1 Prepared by Perlie O. Geron MAE-LE| Bulacan State University

Language Experience Approach

A Report for Trends in Reading Instruction

What is the Language Experience Approach? The Language Experience Approach is based on the belief that thoughts, speech, and writing are interconnected. The teacher writes down what a student says and then reads it back to the student to develop their print awareness.

If you can think it, you can say it.

If you can say it, you can write it.

If you can write it, you can read it. Three components of the Language Experience Approach:

A child’s life experience which is communicated to an adult.

Dictation--the child tells about an experience in his/her words to an adult who writes it down.

Language learning—this occurs when the child’s written language is read, practiced and used to teach other literacy skills.

Philosophy of LEA 1. What a child thinks, she can talk about. 2. What one talks about can be expressed in writing. 3. Anything a child or a teacher writes can be read. 4. What a child has to say is as important to her as what other people have written for her to say.

Language Experience Approach Objectives:

Develop Print awareness

Concretize the idea that thoughts and ideas can be spoken and written

Develop ability to verbally express experiences

Enhance ability to listen to others and understand the meaning of what they say

Heighten child’s ability to use pictures, charts and reports to report facts Strengths of LEA Weaknesses of LEA

Highly motivating to students. Language experience matches students’ interest with learning activities

Enjoyable & satisfying for most teachers

Children are ―reading‖ early – success built-in

Approach is individualized. Children progress at own rates, less stigma for slower readers

Integration of all the language arts – listening, speaking, reading, & writing

Approach does not require expensive materials

Time demands on teacher. Teacher must organize instruction, take dictation, plan individual programs, & monitor

No daily lesson plans provided

No preplanned scope & sequence of skills

No control of initial vocabulary presented

Limited number of commercial programs available to assist teacher

Bulacan State University Malolos, Bulacan Academic Year 2011-2012

2 Prepared by Perlie O. Geron MAE-LE| Bulacan State University

Language Experience Approach WHEN and HOW?

Used for beginning or remedial reading instruction

Recognizes that a child’s oral language background can be used to develop reading skills

Teacher transcribes child’s own words to create stories that are then used as the child’s first reading material

Involve individualized and personalized instruction

Skills taught as they become necessary rather than in the basal sequential fashion

Components include dictation, story writing, & reading

Recognize that children learn to read by a variety of materials & methods! Definition of a language experience activity in LEA

An activity that learners usually do together. It can be an experience that the group has had. The teacher helps the students write their experiences.

Examples: a trip, animal or object for the class to observe and discuss, guest speaker, observing people or surroundings.

Procedures of the Language Experience Approach:

LEA PROCESS IN DETAIL

1. Decide what experience the students will focus on.

2. Write their ideas on chart paper to allow them to see them in written form. (Make sure you use their words and their names!)

3. Make different types of records such as bulletin boards, big books, or charts.

4. Use these records for other literacy opportunities such as take home books and sentence reading activities.

1. Teacher motivates child to describe a certain event

2. Teacher writes down student’s dictated words

3. Child & teacher read story together 4. Child rereads story orally 5. Child recopies story (if possible) 6. Child illustrates recopied story 7. Teacher does something special w/ story

(binds into book form, displays, mini-scrapbook, etc.)

8. Children encouraged to read each other’s books

THEORETICAL SUPPORT 1. Learning occurs from the known to the unknown. The learner begins with his or her own

spoken language. 2. Learning occurs most effectively in a general to specific direction. In reading, students must be

immersed in a meaningful context of written language for learning to be most effective. 3. Struggling adult readers usually have low self-concept as readers and need to be assured of

some immediate success 4. Adult learners are often time conscious and need to leave each lesson with a feeling of

accomplishment. Everyone reads at every LEA session LEA GUIDING PRINCIPLES

LEA is integrative Oral Language links spoken and written language Language is for making meaning and is best acquired through meaningful use and practice. Writing knowledge is acquired most easily with the acquisition of reading Literature models and motivates language instruction.

3 Prepared by Perlie O. Geron MAE-LE| Bulacan State University

Approaches to LEA I. Key Vocabulary Approach (Veatch, 1979 & Ashton-Warner, 1971)

1. Elicit words from child that have special meaning (emotional value) ―What is your favorite word?‖ or ―What is your scariest word?‖

2. Print the word on a piece of tagboard 3. Child traces word 4. Actively engage child with the word drawing a picture, copying it on chalkboard, etc.

II. Group Experience Chart (whole class dictation approach) 1. Motivation – teacher stimulates interest of students (reading aloud, showing object, recalling

exciting event, etc) 2. Discussion – give children time to discuss before dictating. Encourage oral contributions of all

students. 3. Dictation Story Writing - individual students contribute words, one sentence at a time, to

compose the story. Teacher prints words on chart (so class has permanent copy), modeling reading each word as she writes. Usually, students repeat the words after each sentence is written.

4. Review words with child 5. Child regularly brings words to the teacher & pronounces them as they are ―flashed‖. No effort

should be made to ―sound out‖ the words. Words not instantly recognized should be discarded on the assumption that they are not sufficiently important to the child yet.

6. Store words (folders, ring files, word banks, etc) 7. Word activities: storytelling, classifying words, acting out words, typing words, etc. 8. Reading Completed Story - teacher may first reread entire story using a hand or pointer, then

the entire group or individual may do another reading. Children enjoy repeated readings! Remember, student may not be actually reading, simply repeating words memorized with assistance of visual cues.

9. Follow-Up Activities - skill work or applications. Skills may include, auditory discrimination, visual discrimination, sequencing, sight vocabulary, phonics, context clues, or comprehension. Applications might include illustrations, reading to friends, acting out the story, etc.

Typical Examples The Duck Pond We went to the duck pond. It was fun. Rolando fell in. He got wet. The teacher was mad. Ha-ha-ha. The End

Our Day Today we had P.E. We played kick ball. It was fun. James got to second base. The blue team won. The End.

III. Individual Descriptions of Illustrations Done in Group Setting 1. Motivation – Teacher motivates children & leads brief discussion on topic 2. Sample Topics: Happiness is. . . Sadness is . . .A friend is. . .I feel afraid when. . .If I had a

million dollars. . . 3. Children Illustrate – children complete the sentence by illustrating. Teacher circulates & writes

down the children’s words, such as ―A friend is my Daddy.‖ or ―A friend is a big yellow zebra.‖ The teacher writes down the exact words the student says.

4. Make a Class Book - include all student pages

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IV. Individual Experience Story Most common LEA

1. Stories are individually dictated 2. Demands the most time from teacher 3. Teacher often enlists help from other adults 4. Most powerful of all LEA! 5. One on one contact between teacher & child is pronounced

V. Individual Experience Stories Using Tape Recorder 1. Variation of individual experience story 2. Student dictates into tape recorder 3. Teacher listens & transcribes into printed form 4. Requires less direct contact time 5. Lacks intimacy of person-to-person dictation 6. Not often used with beginning readers

The Language Experience Approach can be used to model and practice the following:

One-to-one correspondence by reading and pointing to words Left-to-right movement of reading Concept of capital and lower-case letters Letter-sound relationships Punctuation

Use LEA for multilevel related literacy tasks. 1. Reread and copy. Read on a tape. 2. Add new vocabulary to picture dictionary. 3. Match sentences to pictures. 4. Complete a cloze with word bank (or without bank if ready). 5. Sequence sentences. 6. Write your own account of the experience. 7. Write a related piece. 8. Use the modeling to write a similar piece about a different topic.