Definition of aBalanced Literacy Approach

“Balanced does not mean that all skills and standards receive equal emphasis at a given point in time. Rather, it implies that the overall emphasis accorded to a skill or standard is determined by its priority or importance relative to students’ language and literacy levels and needs.”

Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools (California Department of Education, 1999, p. 4)

Communicative Competence

GRAMMAR

phonology

morphology

syntax

semantics

lexicon PR

AG

MA

TIC

S

A Balanced Biliteracy Program(based on M. Halliday, 1975)

The effective biliteracy classroom is designed and structured to guide and support students as they:

• Learn language

• Learn about language

• Learn through language

Learning Language

• A progression of linguistic and communicative competencies through identifiable stages of development

• Interrelationship between linguistic and cognitive development

• Occurs through structured opportunities for language acquisition as well as explicit teaching/learning experiences

• Depends on comprehensible input at one level of complexity beyond the learner’s level of linguistic competence

Learning About Language

• Develops metalinguistic awareness in the three cueing systems

• Builds a knowledge base in phonology, morphology, grammar & syntax, and semantics in both languages

• Makes explicit contrasts and comparisons between language systems

• Focuses on acquisition of problem-solving strategies in literacy tasks

• Involves on-going assessment of learners’ growth and development

Learning Through Language

• Making schematic and conceptual connections through theme units

• Eliciting and expanding responses to literature through core book units and genre studies

• Planned for ample opportunities for aesthetic and efferent responses to literature

• Based on an inquiry approach to multicultural literature and content themes

• Content area reading expands vocabulary and builds critical thinking skills

Traditional Approaches to Phonics Instruction

• Are synthetic approaches using part to whole with segmentation and blending of letters into words

• Begin with teaching individual letters and letter-sound correspondences

• May involve kinesthetic activities, i.e., Orton-Gillingham, Zoo Phonics

• Require direct instruction based on a behavioral analysis of decoding. I.e., Distar

Contemporary Phonics Approaches

• Spelling-based principles such as Word Study or Making Words that involve sorting or making words based on students’ developmental level

• Analogy-based approaches where students decode words based on known words or word parts

• Embedded phonics where students where instruction occurs in the context of authentic reading and writing experiences

The Spanish Alphabet

• 29 letters spell 24 phonemes• Highly regular and rule governed, with a few

“letras difíciles” that have multiple phoneme-graphic correspondences

• There are no “double letters”: ch, ll, & rr represent a single phoneme. The ñ comes from the Latin nn.

• H is silent and u is silent after g unless it carries a “diérisis” (bilingüe, pingüino) and after q (queso)

Phoneme to Grapheme Relationships

/1/ a

b

/1/

/2/a

One-to-many relations

Many-to-one relations

/1/ a

/2/ b

One-to-one relationsPhoneme Grapheme

Spanish Phonics

• Phonemic awareness• Letter-sound correspondences• Spelling patterns• Syllabification • Diphthongs and syllable juncture• Categorization of words according to stressed

syllable • Rules for the use of written accent marks

English Phonics

• Consonants and vowels

• Consonant blends and digraphs

• Long and short vowels

• R-controlled vowels

• Vowel digraphs

• Diphthongs

• Homophones & homographs

Word Study in Dual Language Classrooms

• Picture sorts• Concept sorts• Letter-sound

correspondence sorts• Same-vowel word

families• Mixed-vowel word

families• Word Hunt

• Word Bank• Word Wall• High-frequency word

study• Word strips• Word Study Notebooks• Dictation• Word games

Word Study In Spanish

• Letras difíciles• Parts of speech &

changes of function• Singular/plural

inflections & noun/adjective agreement

• Classification by syllable stress & written accent

• Cognates • Verb tenses, conjugation

and agreement• Diminutive and

augmentation derivitives (ito, ón, ote, ísimo)

• Enclisis & apócope (cualquier, cualquiera, gran, grande)

Spanish Phonemes Spelled Using Multiple Graphemes

• Vowel phoneme i is written as i and as y (i griega) in diphthongs ending a word (soy, muy)

• Labiodental /b/ is written as either b or v (haba, ave)• /k/ is written as c before a, o, u, or as k or as qu

(casa, kiosco, queso)• /s/ is written as c before e, i or as s or as z (cerro,

silla, zorro)• /h/ is written as g before e, i or as j (gigante, jinete)

and as x (México, Don Quixote)• /y/ is written as ie, ll or y (hielo, lleno, yodo)

Spanish Graphemes That Spell Multiple Phonemes

• The letter b spells the bilabial b as in burro and the labiodental b as in arriba

• The letter c spells /k/ as in casa and /s/ as in cita.

• The letter g spells /g/ as in gallo and /h/ as in general

• The letter y spells the vowel sound i at the end of words as in soy and the consonant sound y as in yegua

Spanish in Spain and Latin AmericaX, Y, Z and Thee

• The x has respresents a number of phonemes: /h/, /x/ and in Mexico /sh/ for words from Náhuatl and Otomí.

• In Latin America, the ll and y in initial position are pronounced the same (llama, yerno)

• In Spain, the z before a, o u represents a soft /th/ sound. This sound is also spelled ce & ci. Words ending in z change to c when forming the plural (pez-peces; lápiz-lápices)

 

Phoneme Before a

Before e

Before i

Before o

Before u

/k/ ca que qui co cu

Hard g ga gue gui go gu

/h/ ja ge, je gi, ji jo ju

/kw/ cua cue cui cuo  

/gw/ gua güe güi guo  

Spanish Spelling Patterns

Spanish Structural Analysis

• Word derivations: roots, prefixes and suffixes• Inflection and agreement (subject-verb,

adjectives, possessives)• Enclisis (combining two classes of words) • Contractions (conjunción)• Shortened forms of words (apócope)• Compound words• Cognates

Spanish Syllable Patterns

• A single consonant occurring between vowels is joined to the vowel or vowels that follow.

• Two separate consonants between vowels are divided.

• A strong vowel (a,e,o) combined in a syllable with a weak vowel (i, u) forming a diphthong or triphthong are not separated.

• Consonant blends (consonant with l or r) are not separated

• When s is in a prefix, it forms a syllable with the prefix

English Syllable Patterns

• Closed: Short vowel ending with consonant• Open: Long vowel, no consonant ending• Vowel Digraph: vowel spelled with 2+ letters• C-le at the ends of words• R-controlled vowel• Vowel-consonant-e long vowel pattern• Idiosyncratic

migration

migrate

immigrate

immigration

immigrant

migr-move

migrancy

migratory

emigrate

emigrant

emigration

Word Derivations