Developing literacy skills

There are a variety of activities you may use along with your reading method to help learners develop literacy skills in

• phonemic awareness
• reading
• writing, and
• spelling.

Many of these activities also help build a positive attitude towards reading and writing by helping learners develop confidence in their growing skills.

Here are some guidelines to follow when you use activities for developing literacy skills:

• Use appropriate activities with everyone, from those who cannot yet read and write to those who are already fairly fluent readers and writers.
• Use activities to help people who can already read and write in one language to make the transition to reading and writing in another language.
• Use activities as a supplement to a total literacy program. Used in isolation, they will not efficiently teach a person to read or write.

• Use a neurological impress activity.
• Use a language experience approach activity.
• Use a cloze procedure.
• Use literacy games.
• Use activities to develop language awareness.
• Use activities to develop reading skills.
• Use activities to develop writing skills.
• Use activities to teach spelling.

Fluency

• Use activities to develop reading fluency.
• Use activities to develop writing fluency.

• Allington 1977
• Bernd 1989
• Carbo 1978
• Christie, M. 1982
• Dechant 1991
• Dye, S. 1988
• Gordon, R. 1989
• Hayes, C. 1987
• Holdaway 1980
• Holmes, B 1985
• Hunter, G. 1986
• Hunter, G. 1994
• Koschnick Laubach 1977
• Loving, R. 1988
• MacDonald, G. 1983
• Matthews, D. 1989
• O'Tue and Holt 1988
• Ringenberg 1991
• Sandefur and Sandefur 1987

• Task module: Developing literacy skills, by Martha A. Lane (contributor), Delle P. Matthews (contributor), Leah B. Walter (contributor), Glenys Waters (contributor), Anne Klaassens (editor), and Trudy K. Stewart (editor, contributor)
• In task module: Teaching people to read and write, by Carole P. Spaeth (compiler)
• In task module: Implementing a literacy program, by Carole P. Spaeth (compiler)
• In modular book: Implement a literacy program, by Carole P. Spaeth (compiler) and Leah B. Walter (compiler)
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 22 October 1999

© 1999 SIL International