EDU20001: Developing Literacy Folio Part B - Reading Strategies

This report, a literacy folio assignment, analyzes two student scenarios to identify areas of need in reading development and propose effective teaching strategies. The first student, Riley, requires support in phonological development, with the report suggesting reading aloud as a beneficial strategy. The second student, Mia, struggles with text engagement, and guided reading is recommended. The report compares and contrasts these two strategies, outlining their benefits and limitations, and emphasizing the role of ICT and High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS) in enhancing literacy instruction. The assignment also highlights the importance of individualized learning plans and the use of tools like ePortfolios to cater to specific student needs, ultimately aiming to improve reading comprehension and foster a love for reading in early primary education.

Running Head: DEVELOPING LITERACY FOLIO
Title: Developing Literacy Assignment 1B: Folio Part B
Student name
University name
Author notes

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Section 1
RILEY
Area of need for Riley’s reading development
As per the reading audio and transcript provided for the reading comprehension the area
of need for the student is phonological development. It is found that Riley was unable to use
some speech sounds to communicate the language clearly. In some parts of the reading Riley was
not able to properly pronounce some words and her fluency and intonation were not clear. The
pitch was not uniformly used that is the high-low sound transformation was not clear. The
juncture of the connection between words and pauses between words, phrases and sentences
were not properly used (Australian Government, Department of Education and Training, 2016).
Moreover, her use of punctuation was not justified in her reading outcomes.
Teaching strategy to support Riley’s reading development
The teaching strategy that will best suit for Riley is the strategy of reading aloud to
children. Riley has a clear understanding of the text of the reading and she correctly answered
most of the questions asked by the teacher. But she needs to have a more precise and correct
reading comprehension. The teacher could help here with this reading out loud strategy that will
assist to understand the correct phonological orders that can be easily used in later reading
comprehensions (Australian Government, 2016).
Lesson to support and extend Riley’s reading development
Riley could be guided in her reading specially in area of her correct phonological
development. She is only a grade 1 student so she will not understand the importance of
phonological development right now only the teachers can guide her in this regard. The teachers
could support Riley in her classroom reading curriculum by setting reading goals in guided
reading, highlighting the texts to be read before-hand so that she could read it once before final
reading, read out loud to the class and could record her reading and let her listen later on so that
she could understand her shortfalls (Cohen & Waite-Stupiansky, 2013). Both audio of the
teacher’s reading and Riley’s reading need to be provided to her so that she could understand the
differences. Providing supportive image for the readings could help in better understanding of
the context and reading comprehension will improve as a result (Conderman & Hedin, 2014).

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Asking questions at the end is a good strategy to support better understanding. And she needs to
be more involved in reading out loud so that her pitch and intonation becomes perfect only by
practicing more.
The tools of ICT could be helpful in this regard to enhance literary teaching strategies for
teachers. In recent times Pedagogy uses extensive online support tools in supporting learning
behavior in children (Fu, 2013). The HITS (High Impact Teaching Strategies) will support both
instructional and pedagogical learning (Louden, 2014). The ten points of HITS namely goal
setting, lesson structuring, explicit teaching, example works, collaborative learning, multiple
exposures, questioning, feedback, metacognitive strategies and differentiated teaching could help
in developing a holistic teaching strategy with ICT incorporation (Noor-Ul-Amin, 2013). Many
schools now focus on providing tablets to students that will help them in developing better
learning experiences. Smart classrooms can provide better audio-visual feedback to students and
reading development will improve afterwards.
MIA
Area of need for Mia’s reading development
As per the reading transcript and the audio provided the area of need for Mia’s reading
development is engagement with the text as a text user. It is one of the four roles of a reader
namely maker, code breaker, text user and text critic (Martella & Marchand-Martella, 2015). It is
true that in this stage students’ receptive modes and productive modes are well developed and
they try to connect them to personal experiences and as a result they are driven away from the
main topic of reading (Victoria State Government, 2018). Mia has higher issue with text
connection and for which her fluency also gets disturbed. While answering the questions asked
by her teacher, she, almost in every answer, connected her personal feelings to them and used her
own imagination in answering. She had little understanding of the content of the reading and is
flown away by her own feelings. She needs to be more focused with the text content and need to
have a deeper understanding of it.
Teaching strategy to support Mia’s reading development
Guided reading can be suitable in this regard, where the teacher can for a small group of
students having similar reading behaviors and who have similar reading level of texts (Rodger,

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2013). This instructional design help in supporting students in developing better reading
proficiencies. The focus in this method is more specified and students are supported as per their
abilities of reading (Victoria State Government, 2018). Attention to details will be improved and
thus content understanding will become easier. Fluency will also improve.
Lesson to support and extend Mia’s reading development
The teacher can form small groups of students who are similar like Mia in their reading
capabilities and have almost similar weaknesses as Mia. They can be guided to form
fundamental skills required for proficient reading and vocabulary know-how can be improved.
Similar text areas need to be provided to the group and this will increase the developmental
needs of reading comprehension skills (Victoria State Government, 2018). The teacher could
once read the whole content out to the students with perfect use of vocabulary, intonation and
fluency. The students can follow the teacher in their readings and could ask for help when
required. The teacher could also support them to remain limited within the content for better
comprehension of the reading text (Louden, 2014).
ICT in this regard will help effectively to enhance literary teaching in elementary
education. The teachers could used smart tools like laptops, tablets, projectors, audio-visual aids
etc. for supporting primary education (Noor-Ul-Amin, 2013). The HITS could help in better
learning plan development for teachers for their students as per the exact student needs. A e-
portfolio of each student with their strengths and weaknesses could help the teacher teach them
better and help them improve their weak areas (Fu, 2013). In this context, Mia has little text
engagement role and is deviated from the text and uses her own personal imagination to answer
the questions being asked by her teacher. If video of the situation can be shown to her in graphics
she could better relate to the context of the reading and her answers will be more of a textual
version than her own version. Meaning, ICT tools need to be implemented as per student needs
and learning should be facilitated by using multi-modal instructions (Rodger, 2013). Open
learning environment should also be encouraged which will help in better cognitive development
of the student (Victoria State Government, 2018). Their thought should not be restricted, as here
Mia was encouraged to do some writing and drawing to the reading situation about what happens
next and she was found more enthusiastic in doing that.

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Section 2
Comparison of teaching strategies
Here a comparison is drawn on the two teaching strategies useful for reading
comprehension development. That is, reading out aloud to children and guided reading are being
compared. Reading out loud to students increase their vocabulary and provides a better
understanding of the language patterns (Martella & Marchand-Martella, 2015). Reading out loud
help in improving the reading comprehension of the whole class in general and instills a love for
reading in children. Guided reading is more focused and is limited to a group of 4-5 students
based on their similarity of needs and weak areas. The fundamental skill required for proficient
reading is only focused upon and it help in better attention development in comparison to reading
out loud (Louden, 2014). Fluency improvement is higher in guided reading and vocabulary
knowledge improves considerably.
Benefits and limitations of each teaching strategies
Reading out loud strategy
The main benefits of reading out loud are increased vocabulary, improved listening skills,
better understanding of language patterns and language sophistications, improved intonation,
motivates students positively, support moral lesson development, inspires better imagination,
improves the classroom climate, increase confidence of students while reading, improves end
results and instills love for life-long reading (Cohen & Waite-Stupiansky, 2013).
Limitations are few but quite impactful. This strategy is mainly focused on the whole
class and so individual area of need remains unattended in many cases. Individual student
development may be limited. Only teachers’ reading out loud and students engaged in silent
reading will not work, students also need to take active participation in reading out loud as a part
of their classroom activity (Conderman & Hedin, 2014).
Guided reading strategy
Guided reading help in improving proficient reading, identify strengths and weaknesses
in students as per skill specifications, attention to details is improved, fluency also improves,
dialogue interaction increases, vocabulary knowledge is expanded and reading comprehension

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skills are developed holistically (Martella & Marchand-Martella, 2015). Individual reading
should be more focused in-spite of group reading.
The main limitations are, they are focused on limited group of students and are time and
requirement specific in most of the cases (Rodger, 2013). Moreover, the learning development
rate of children is different and so the concept of a group having same needs and same
weaknesses is more relative in its approach. The learning objective also need to be clearer
otherwise the major aim of the session will remain unfulfilled.

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References
Australian Government, Department of Education and Training. (2016). Early Years Learning
Framework. Retrieved from https://www.education.gov.au/early-years-learning-
framework.
Australian Government. (2016). Quality Schools, Quality Outcomes. Retrieved from
https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/quality_schools_acc.pdf.
Cohen, L. E. & Waite-Stupiansky, S. (2013). Learning Across the Early Childhood Curriculum.
Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Conderman, G., & Hedin, L. R. (2014). Co-teaching with strategy instruction. Intervention in
School and Clinic, 49(3), 156-163.
Fu, J. (2013). Complexity of ICT in education: A critical literature review and its
implications. International Journal of education and Development using ICT, 9(1), 112-
125.
Louden, B. (2014). Direct Instruction and the teaching of reading. The conversation. Retrieved
from https://theconversation.com/direct-instruction-and-the-teaching-of-reading-29157
Martella, R. C., & Marchand-Martella, N. (2015). Improving classroom behavior through
effective instruction: An illustrative program example using SRA FLEX literacy.
Education & Treatment of Children, 38(2), 241-271. Retrieved from https://search-
proquestcom.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/docview/1687611469?accountid=14205
Noor-Ul-Amin, S. (2013). An Effective Use of ICT for Education and Learning by Drawing on
Worldwide Knowledge, Research, and Experience. ICT as a Change Agent for
Education. India: Department of Education, University of Kashmir.
Rodger, R. (2013). Planning an Appropriate Curriculum in the Early Years: A guide for early
years practitioners and leaders, students and parents: Routledge.
Victoria State Government. (2018). In practice examples for speaking and listening. Retrieved
from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/
english/litera cy/speakinglistening/Pages/example.aspx

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Victoria State Government. (2018). Literacy focus for speaking and listening. Retrieved from
https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/english/
litera cy/speakinglistening/Pages/litfocus.aspx
Victoria State Government. (2018). Teaching practices for speaking and listening. Retrieved
from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/
english/litera cy/speakinglistening/Pages/teachingprac.aspx