Synopses & Reviews
“Too often teachers are asked to simply report whether or not students are at grade level in reading or writing, based on single or narrow measures. Profiles, on the other hand, offer a wider lens, permitting the teacher to notice and record students’ development across different dimensions of literacy.”
Sue Biggam and Kathleen Itterly
Designed to serve teachers as a classroom handbook, Literacy Profiles: A Framework for Assessing, Recording and Developing Students’ Literacy Progress, K-4 serves as a practical tool to help you identify and evaluate the literacy strengths and weaknesses of each student in your classroom. The framework for the literacy profiles identifies ten critical areas of literacy learning and allows teachers to record the incremental steps individual students make as they become competent and confident readers and writers. Chapter content provides guidance for sharpening your instructional skills and scaffolding instruction based on both summative and formative assessment data. Literacy Profiles provides a valuable progress monitoring tool to tailor literacy learning to individual needs based on purposeful and appropriate assessment information.
What will you find valuable in Literacy Profiles?
- A comprehensive framework that outlines ten strands of literacy development and incremental learning goals for children in grades K-4.
- Assessment tools that measure not only what students can do but what can they “almost do” to better link assessment with instruction.
- Teaching and learning guidance tied to Cambourne’s conditions of learning and social/interactive engagement based on Vgotsky’s zone of proximal development.
- Artifacts and assessment data collected from Willa, an actual second grade student, offers authentic methodology for using the literacy profile with children.
What do reviewers say?
“I’m impressed with the authors’ efforts to include background, assessment and instruction in one text. This is (a) major undertaking and one the field definitely needs.”
Diane Bottomley — Ball State University
“The author has chosen great strategies and concepts to introduce to the reader.”
Stephanie Grote — Texas A&M Corpus Christi
Review
Dr. Itterly,
I would like to let you know just how useful the literacy profile has been. I have been using it so far for just a few students who are a particular high risk, but will be using it soon for the majority of my students. The few instances though I wanted to let you know about how the profile has come into use in two separate ways.
The first was to show a set of kindergarten parents that their son does have control of most of the skills for where he is in terms of school, and has as good starting foundation.
The second, I was able to use the profile as part of an IEP meeting, resulting in a 2nd grade student receiving special education services. Since kindergarten she has made minimal progress. The profile showed that she was in the right place for most areas, but 3 where she was much lower. As another piece of evidence besides the special education testing, this helped to show that Title 1 services were just not enough for this learner and she would be better assisted in a special education setting.
For each of these instances I filled out the profile according to all evidence I had, and then passed it along to the classroom teacher who provided additional information on the profile. All teachers I have shown the profile have had very positive feedback. Our principal and special education teacher in particular have had more than positive feedback.
At our workshop on Friday, we had to set our professional goals for the year. The Title 1 Para-professional and I decided that our Title 1 goal would be to use the ‘profile’ for those students who are at particularly high risk due to multiple factors.
I look forward to using your book and the profile in the upcoming year. Thank you for such an insightful resource.
Sincerely,
Sara Barrows
Literacy Specialist
Pittston Consolidated School
Pittston , ME
Synopsis
Literacy Profiles: A Framework for Assessing, Recording and Developing Students’ Literacy Progress, K-4 is a diagnostic handbook for identifying each student’s literacy strengths and weaknesses. The Literacy Profiles framework names ten critical areas of literacy learning, describes the specific skills related to each of these strands, and correlates their development to the early, middle and late stages of grade level progress. Each of these strands is then covered in chapters that lead teachers to examine and improve on their own instructional practice. This book and the framework it presents will serve teachers as a valuable progress monitoring tool to not only assess and record students’ literacy progress but also impact students’ literacy learning specific to individual needs.
About the Author
Dr. Sue Biggam is currently a consultant and the Associate Director of Research and Development for the Vermont READS Institute at the University of Vermont. Previously, Sue was an elementary school teacher, reading specialist, Title 1 director, and then served as the Elementary Reading-Language Arts consultant for the Vermont Department of Education. Sue has also been a member of the NAEP Reading Assessment committee and has served as the president of the New England Reading Association.
Dr. Kathleen Itterly is an Associate Professor at Westfield State College (Massachusetts). She is nationally board certified, having served in the profession for over twenty years. She works as a faculty liaison with Reading First teachers, supervises graduate student teachers in the Reading Specialist Program, and serves as co-counselor for Kappa Delta Pi, the Education honor society.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Phonological Awareness and Oral Language Development
Underlying Principles of Phonological Awareness and Oral Language Development
Assessing Phonological Awareness and Oral Language Development
Instructional Approaches for Teaching Phonological Awareness and Oral Language Skills
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments from Strand 2 on the Literacy Profile
Chapter 2 Concepts of Print, and Knowledge About Letters and Text Features
Underlying Principles of Concepts of Print and Knowledge About Letters and Text Features
Assessing Concepts of Print, Letter Recognition, and Knowledge of Text Features
Instructional Considerations for Teaching Concepts of Print Concep[ts and Knowledge of Text Features
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments from Strand 1 on the Literacy Profile
Chapter 3 Decoding Skills and Word Recognition
Underlying Principles of Decoding and Word Recognition
Assessing Decoding and Word Identification
Instructional Approaches for Decoding and Word Recognition
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments
Chapter 4 Reading Strategies and Dispositions
Underlying Principles of Reading Strategies and Dispositions
Assessing Reading Strategies and Dispositions
Instructional Considerations for Reading Strategies and Dispositions
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments from Strand 4 on the Literacy Profile
Chapter 5 Reading Accuracy and Fluency at Increasing Text Levels
Underlying Principles of Reading Accuracy and Fluency at Increasing Text Levels
Assessing Reader Accuracy and Fluency
Instructional Approaches for Building Accuracy and Fluency at Increasing Text Levels for All Students
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments
Chapter 6 Comprehension and Reading Response
Underlying Principles of Comprehension and Reading Response
Assessing Comprehension and Reading Response
Instructional Approaches for Building Reading Comprehension and Reading Response
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments
Chapter 7 Writing Strategies, Processes, and Dispositions
Underlying Principles of Writing Strategies, Processes, and Dispositions
Assessing Development of Writing Strategies, Processes, and Dispositions
Instructional Approaches for Teaching Writing Strategies, Processes, and Dispositions
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments
Chapter 8 Writing Effectiveness
Underlying Principles of Writing Effectiveness
Assessing Writing Effectiveness
Instructional Approaches for Assessing Writing Effectiveness
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments
Chapter 9 Spelling
Underlying Principles of Spelling
Assessing Spelling
Instructional Approaches for Spelling
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments
Chapter 10 Writing Conventions and Handwriting
Underlying Principles of Writing Conventions, Including Handwriting
Assessing Writing Conventions, Including Handwriting
Instructional Approaches for Writing Conventions, Including Handwriting
Looking Closely at One Child's Assessments
Chapter 11 Thinking Ahead
More to Keep in Mind and Think About
Questions, Questions, Questions
A Few Final Words