Bridging Read-Alouds with Early Literacy

Read-alouds represent an appropriate oral language program suitable for the language learning development of early literacy and second language learners. The read-aloud is not completely an oral experience. Teachers should connect the oral experiences with early reading components of early literacy.

Oral instruction enhances the process of early literacy by providing direct explicit instruction on reading, thinking and learning strategies, word and meaning recognition, and early reading skills. While every teacher's approach to oral work differs, the principles for strengthening an at-risk performance in the early stages of a read-aloud remain the same. Comprehension and vocabulary retention are promoted through constant recycling, repetition and review of sound/symbol correspondences, phonics, and vocabulary.

Present New Vocabulary

Teachers present new vocabulary by showing the cover for preteaching vocabulary for the popular book Bear Snores On. S/he can ask: Who is 'snoring'? While reading the story, teacher refers to the word snoring using guiding questions: "Where is the bear snoring?" "Who comes into the cave when bear is snoring?"

Identify Text Type

Teachers begin by identifying the type of read-aloud (expository or narrative) and how much oral work will be done prior to the read-aloud. As the teacher reads the story, s/he reads the story and encourages students to predict. Non-verbal clues such as gestures and verbal clues such as pictures help facilitate the process of reading the story aloud. Discussing vocabulary is an important linking stage between hearing words and seeing them in their contexts before students have the necessary reading skills to acquire vocabulary independently.

The story context is an inductive learning experience. Teacher continues to use pictures but should use relevant vocabulary that strengthens the story.

The major challenge in teaching read-alouds is ensuring that at-risk ELLs understand at-least 99% of the vocabulary in context. Since many at-risk ELLs do not have the right language tools for dealing with new words, some try to use educated guesses while others do not. One way to bridge this gap is to give students clues. Example for teaching the word wintertime: 'It looks very cold and snowy, doesn't it?"

Use the Look-Read-Say Method

The Look-Read-Say method, (otherwise known as the whole word approach) help ELLs learn early decoding and early reading according to word patterns which were previously introduced in the read-aloud. It is up to the teacher to choose 4-6 target vocabulary that can be explicitly taught from sound and meaning. Stage 1: the teacher presents the word in a sentence strip. Stage 2: The teacher says: "The word X sounds like Y." Stage 3: ELLs hear the pattern. Stage 4: Students say the word and spell out the word.

Read-alouds represent an appropriate oral language program suitable for the language learning development of early literacy and second language learners. The read-aloud is not completely an oral experience. Teachers should connect the oral experiences with early reading components of early literacy as delineated in this tutorial.