Differentiating Instruction
Emergent readers and writers are students who aren’t yet reading and writing with comprehension. The National Early Literacy Panel Report (US) covers the different areas in which emergent students need intervention to help them become conventional readers and writers. The diagram above shows these different areas – with the central understanding that literacy and language develop together and inter-relatedly.
Conventional readers and writers also have a set of activities that they need to participate in for ALL students to read with comprehension at one grade level higher. The diagram above shows these different areas. We recognise that no single area of literacy instruction helps all students and so we ensure that all students get instruction in all areas.
Determining the Plan – Emergent or Conventional?
You may already have good literacy assessments in place at your school and have a solid understanding of where each of your students is at. However, if you don’t have this data then you can use the four questions below to help you decide which set of interventions to use.
A student who is emergent, for whom you would answer “no” to one or more of those questions, continues to need emergent literacy teaching, at any age.
A student for whom you would answer “yes” to all four questions may be transitional or conventional. Transitional students aren’t yet reading and writing with comprehension but have all of the emergent literacy understandings complete. They need conventional instruction at a beginning level to help them move to becoming conventional. In Australian Curriculum these students are at foundation level.
Conventional readers and writers would also be students for whom you would answer “yes” to all four questions. These students need conventional instruction at the right level to help them read and write with comprehension at one level higher.
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