LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE APPROACH (LEA)

Principles and Process

Underlying Philosphies

• Students’ prior experience used as bridge to new ideas, concepts

• Vocabulary, grammatical structures first experienced within the existing knowledge base (schemata) of learners

• Developed for native English-speaking students to provide support for initial reading experiences

• To teach literary processes and literary functions.

(continued)

• Invented spelling and incomplete sentences allowable

• Emphasizes the power of student as creator of meaning and shows writing as powerful source of communication

PROCESS

• In initial stages student dictates oral narratives

• Teacher (or aide) writes down the student’s words

• Resulting text read back to student

• As skills develop, student writes own script and read to classmates and/or teacher