Definition of aBalanced Literacy Approach
“Balanced does not mean that all skills and standards receive equal emphasis at a given point in time. Rather, it implies that the overall emphasis accorded to a skill or standard is determined by its priority or importance relative to students’ language and literacy levels and needs.”
Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools (California Department of Education, 1999, p. 4)
Communicative Competence
GRAMMAR
phonology
morphology
syntax
semantics
lexicon PR
AG
MA
TIC
S
A Balanced Biliteracy Program(based on M. Halliday, 1975)
The effective biliteracy classroom is designed and structured to guide and support students as they:
• Learn language
• Learn about language
• Learn through language
Learning Language
• A progression of linguistic and communicative competencies through identifiable stages of development
• Interrelationship between linguistic and cognitive development
• Occurs through structured opportunities for language acquisition as well as explicit teaching/learning experiences
• Depends on comprehensible input at one level of complexity beyond the learner’s level of linguistic competence
Learning About Language
• Develops metalinguistic awareness in the three cueing systems
• Builds a knowledge base in phonology, morphology, grammar & syntax, and semantics in both languages
• Makes explicit contrasts and comparisons between language systems
• Focuses on acquisition of problem-solving strategies in literacy tasks
• Involves on-going assessment of learners’ growth and development
Learning Through Language
• Making schematic and conceptual connections through theme units
• Eliciting and expanding responses to literature through core book units and genre studies
• Planned for ample opportunities for aesthetic and efferent responses to literature
• Based on an inquiry approach to multicultural literature and content themes
• Content area reading expands vocabulary and builds critical thinking skills
Traditional Approaches to Phonics Instruction
• Are synthetic approaches using part to whole with segmentation and blending of letters into words
• Begin with teaching individual letters and letter-sound correspondences
• May involve kinesthetic activities, i.e., Orton-Gillingham, Zoo Phonics
• Require direct instruction based on a behavioral analysis of decoding. I.e., Distar
Contemporary Phonics Approaches
• Spelling-based principles such as Word Study or Making Words that involve sorting or making words based on students’ developmental level
• Analogy-based approaches where students decode words based on known words or word parts
• Embedded phonics where students where instruction occurs in the context of authentic reading and writing experiences
The Spanish Alphabet
• 29 letters spell 24 phonemes• Highly regular and rule governed, with a few
“letras difíciles” that have multiple phoneme-graphic correspondences
• There are no “double letters”: ch, ll, & rr represent a single phoneme. The ñ comes from the Latin nn.
• H is silent and u is silent after g unless it carries a “diérisis” (bilingüe, pingüino) and after q (queso)
Phoneme to Grapheme Relationships
/1/ a
b
/1/
/2/a
One-to-many relations
Many-to-one relations
/1/ a
/2/ b
One-to-one relationsPhoneme Grapheme
Spanish Phonics
• Phonemic awareness• Letter-sound correspondences• Spelling patterns• Syllabification • Diphthongs and syllable juncture• Categorization of words according to stressed
syllable • Rules for the use of written accent marks
English Phonics
• Consonants and vowels
• Consonant blends and digraphs
• Long and short vowels
• R-controlled vowels
• Vowel digraphs
• Diphthongs
• Homophones & homographs
Word Study in Dual Language Classrooms
• Picture sorts• Concept sorts• Letter-sound
correspondence sorts• Same-vowel word
families• Mixed-vowel word
families• Word Hunt
• Word Bank• Word Wall• High-frequency word
study• Word strips• Word Study Notebooks• Dictation• Word games
Word Study In Spanish
• Letras difíciles• Parts of speech &
changes of function• Singular/plural
inflections & noun/adjective agreement
• Classification by syllable stress & written accent
• Cognates • Verb tenses, conjugation
and agreement• Diminutive and
augmentation derivitives (ito, ón, ote, ísimo)
• Enclisis & apócope (cualquier, cualquiera, gran, grande)
Spanish Phonemes Spelled Using Multiple Graphemes
• Vowel phoneme i is written as i and as y (i griega) in diphthongs ending a word (soy, muy)
• Labiodental /b/ is written as either b or v (haba, ave)• /k/ is written as c before a, o, u, or as k or as qu
(casa, kiosco, queso)• /s/ is written as c before e, i or as s or as z (cerro,
silla, zorro)• /h/ is written as g before e, i or as j (gigante, jinete)
and as x (México, Don Quixote)• /y/ is written as ie, ll or y (hielo, lleno, yodo)
Spanish Graphemes That Spell Multiple Phonemes
• The letter b spells the bilabial b as in burro and the labiodental b as in arriba
• The letter c spells /k/ as in casa and /s/ as in cita.
• The letter g spells /g/ as in gallo and /h/ as in general
• The letter y spells the vowel sound i at the end of words as in soy and the consonant sound y as in yegua
Spanish in Spain and Latin AmericaX, Y, Z and Thee
• The x has respresents a number of phonemes: /h/, /x/ and in Mexico /sh/ for words from Náhuatl and Otomí.
• In Latin America, the ll and y in initial position are pronounced the same (llama, yerno)
• In Spain, the z before a, o u represents a soft /th/ sound. This sound is also spelled ce & ci. Words ending in z change to c when forming the plural (pez-peces; lápiz-lápices)
Phoneme Before a
Before e
Before i
Before o
Before u
/k/ ca que qui co cu
Hard g ga gue gui go gu
/h/ ja ge, je gi, ji jo ju
/kw/ cua cue cui cuo
/gw/ gua güe güi guo
Spanish Spelling Patterns
Spanish Structural Analysis
• Word derivations: roots, prefixes and suffixes• Inflection and agreement (subject-verb,
adjectives, possessives)• Enclisis (combining two classes of words) • Contractions (conjunción)• Shortened forms of words (apócope)• Compound words• Cognates
Spanish Syllable Patterns
• A single consonant occurring between vowels is joined to the vowel or vowels that follow.
• Two separate consonants between vowels are divided.
• A strong vowel (a,e,o) combined in a syllable with a weak vowel (i, u) forming a diphthong or triphthong are not separated.
• Consonant blends (consonant with l or r) are not separated
• When s is in a prefix, it forms a syllable with the prefix
English Syllable Patterns
• Closed: Short vowel ending with consonant• Open: Long vowel, no consonant ending• Vowel Digraph: vowel spelled with 2+ letters• C-le at the ends of words• R-controlled vowel• Vowel-consonant-e long vowel pattern• Idiosyncratic
migration
migrate
immigrate
immigration
immigrant
migr-move
migrancy
migratory
emigrate
emigrant
emigration
Word Derivations