What are we talking about?
Conventional literacy learners receive a YES to ALL of the following questions:
Does the learner know most of the letters, most of the time?
Does the learner engage actively during shared reading without extrinsic rewards?
Does the learner have a symbolic means of communication and interaction?
Does the learner understand that writing involves letters and words?
Learners that have a YES to ALL of these questions are ready for comprehensive CONVENTIONAL literacy instruction. According to Dr. Erickson, the following should be incorporated into a routine-based approach to instruction for conventional literacy learners.
- receptive vocabulary
- text comprehension
- phonemic awareness/phonics/decoding/spelling
- reading fluency
- written expression
Supports to help you get started:
- Dynamic Learning Maps Professional Development
- Building Bridges from Emergent to Conventional Literacy
Let’s look at each of those five areas!
Receptive Vocabulary
- Focus on Tier 2 words (learn more about Tier 1, 2, and 3 words)
- Build interest in new words
- Make connections between new and known words (especially words on the learners AAC system)
- The ultimate goal is that they will be able to spell any word they want
- Highlight use of words in context
- Provide many, many examples
- Encourage learner participation and initiation (through wait time)
- Encourage multimodal responses
Text Comprehension
It is important that learners understand that text carries meaning. We need to prepare them to be able to more independently read with understanding. We need to introduce them to a wide variety of text types. We need to teach a variety of strategies such as
- prediction
- summarizing
- questioning
One approach to help teach reading comprehension is Anchor-Read-Apply.
Anchor
Link to existing background knowledge.
- emphasize the thinking that is required (focus on the skill required for the purpose you have selected, e.g., sequencing, compare/contrast, etc.)
- set a purpose for reading
- identify the purpose before planning the background step
- every text can be read for multiple purposes
- every purpose can apply to multiple texts
Some purposes for reading include:
- read to choose the best title (main idea)
- read to identify the main character’s feelings
- identify how the main character’s feelings change
- read to identify the problem
- read to identify the setting
- read to compare two characters
- read to compare the main character to yourself
Read
State the purpose of reading. Spend the bulk of your time on this step.
Apply
The learner demonstrates success with the purpose of reading the passage (e.g., through simple selection tasks).
We explicitly teach the thinking behind the reading.
Support to help you get started:
- Dynamic Learning Maps modules on comprehension
Phonemic Awareness / Phonics / Decoding / Spelling
As we talked about in The Science of Reading is for Everyone, effective phonics instruction must be explicit and systematic.
Spelling-based phonics instruction is an approach to teaching blending and segmenting for encoding (spelling) and decoding (reading). It supports the development of word recognition. It also emphasizes transferring learned skills to untaught words. It can be explicit and systematic when carefully planned.
It starts by introducing a selection of letters and sounds and moves to using those letters/sounds in word spelling. Once the learner is encoding and decoding CVC words consistently, introduce key words that include a common spelling pattern. Teach learners to use those key words to read and spell other words.
Support to help you get started:
- Chapter 10 in Comprehensive Literacy for All (2020) goes into more detail about this spelling-based approach.
Pro Tips:
- Do not call these “word families”, refer to them as “key words”.
- Do not focus on one spelling pattern at a time.
- This is most successful when the learner is already blending CVC words.
Reading Fluency
Reading fluency is the ability to read text accurately and efficiently with prosody (even silently). It requires the integration of:
- word recognition
- comprehension
- inner processing
- prosody
Supporting reading fluency is part of comprehensive literacy instruction. We can target it by:
- demonstrating fluently reading through daily read-alouds
- providing daily access to new, ability-appropriate texts to practice fluent reading (these should be filled with decodable words)
- lots and lots (and lots!) of practice
Reading fluency is typically measured by oral reading fluency assessments. These tests look at the number of words accurately read per minute (with prosody and intonation). For our AAC users, we can focus on silent reading fluency. Look for:
- evidence of comprehension
- improved word identification skills
- use a MAZE reading assessment (see below)
At ISAAC 2024, Dr. Erickson explained using a MAZE assessment in place of an oral reading fluency test.
- Find/create a short passage at the learners skill level.
- Leave the first sentence as is, then delete every fifth word.
- Provide a choice of three words to fill in the blanks.
- Have the learner read the passage and indicate which words they think most appropriately fill in the blanks.
- On Monday, do a pretest (look for ~70% accuracy)
- Practice reading all week.
- On Friday, do a post-test with the same passage used on Monday (look for over 85% accuracy).
Pro Tip:
- Explicitly tell the learner that their “in head”/silent reading should sound like our reading when we read out loud.
Written Expression
An approach to teaching writing is by doing short, explicit lessons focused on specific aspects of writing. These mini-lessons have four steps:
- State the lesson focus.
- Demonstrate the skill through thinking out loud (teach the learners what it looks like by showing them). “I do.”
- Interact with the learner (engage them in doing the skill with you). “We do.”
- Set the learner up to try to use the skills in their own writing. “You do.”
Repeat past lessons with variety!
Some possible lessons include:
- selecting a topic (through pictures, experiences, lists)
- using mentor texts
- revising by adding more
“Independence is not the goal. The goal is for you to be able to control your independence. Literacy is the way to have adequate control.”
Karen Erickson
2024
Related Resources
- AAC & Literacy NWACS resource page
- Access to Phonics: Practical Access Strategies to Teach Children with Complex Needs of All Ages by Ann Sullivan (2023)
- Building Bridges from Emergent to Conventional Literacy
- Dynamic Learning Maps
- Literacy Instruction for All NWACS resource
- Project Core
- Project VC
- Tar Heel Shared Reader
- Using Shared Reading to Support Literacy Right #3 (NWACS blog)
- Using Shared Writing to Support Literacy Development (NWACS blog)
- Writing With Adults: Predictable Chart Writing blog post (with videos) from Jane Farrall
Selected References
- Caron, J., Light, J., & McNaughton, D. (2022, early online). Effects of adapted letter-sound correspondence instruction with older learners with complex communication needs and autism spectrum disorders. Augmentative and Alternative Communication. https://doi.org/10.1080/07434618.2022.2121226
- Culatta, B., Happ-Kenyon, K.M., & Black, S. (2013). Systemic and Engaging Early Literacy: Instruction and Intervention. Plural Publishing, Inc.
- Erickson, K. A., & Koppenhaver, D. A. (2020). Comprehensive Literacy for All: Teaching Students with Significant Disabilities to Read and Write. Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
- Geist, L., & Erickson, K. (2022). Robust Receptive Vocabulary Instruction for Students With Significant Cognitive Disabilities Who Use AAC. Teaching Exceptional Children, 54(4), 296–304. https://doi.org/10.1177/00400599211018836
- Jones, C. D., Clark, S. K., & Reutzel, D. R. (2013). Enhancing alphabet knowledge instruction: Research implications and practical strategies for early childhood educators. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41(2), 81–89. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-012-0534-9
- Light, J., Barwise, A., Gardner, A.M., & Flynn, M. (2021). Personalized early AAC intervention for young children with complex communication needs to build language and literacy skills: A case study. Topics in Language Disorders, 41, 209-231. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0000000000000254
- Light, J. & McNaughton, D. (2020). Literacy intervention for individuals with complex communication needs. In D. Beukelman & J. Light (Eds.) Augmentative and alternative communication: Supporting children and adults with complex communication needs. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
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