Introduction to the Four Blocks Approach to Literacy in Special

Needs Classrooms

“No student is too anything to be

able to read and write”

David Yoder, DJI-AbleNet Literacy Lecture, ISAAC

2000

Accommodating Struggles

physical demands cognitive demands sensory demands

communication demands experience demands

affect demands

So how do we teach literacy for all our diverse students?

Emergent Literacy

Traditional view of Literacy

•  Emphasises “readiness”; •  Literacy is learned in a predetermined

sequential manner that is linear, additive, and unitary;

•  Literacy learning is school-based; •  Literacy learning requires mastery of certain

prerequisite skills; •  Some children will never learn to read.

Traditional Model of Literacy Learning (Erickson, 1999)

Listening

Speaking Re

adin

ess

Skill

s

Current/Emergent View of Literacy

•  Literacy development is constructive, interactive, recursive, and emergent;

•  Literacy development is a process that begins at birth and perhaps before;

•  Emergent literacy is “…the reading and writing behaviours that precede and develop into conventional literacy”;

•  Emergent literacy is appropriate for all children.

Oral and Written Language Development

(Koppenhaver, Coleman, Kalman & Yoder, 1991. Adapted from Teale and Sulzby, 1989)

Literacy

AAC/Speaking

Writing

Listening

Reading

Emergent Literacy

•  Emergent literacy behaviours are fleeting and variable depending on text, task and environment;

•  The functions of print are as integral to literacy as the forms.

Emergent Literacy Intervention

•  Happens in the pre-school years for most children;

•  Incidental learning and teaching about letters, words, literacy concepts;

•  Children with phonological awareness at the beginning of school may not have had good emergent literacy input.

Emergent Literacy and Children with Disabilities

•  Light et al (1994), Frame (2000); •  Passive interaction pattern; •  Larger number of new books; •  Fewer repeated readings; •  Less time spent on literacy activities.

Emergent Literacy Intervention

•  Some school aged children need emergent literacy experiences before they can develop conventional literacy;

•  Lots of simple books being read to them; •  Chances to scribble with the alphabet; •  Good literacy environment and models; •  Need to make sure student gets exposed to

reading AND writing AND word intervention.

Emergent Literacy

•  Give every student a “pencil”! •  Provide a literacy rich environment; •  Ensure links between environment and print are

constantly reinforced; •  Alphabet books; •  Phonological awareness activities, particularly

for students with Complex Communication Needs (CCN).

Emergent Literacy

“Written language activities and experiences should not be withheld while speech, language, motor or other skill(s) develop to arbitrary,

prerequisite levels.” Koppenhaver and Erickson (2000)

Conventional Literacy

Language Comprehension

Word Identification

Silent Reading Comprehension

Print Processing Beyond Word Identification

(Slide from Erickson and Koppenhaver, 2010)

Beginning To Read

Phonological awareness, letter recognition facility, familiarity with spelling patterns, spelling-sound

relations, and individual words must be developed in concert with read reading and real writing and with deliberate reflection on the forms, functions, and meanings of texts.

(Adams, 1990)

Literacy Instruction

Phonics

Whole Language

Balanced Literacy

Instruction

Balanced Literacy Instruction

•  Uses all valid parts of literacy instruction – not one approach;

•  Works for students all along the literacy continuum – from emergent to formal;

•  Four Blocks is balanced literacy instruction.

Four Blocks

Four Blocks

•  Created by Patricia Cunningham and Dorothy Hall;

•  www.fourblocks.com; •  Four Blocks in Special Ed wiki

https://fourblock.wikispaces.com/.

Four Blocks

•  Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies, North Carolina http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds;

•  Big thank-you to them for teaching me about Four Blocks, sharing their resources and being awesome!

•  Have a good look at their resources section.

If All Children Are To Learn, All Teachers

Must Teach Everything (Koppenhaver, Erickson & Clendon, 2008)

Technology To Support the Four Blocks

But remember.....

ICT = It Can’t Teach

Guided Reading

Guided Reading

•  Primary purposes are to assist students to: – Understand that reading involves thinking and

meaning-making; – Become more strategic in their own reading.

•  Must use a wide variety of books and other print materials.

•  NOT listening comprehension.

Purposes for Reading

•  Need to set a purpose every time you do guided reading;

•  If you don’t set a purpose students think they have to remember everything – or become passive;

•  Purpose needs to be broad enough to motivate processing of entire text.

Guided Reading

•  1 book per week; •  Different purpose each day; •  Build confidence; •  Some students will participate in the repeated

readings or in setting purposes as they become more skilled;

•  Help students become independent.

5 part Guided Reading

•  Before reading: 1. Build or activate background knowledge 2. Purpose “Read so that you can”

•  During reading: 3. Read/listen

•  After reading: 4. Task directly related to the purpose 5. Feedback/Discussion (typically woven into follow-up)

•  What makes you say that? How do you know? Why do you think so? •  Help students gain cognitive clarity so they can be successful again

or next time

Cock-A-Moo-Moo

1.  Read to learn which animal in the book is your favourite (before reading, list the animals in the book)

#1 - Read to learn which animal in the book is your favourite

Participation for students with CCN

•  If they have a comprehensive communication system (eg PODD) then they can use that to participate across the day;

•  If they don’t then we need to provide ways for them to participate;

•  AND we need to work towards getting them a comprehensive communication system.

Cock-A-Moo-Moo Purposes

1.  Read to learn which animal in the book is your favourite (before reading, list the animals in the book)

2.  Read to see what is the funniest sound the rooster makes (before reading, list the sounds the rooster makes)

3.  Read to decide which feelings the rooster has (before reading, list some feelings you know)

4.  Read to discuss why the fox was sneaking in (before reading discuss reasons he might sneak into a barn)

5.  Read to see which farm animals aren’t in the book (before reading list the farm animals you know)

#2 - Read to see what is the funniest sound the rooster makes

#3 - Read to decide which feelings the rooster has

#4 - Read to discuss why the fox was sneaking in

#5 - Read to see which farm animals aren’t in the book

Repetition with Variety To learn a skill and generalise it across contexts, instruction must provide repetition of the skills in

a variety of ways

Variety

•  Variety of purposes; •  Variety of approaches; •  Variety of texts;

Red light, Green light

Variety of texts

•  Commercial books; •  Fiction and non-fiction; •  Language Experience/custom texts; •  Created texts about class/individual

experiences; •  Personal alphabet books; •  TarHeel Reader books.

What does Emma do? by Mr Clark

Guided Reading Books

•  Those you already have (class and library); •  Information from the www; •  Created books on topics of interest in

PowerPoint, Clicker 5, Boardmaker Studio; •  TarHeel Reader; •  Start-to-Finish books. •  Guided Reading packs at

http://www.janefarrall.com/html/guided.html

Picture, Symbols and Text

•  Symbols appear to improve access to literacy..... But do they really?

Why no picture-supported text when teaching reading?

•  Pictographs can be distracting for developing readers who may pay more attention to the pictures than the text they are learning to read/decode

•  After a review of literature Hatch (2009) found “the outcomes of several research studies that investigated the use of pictures to support the development of word identification in readers with and without disabilities indicated that children learned more words in fewer trials when words were presented alone than when paired with pictures (Pufpaff, Blischak & Lloyd, 2000; Samuels, 1967; Samuels et al, 1974)

Why are pictographs distracting?

•  Symbols representing function words are typically opaque and unrelated to the meaning of the text.

•  The lack of consistency of symbols and symbol-sets used to represent words across AAC user’s learning environments, and;

•  The multiple symbolic representations and meanings for single written words e.g. play.

When should we use symbols?

•  To support COMMUNICATION – All day, every day – During reading instruction – During writing instruction

•  To support behaviour and self-regulation – Visual supports – Visual schedules

Self-Selected Reading

Self-Selected Reading

•  Primary purposes are to assist students to: – Understand why they might want to learn; – Become automatic in skill application; – Choose to read after they learn how.

•  It isn’t self-directed if you don’t choose it yourself;

•  You can’t get good at it if it is too difficult.

Self-Selected Reading

•  How do we create in our classrooms the conditions that lead students to a love of reading?

•  How do we provide our students with successful practice that will make them fluent readers?

Self-Selected Reading

•  Most receptive vocabulary growth occurs through exposure to written language rather than direct instruction

•  Reading volume is the prime contributor to vocabulary growth – True for poor readers and good readers

Self-Selected Reading

•  Help students to: –  Understand why they might want to learn to read – Become automatic in skill application – Choose to read after they learn how

•  It isn’t self directed if you don’t chose it yourself •  You can’t get good at it if it is too difficult

Self-Selected Reading for Students with Disabilities

•  Need to make books accessible to ALL students •  Many children with disabilities have fewer

opportunities to practice than their peers and when they do they are often passive participants (Koppenhaver and Yoder, 1992)

Encourage Repeated Reading

•  Easy texts •  Read the same passage in guided reading for

several days for a different purpose each day •  Pair older readers up with young reading

buddies to validate reading of “baby books”

Self-Selected Reading Resources

•  Commercial books •  Custom books •  TarHeel Reader books •  Other digital storybook website e.g. Starfall,

MeeGenius •  Digital storybook apps on iPads

Writing

Writing

•  Students who write become better readers, writers and thinkers

•  Writing without standards •  Learn in classroom writing communities:

– Write for real reasons – See others do so –  Interact with peers and teachers about written

content, use and form

Writing

•  Writing consists of a large number of sub-skills •  These include:

–  Ideas, language, spelling, sensory motor skills, word identification, word generation, etc

•  Many of these skills, especially operational skills, need to be automatic before a writer becomes fluent

•  Need to address both: –  The development of skills for writing –  Meeting current requirements for writing (record school

work, demonstrate knowledge, write to friends, etc.) From Erickson and Koppenhaver, 2000

Writing and Reading

•  Without a pencil writing doesn’t improve •  Without writing, reading development will be

limited •  If a student doesn’t have a pencil, you need to

find one!

Writing and Emergent Literacy

•  The function of literacy is as important as the form

•  Students need to understand why writing is important

Function Versus Form

Emergent Writing

Emergent Writing

Malakye’s name

Emergent Writing

Malakye’s picture

Developmental Spelling Stages

•  Print has meaning (emergent writing) – scribble, numbers, letter-like strings, letters

•  Visual Cue – read/spell in environmental context, tuned to distinctive visual features

•  Phonetic Cue – sound it out, “glue to print” (initial sound, initial + final, initial, medial + final)

•  Transitional – rule based e.g. putting past tense on every verb

•  Conventional

Personal Connection

The power of starting from the things children love the most!

Writing Intervention

•  Inherently multilevel and individualised •  Typically chaotic in classroom context •  Goals: creating skills, experiences and interest

to help children write well and use writing to accomplish their own purposes

•  Plan volume of writing versus quality of writing, number of pieces versus length of pieces

Working with Words

Working with Words

•  Primary purpose is to help students become strategic in reading words;

•  Make words instruction: – Words based; –  Experience based; – Age appropriate;

•  Should results in students who read and write: – More; – More successfully and independently; – With greater enjoyment.

Early Reading Instruction

•  Three primary views on what to emphasise in early word level instruction: – Predictability – Decoding – Sight words

•  Treated as mutually exclusive, yet are not •  Question is not which is best, but how to make

the most of each

Inner Voice

•  People who use AAC talk about an “inner” voice

•  Typically developing children sound things “out loud” then move to inner voice “saying in their head”

•  Essential that we teach people who use AAC to develop their inner voice early

•  Helps them to encode and recode, spell, produce language, etc

Working with Words

•  Needs to be done very regularly •  Skills taught are essential for reading and

writing development

Getting Started by Teaching the Alphabet

Teaching Alphabet Knowledge

•  Read alphabet books •  Point out letters and print in the environment •  Talk about letters and their sounds when you

encounter them in every day activities •  Provide opportunities to play with letter shapes

and sounds •  Explicitly reference letter names and sounds in

shared reading and writing activities •  Use mnemonics and actions •  Use student NAMES!

Word Wall

•  Used to teach words that you don’t want students to have to work to decode or spell

•  Learning not exposure – about learning 5 words not being exposed to 20

•  Need/want/use vs curriculum driven direct-instruction

Word Wall

Onset and Rime Families

•  E.g. ack, ail, ain, ake, ale, ame, an, ine •  Teach one word representing each of these

endings, then in other activities teach the children what to do to transfer “back” to “sack, hack”

Making Words

•  Cunningham and Cunningham (1992); •  Scaffolded program to encourage students to

become confident about making individual words;

•  Teaches students to look for spelling patterns in words and recognise the differences that result when a single letter is changed.

Willans Hill Four Blocks

•  Rural special school in NSW; •  In 2011 began Four Blocks in every classroom

for a minimum of 2 hours a day; •  70 students – wide range of disabilities; •  27 students assessed completely at beginning

of year.

Emergent vs. Conventional

Emergent Students

•  Doubled their knowledge of concepts about print •  Increased letter identification •  Slight improvement in phonological awareness •  HUGE decrease in “no response” particularly in

letter identification •  Every student able to contribute a writing sample

at end of year as every student had a pencil •  Three emergent students became conventional

readers and writers

Conventional Students

•  At beginning of year averaged: – Word identification – Grade 2 –  Listening comprehension – Pre-Primer –  Reading comprehension – Below pre-primer

•  At end of year averaged: – Word identification – Grade 3 –  Listening comprehension – Primer –  Reading comprehension – Primer

•  On average across all areas, students improved one grade level

Other outcomes

•  Decreased challenging behaviour •  Increased attention span •  Increased language skills

“No student is too anything to be

able to read and write”

David Yoder, DJI-AbleNet Literacy Lecture, ISAAC

2000