learn and be meaningful to their

education practice. The students who are excelling should keep being

pushed forward advancing their literacy skills.

The data shows that 5 out of 10 students received overall scores in the

60% range, 1 in the 70% range, 1 80% range, and 3 in the 90% range in
 their phonological awareness skills. These scores are alarming, more than

half of the students are not grasping these skills. The graph below shows

how the students scored on their Phonological Awareness Skills Screening

(PASS). The sections highlighted in yellow are the scores that are below

80%. As we can see students struggle the most with phoneme substitution,

phoneme segmentation, deletion, and syllable segmentation. These skills are

necessary in word decoding, reading more advanced literacy, and writing

more elaborate sentences. Even though the majority of students did not

struggle in phoneme isolation, sentence segmentation, and rhyme, we still

need to build these skills up for the students who are struggling. The

students who received scores in the 90% range needed more work in at least

one are of their phonological awareness. We can build up these skill while

pushing them forward advancing their other skills. With adequate lessons

and instruction time we can build up the students scores increasing their

understanding. From his data we can see where we need to start to increase

literacy and phonological awareness with our students.

Student Rhyme Sentence Blendin Syllable Deletio Phoneme Phoneme Phoneme Overall
Segment g Segment n Isolation Segment Substitute Score
6 5 5 9 6 6
7 6
A 5 5 7 0 5 6 3 1 64%
B 6 5 7 4 6 9 3 3 86%
C 6 5 7 5 6 7 6 3 90%
D 6 5 7 0 4 8 2 6 76%
E 6 5 7 4 6 9 6 3 92%
F 5 5 7 3 6 8 6 6 92%
G 4 4 6 0 4 6 3 3 60%
H 5 2 7 3 4 7 4 2 64%
I 5 2 7 3 4 7 4 2 68%
J 3 5 7 3 4 5 3 0 60%

Balanced literacy is necessary for teaching our students. Literacy is

not only about reading well, or recognizing words, its about understanding

what you have read, being able to write and articulate your thoughts

accurately and effectively. Literacy is created by different pillars and

foundations that build the house of comprehension. Taberski Thinking of the

Pillars of Reading is a diagram that demonstrates how literacy is held

together like a building. (Taberski 2011) Literacy starts with a time to read, a

time to write, and a time to talk. That is our foundation of being literate.

Next is the pillars to hold up our roof. The pillars consist of accurate fluent

reading, background knowledge, oral language/vocabulary, reading/writing

connections, and repertoire of strategies. These pillars of literacy is what

holds up our roof of comprehension. With our building each one of these

pillars up evenly then our roof (comprehension) cannot stand.

Phonological awareness is an important part of this structure. Without

phonological awareness student are struggling more to figure out words and

meaning of sentences. If we teach students how to break down words and

recognize patters of sounds and creating words then students can build

automaticity in recognizing words. Having automaticity allows students to

spend more time on meaning from the book or passage then trying to

decode words. The reason for phonological awareness is to teach students

the patters and easily recognize words this is also transferable to writing.

Strong readers make strong writers. After reading the running records done

on each students it is clear that even the students who excel in phonological

awareness still need to work on other aspects of their reading and literacy

development. The 3 students in the 90% range still needed work of retelling

stories, endings of words, or understanding if the sentence /word makes

sense in the passage. This shows that even though students might excel in

one aspect other parts of their literacy is struggling and limiting their

comprehension. Students need to build all literacy skills evenly to promote

good comprehension and writing skills that they will need to take on with

them for reading big words and writing elaborate essays.

My plan for building up phonological awareness skills is providing more

instructions time, increase exposure, and the use of whole group and small

group instruction. Whole group instruction will involve the introduction of our

lesson of the day. I will follow the model of the gradual release of

responsibility model (Fisher). This model will consist of the, I do we do and

you do, instruction plan. I will first model the assignment for the students,

answer any question they might have. After I have modeled the lesson

adequately for the students then we will proceed on to the we do phase of

this model. In this phase the students and I will complete the assignment

together. When I work on the assignment with the students this strengthens

their understanding. They are allowed to make mistakes and learn through

doing while I am working with them. After it seems the students have a good
understanding of the lesson we will then proceed to the you do phase of

the teaching model. In the you do model students are doing independent

work on the lesson. This is where they put their skills to work and really

discover how well they understand the material. Using the gradual release

model give students multiple avenues to learn the material and it gradually

puts the responsibility on the students to learn the material.

Whole group instruction is not the only method of instruction.

Implementing small group instruction is also beneficial. Small group

instruction gives the students more attention to address their learning needs.

Small group instruction is best used when centers are set up around the

room. Students will rotate between different areas (centers) of the room

completing different assignments. The small group instruction provides

students the opportunities to practice and get guidance on their work. In

centers students can complete activities such as manipulating magnetic

letters, cutting out newspapers, labeling items, and practice letter formation

(K.W Ray 46).

Reading and writing workshops are a very important part of the

development of literacy (Taberski 33). The workshops give students specific

times and space to engage in the in reading or writing activities. Reading

workshops consist of 10 minute mini lessons. This is where the teacher

discusses what students need to focus on, either word work, spelling, or

other decoding skills. The students then are able to get in their reading

areas and read their leveled books of their choice. The independent reading
process would consist of about 25 minutes. Students need time to actually

read, and to read real books (Taberski 35). Reading real books gives

students the experiences with how language is actually used. During

independent reading I will go around to different students and check in, do a

running record, or individual work on their reading skills. This will allow me

to focus my attention on one child and give them the resources they need to

be successful. After the independent reading students should talk with their

partners about their books. Having meaningful conversations about their

books will help foster their enjoyment of reading. The writing workshops will

consist of a mini lesson as well focus on spelling, word formation,

punctuation, sentence structure, and development of their writings. After

the mini lesson students will then have time for independent writing. During

their independent writing time I will come around to different students and

give individual or small group help. This will help guide students into the

right direction allowing me to provide resources for these students

strengthening their writing skills. Giving students ample resources to help

strengthen their writings and supplies to create pictures to go along with

their writings provides students with creativity and engagement fostering

their love of writing. After students are finished with their writings they will

be given a chance to share out what they have wrote. Talking with students

or letting students share what they are doing will foster a relationship

between reading and writing that our students need to understand. (Taberski
2011, p. 70) Giving students the experience to share helps them take pride

in what they wrote and want to engage in writing more often.

During the instructional time there are many different types of

lessons that can be implemented by the teacher. Lessons should be

engaging to keep their attention and foster learning. Utilizing different songs

and games is a fun way to keep the students active and engaged while

learning about different aspect of phonological awareness. Poems are

another good way of exposing students to rhymes and exposure to syllables.

Implementing various activities to reinforce sounds of words will help

students hear every sound and manipulate what they are hearing. Have

students pretend to have (or have) gum in their mouths and stretch the gum

out for every sound they hear in a word. This helps students recognize the

different phoneme segmentation. Using Elkonin boxes for students for

students to place each sound of a word in a different box. For example if you

ask the students to take the word ball and have them place the word tiles

into different boxes based on the sounds they hear the words should be

broken up into 3 boxes, /B/ /A/ /LL/ or the word ask /A/ /S/ /K/. Teaching

students how to recognize the different sounds helps them be able to

manipulate phonemes better as they would need to do in phoneme isolation,

phoneme substitution, and deletion. Using alliterative sentences to figure

out what sound is being repeated. Students can play word games like say

stay now say it without the st. Playing these games during transitions

will help keep students keep their skills sharp and not have to create a lesson
out of it. Saying multi-syllable words with spaces between the syllables then

ask the students what word is this. For example dif fi cult what word is

this? Or ap pe tite what word is that? This gives students practice with

recognizing different syllables and different sounds that creates words

(Taberski 121).

My comprehensive literacy plan to increase phonological awareness

and other literacy skills is filled with diverse lessons for diverse learners. My

plan will involve the implementation of engaging lessons that focus on the

students needs and abilities. I will implement whole group and small group

instructions maximizing my lessons with the students best interest. I will

implement the use of reading that can really focus on the necessary skills to

build their reading fluency, comprehension, and decoding of words. There

will also be writing workshops where students can focus on their extensive

writing assignments, word work, letter formation, and writing subject matter.

I will also have small group centers where students will get practice in

smaller groups and more focused mini lessons to increase their learning

skills. With my comprehensive plan students are sure to get a better

understanding of phonological awareness and increase their literacy overall.

If we follow these steps to improve literacy we will provide our students with

a repertoire of meta-cognitive strategies they can use to self-regulate and be

successful in the classroom. We will supply students with the necessary

tools and resources that they can use later in life to promote success.

Allowing students adequate opportunities to practice, multiple genres to read

across, and consistent avenue for writing will give students ample

opportunities to utilize the meta-cognitive strategies we taught them.

Helping build their literacy and confidence all around improve scores and

quality of education.
 Our job as educators is to develop a plan for our young learners to

receive the best education that fits their learning needs. Not all students

learn the same. As educators we need to adapt and change our lessons

making it beneficial for all students. Children need ample opportunities to

read widely and across genres to write texts for others to comprehend, and

to engage I thoughtful conversations. (Taberski, 2011 p.7). We need to

provide our students with the opportunities to experience a variety of text,

be able to write elaborately, to improve comprehension and be able to

engage in meaningful conversations. Students need to acquire a repertoire

of meta-cognitive strategies to help them navigate difficult text and

reconstruct meaning when it breaks down. These strategies should be

presented in developmentally appropriate and systematic ways. (Taberski,

2011 p.10)

After carefully looking over all the data that was given to me, I have

found that over half of the students are receiving inadequate scores on their

Phonological Awareness Skills Test. We need to increase their phonological

awareness skills. Building these skills will help students with their reading

and writing. The students that are struggling need more help and intense

instructions geared toward teaching them these necessary skills. Lessons

need to be adapted to how the students learn and be meaningful to their

education practice. The students who are excelling should keep being

pushed forward advancing their literacy skills.

 The data shows that 5 out of 10 students received overall scores in the

60% range, 1 in the 70% range, 1 80% range, and 3 in the 90% range in

their phonological awareness skills. These scores are alarming, more than

half of the students are not grasping these skills. The graph below shows

how the students scored on their Phonological Awareness Skills Screening

(PASS). The sections highlighted in yellow are the scores that are below

80%. As we can see students struggle the most with phoneme substitution,

phoneme segmentation, deletion, and syllable segmentation. These skills are

necessary in word decoding, reading more advanced literacy, and writing

more elaborate sentences. Even though the majority of students did not

struggle in phoneme isolation, sentence segmentation, and rhyme, we still

need to build these skills up for the students who are struggling. The

students who received scores in the 90% range needed more work in at least

one are of their phonological awareness. We can build up these skill while

pushing them forward advancing their other skills. With adequate lessons

and instruction time we can build up the students scores increasing their

understanding. From his data we can see where we need to start to increase

literacy and phonological awareness with our students.

Student Rhyme Sentence Blendin Syllable Deletio Phoneme Phoneme Phoneme Overall
Segment g Segment n Isolation Segment Substitute Score
6 5 5 9 6 6
7 6
A 5 5 7 0 5 6 3 1 64%
B 6 5 7 4 6 9 3 3 86%
C 6 5 7 5 6 7 6 3 90%
D 6 5 7 0 4 8 2 6 76%
E 6 5 7 4 6 9 6 3 92%
F 5 5 7 3 6 8 6 6 92%
G 4 4 6 0 4 6 3 3 60%
H 5 2 7 3 4 7 4 2 64%
I 5 2 7 3 4 7 4 2 68%
J 3 5 7 3 4 5 3 0 60%

Balanced literacy is necessary for teaching our students. Literacy is

not only about reading well, or recognizing words, its about understanding

what you have read, being able to write and articulate your thoughts

accurately and effectively. Literacy is created by different pillars and

foundations that build the house of comprehension. Taberski Thinking of the

Pillars of Reading is a diagram that demonstrates how literacy is held

together like a building. (Taberski 2011) Literacy starts with a time to read, a

time to write, and a time to talk. That is our foundation of being literate.

Next is the pillars to hold up our roof. The pillars consist of accurate fluent

reading, background knowledge, oral language/vocabulary, reading/writing

connections, and repertoire of strategies. These pillars of literacy is what

holds up our roof of comprehension. With our building each one of these

pillars up evenly then our roof (comprehension) cannot stand.

Phonological awareness is an important part of this structure. Without

phonological awareness student are struggling more to figure out words and

meaning of sentences. If we teach students how to break down words and

recognize patters of sounds and creating words then students can build

automaticity in recognizing words. Having automaticity allows students to

spend more time on meaning from the book or passage then trying to

decode words. The reason for phonological awareness is to teach students

the patters and easily recognize words this is also transferable to writing.

Strong readers make strong writers. After reading the running records done

on each students it is clear that even the students who excel in phonological

awareness still need to work on other aspects of their reading and literacy

development. The 3 students in the 90% range still needed work of retelling

stories, endings of words, or understanding if the sentence /word makes

sense in the passage. This shows that even though students might excel in

one aspect other parts of their literacy is struggling and limiting their

comprehension. Students need to build all literacy skills evenly to promote

good comprehension and writing skills that they will need to take on with

them for reading big words and writing elaborate essays.

My plan for building up phonological awareness skills is providing more

instructions time, increase exposure, and the use of whole group and small

group instruction. Whole group instruction will involve the introduction of our

lesson of the day. I will follow the model of the gradual release of

responsibility model (Fisher). This model will consist of the, I do we do and

you do, instruction plan. I will first model the assignment for the students,

answer any question they might have. After I have modeled the lesson

adequately for the students then we will proceed on to the we do phase of

this model. In this phase the students and I will complete the assignment

together. When I work on the assignment with the students this strengthens
their understanding. They are allowed to make mistakes and learn through

doing while I am working with them. After it seems the students have a good

understanding of the lesson we will then proceed to the you do phase of

the teaching model. In the you do model students are doing independent

work on the lesson. This is where they put their skills to work and really

discover how well they understand the material. Using the gradual release

model give students multiple avenues to learn the material and it gradually

puts the responsibility on the students to learn the material.

Whole group instruction is not the only method of instruction.

Implementing small group instruction is also beneficial. Small group

instruction gives the students more attention to address their learning needs.

Small group instruction is best used when centers are set up around the

room. Students will rotate between different areas (centers) of the room

completing different assignments. The small group instruction provides

students the opportunities to practice and get guidance on their work. In

centers students can complete activities such as manipulating magnetic

letters, cutting out newspapers, labeling items, and practice letter formation

(K.W Ray 46).

Reading and writing workshops are a very important part of the

development of literacy (Taberski 33). The workshops give students specific

times and space to engage in the in reading or writing activities. Reading

workshops consist of 10 minute mini lessons. This is where the teacher

discusses what students need to focus on, either word work, spelling, or
other decoding skills. The students then are able to get in their reading

areas and read their leveled books of their choice. The independent reading

process would consist of about 25 minutes. Students need time to actually

read, and to read real books (Taberski 35). Reading real books gives

students the experiences with how language is actually used. During

independent reading I will go around to different students and check in, do a

running record, or individual work on their reading skills. This will allow me

to focus my attention on one child and give them the resources they need to

be successful. After the independent reading students should talk with their

partners about their books. Having meaningful conversations about their

books will help foster their enjoyment of reading. The writing workshops will

consist of a mini lesson as well focus on spelling, word formation,

punctuation, sentence structure, and development of their writings. After

the mini lesson students will then have time for independent writing. During

their independent writing time I will come around to different students and

give individual or small group help. This will help guide students into the

right direction allowing me to provide resources for these students

strengthening their writing skills. Giving students ample resources to help

strengthen their writings and supplies to create pictures to go along with

their writings provides students with creativity and engagement fostering

their love of writing. After students are finished with their writings they will

be given a chance to share out what they have wrote. Talking with students

or letting students share what they are doing will foster a relationship
between reading and writing that our students need to understand. (Taberski

2011, p. 70) Giving students the experience to share helps them take pride

in what they wrote and want to engage in writing more often.

During the instructional time there are many different types of

lessons that can be implemented by the teacher. Lessons should be

engaging to keep their attention and foster learning. Utilizing different songs

and games is a fun way to keep the students active and engaged while

learning about different aspect of phonological awareness. Poems are

another good way of exposing students to rhymes and exposure to syllables.

Implementing various activities to reinforce sounds of words will help

students hear every sound and manipulate what they are hearing. Have

students pretend to have (or have) gum in their mouths and stretch the gum

out for every sound they hear in a word. This helps students recognize the

different phoneme segmentation. Using Elkonin boxes for students for

students to place each sound of a word in a different box. For example if you

ask the students to take the word ball and have them place the word tiles

into different boxes based on the sounds they hear the words should be

broken up into 3 boxes, /B/ /A/ /LL/ or the word ask /A/ /S/ /K/. Teaching

students how to recognize the different sounds helps them be able to

manipulate phonemes better as they would need to do in phoneme isolation,

phoneme substitution, and deletion. Using alliterative sentences to figure

out what sound is being repeated. Students can play word games like say

stay now say it without the st. Playing these games during transitions
will help keep students keep their skills sharp and not have to create a lesson

out of it. Saying multi-syllable words with spaces between the syllables then

ask the students what word is this. For example dif fi cult what word is

this? Or ap pe tite what word is that? This gives students practice with

recognizing different syllables and different sounds that creates words

(Taberski 121).

My comprehensive literacy plan to increase phonological awareness

and other literacy skills is filled with diverse lessons for diverse learners. My

plan will involve the implementation of engaging lessons that focus on the

students needs and abilities. I will implement whole group and small group

instructions maximizing my lessons with the students best interest. I will

implement the use of reading that can really focus on the necessary skills to

build their reading fluency, comprehension, and decoding of words. There

will also be writing workshops where students can focus on their extensive

writing assignments, word work, letter formation, and writing subject matter.

I will also have small group centers where students will get practice in

smaller groups and more focused mini lessons to increase their learning

skills. With my comprehensive plan students are sure to get a better

understanding of phonological awareness and increase their literacy overall.

If we follow these steps to improve literacy we will provide our students with

a repertoire of meta-cognitive strategies they can use to self-regulate and be

successful in the classroom. We will supply students with the necessary

tools and resources that they can use later in life to promote success.
Allowing students adequate opportunities to practice, multiple genres to read

across, and consistent avenue for writing will give students ample

opportunities to utilize the meta-cognitive strategies we taught them.

Helping build their literacy and confidence all around improve scores and

quality of education.
 Bibliography

Ray, K. W.,& Cleaveland, L.B. (2004) about the authors: Writing workshop
with our youngest writers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinenmann.

Taberski, S. (2011)Comprehension from the ground up: Simplified, sensible

instruction for the K-3 reading workshops. Portsmouth, NH: Henenmann.

Collins, K. (2004) Growing readers: Unit of study in the primary classroom.

Portland, Me:Stenhouse

Fisher, D., Dr. (n.d.). Effective use of the gradual release of responsibility model [Abstract].