Research Based Effective Literacy Instruction

Literacy is the ability to read and write well. Students become better writers by reading. -designed, controlled comparisons of instructional approaches have consistently supported these components and practices in literacy instruction:

• Direct teaching of decoding, comprehension, and literature appreciation;
• Phoneme awareness instruction;
• Systematic and explicit instruction in the code system of written English;
• Daily exposure to a variety of texts, as well as incentives for children to read independently and with others;
• Vocabulary instruction that includes a variety of complementary methods designed to explore the relationships among words and the relationships among word structure, origin, and meaning;
• Comprehension strategies that include prediction of outcomes, summarizing, clarification, questioning, and visualization; and
• Frequent writing of prose to enable deeper under-standing of what is read.

(Source: Reading IS Rocket Science: What Expert Teachers of Reading Should Know and Be Able To Do. 1999. A report by the American Federation of Teachers.)