Presentation on how the Four Blocks approach to literacy is suitable for all students, no matter their label or diagnosis

1. Literacy for ALL Students
Or “why no student is too
anything”

2. “No student is too
anything to be
able to read
and write”
David Yoder, DJI-AbleNet
Literacy Lecture, ISAAC
2000

3. Balanced Literacy
• Uses all valid parts of literacy instruction –
not one approach;
• Phonics & Whole Language;
• Works for students all along the literacy
continuum – from emergent to formal;
• Four Blocks is balanced literacy
instruction.

4. Oral and Written Language
Development
(Koppenhaver, Coleman, Kalman & Yoder, 1991. Adapted from Teale and Sulzby, 1989)
AAC/Speaking
Reading Literacy Writing
Listening

5. Emergent Literacy Development
• Emergent Literacy is “the reading and
writing behaviours that precede and
develop into conventional literacy”;
• Literacy development is
constructive, interactive, emergent and
recursive;
• Literacy development is a process that
begins at birth.

6. Means of
Communication and
Interaction
Communication at any level, intentional or
not, must be encouraged.

7. Mitch
• 2011
• Incredibly engaged;
• Went from understanding no Concepts
about Print to understanding over half;
• Greatly improved phonological awareness;
• At end of year signed his name “Midd ada”

8. On the way to conventional literacy…

9. Four Blocks

10. Four Blocks
• Created by Patricia Cunningham and
Dorothy Hall
• www.fourblocks.com
• Four Blocks in Special Ed wiki
https://fourblock.wikispaces.com/

12. Guided Reading

13. Guided Reading
• Help students to understand that:
– Reading involves thinking and meaning making
– They can use a range of strategies in their
reading to collect information, understand
text, etc.
• Must use a wide variety of books and other
print materials
– Commercial books
– Personal experience books
– Custom books
• NOT listening comprehension

14. 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

15. 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

16. Types of Guided Reading
• Picture walk
• Before-During-After (Three Part)
• Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
• KWL (What do I Know, what do I Want to
know, what have I Learned)

17. 3 part Guided Reading
• Before – discuss title, any concepts in the
book you think need explaining or
expanding, set the purpose
• During – read the book
• After – discuss the purpose

18. Cock-A-Moo-Moo
1. What is your favourite animal in the
book?
2. What sound is the funniest that the
rooster makes?
3. What feelings does the rooster have
during the book?
4. Why do you think the fox was sneaking
in?
5. What farm animals aren’t in the book?

20. #1 - What is your favourite animal
in the book?

21. 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

22. #2 - What sound is the funniest that
the rooster makes?

23. #3 - What feelings does the rooster
have during the book?

24. #4 - Why do you think the fox was
sneaking in?

25. #5 - What farm animals aren’t in
the book?

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

27. Variety
• Variety of purposes
• Variety of approaches
• Variety of texts

28. Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
DR-TA (Stauffer)
• Students LOOK at title or pictures and
predict story
• Students READ to a predetermined
stopping point
• Students PROVE the accuracy of their
predictions and modify them or make new
predictions

30. Variety of texts
• Commercial books
• Fiction and non-fiction
• Language Experience/custom texts
• Created texts about class experiences
• Personal alphabet books
• TarHeel Reader books

31. What does Emma do?
by Mr Clark

32. Self-Selected Reading

33. 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

34. 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 are often passive participants
(Koppenhaver & Yoder, 1992)

36. Self-Selected Reading
Resources
• Commercial books
• Custom books
• TarHeel Reader books
• Digital storybook apps on iPads

37. Custom Books
• Books with familiar photos can be more
meaningful and motivating for many
children
• You can make older content with simple
text
• Students can get involved in book creation
• Can be made accessible to ALL students

38. Tar Heel Reader
• www.tarheelreader.org
• Lots of simple books on a wide variety of
topics suitable for older students (and
students of all ages)

39. Digital Storybooks on iPad

40. Created Bookshelf in iBooks

41. Writing

42. 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

43. “Pencils”
• 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

44. Writing With Alternative Pencils
CD

45. Writing and Emergent Literacy
• The function of literacy is as important as
the form
• Students need to understand why writing
is important

46. Kade and Georgia

47. 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, intial, medial +
final)
• Transitional – rule based e.g. Putting past
tense on every verb
• Conventional

48. Print Has Meaning Stage

49. Visual Cue Stage

50. Phonetic Cue Stage

51. Conventional
Three rabbits went to Canberra

52. Personal Connection
The power of starting from the things
children love the most!

54. Working with Words

55. Working with Words
• Help students to become strategic in reading
words
• Words instruction should be
– Words based
– Experience based
– Age-appropriate
• Should result in students who read and write:
– More
– More successfully and independently
– With greater enjoyment

56. Successful early reading
instruction
• Decoding (phonics) and sight word
instruction
• Frequent opportunities to read and re-read
easy, interesting and motivating books
• Frequent opportunities to write for
personally meaningful reasons using
invented spelling and no standards
• Frequent experiences reading a book with
an adult for enjoyment and understanding

57. 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

64. Word Wall Use Basics
• 5 words a week
• Cumulative list
– On the wall until every student spells each
word correctly without looking
• Introduce homophones in separate
weeks, not all at once
• Daily 10 minute activities

65. 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

67. Onset Rime
• E.g ack, ail, ain, ake, ame, an, ine
• Teach one word representing each of
these endings on your Word Wall – then in
other activities teach the children what to
do to transfer “back” to “sack, hack” etc

69. 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

70. Emergent vs Conventional
Term 1
Conventional
Emergent
Term 4
0 5 10 15 20

71. Four Blocks Notes
• Plan for your most challenging student –
the others will fall into place
• All students in the Willans Hill study
showed increased engagement, increased
concentration span and decreased
challenging behaviour
• Teachers in the Willans Hill study said they
were much more engaged too!

72. “No student is too
anything to be
able to read
and write”
David Yoder, DJI-AbleNet
Literacy Lecture, ISAAC
2000