| Literacy Place is based on decades of scientific research, starting with Jean Chall's first grade studies in 1961, and affirmed in Marilyn Adams' "Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print." These precursors informed the development of Literacy Place and were reaffirmed for all of us in "Preventing Reading Disabilities in Young Children," "Put Reading First," and the Report of the Nation's Reading Panel.
Here's how Literacy Place connects the scientifically based research behind NCLB to best practices:
Phonemic Awareness. The program addresses the five levels of phonemic awareness. Each lesson starts with the sounds and then moves to connecting sounds and symbols. Being able to connect speech to print or linking what is seen to what is heard, is a giant step in learning to read.
Phonics. Literacy Place provides best practices for phonics at your fingertips.
- Use a research based and tested scope and sequence that starts with high utility consonants and vowels and proceeds to syllable sense as Literacy Place does.
- Emphasize blending throughout. The phonics lessons in Literacy Place provide daily blending activities.
- Practice in connected text. The text being taught in the Literacy Place readers includes examples of the phonics elements and the Phonics Readers, Shoebox Libraries, and Phonics Chapter Books allow for high intensity practice with text that is 70-80% decodable.
- Write to establish speech to print connection. There are many opportunities for interactive writing in the program.
- Spelling or the reverse of decoding—encoding—solidifies the speech-print connection and facilitates reading, as carried out in Literacy Place.
Fluency. Your materials embody the formula for fluency development. Speed + Accuracy + Prosody = Fluency. Best practice requires that fluency be modeled and practiced. The Read Alouds in the program provide ample opportunities for demonstration and the partner, shared, and repeated readings provided throughout Literacy Place offer multiple methods and means for practice.
Vocabulary. Direct Instruction. The selections were chosen to provide exposure to a rich and high-utility vocabulary. The lesson plans include carefully planned pre-teaching and teaching of key words.
Comprehension. Each Literacy Place selection features a key comprehension strategy, matched to text requirements so that students learn how to adapt to a variety of reading demands. |
