Does Your School/District Have a Comprehensive Approach to Literacy?

Barbara McSwain and Carol Brewer
Aug 31, 2009

A comprehensive approach to literacy is important and necessary for effective communication and life-long learning.  Most schools and districts, when asked, will say they have a comprehensive literacy program, yet when analyzed, the literacy program will often have gaps.  To help you identify if your literacy program has any gaps, we provide a look at the areas students should have the opportunity to address each day.

  1. Is your literacy program balanced?  It is important that each day time is spent on Teacher Directed Reading, Phonological Awareness and Phonics, Vocabulary, Flex Groups, Self-Selected Reading, and Writing. It is imperative that elementary students have large blocks of scheduled time devoted to literacy initiatives.

  2. How much time is spent each day giving students opportunities to learn and demonstrate their ability to identify and orally manipulate individual sounds that are found within spoken words?

  3. Are students taught the relationship between letters and letter combinations in written words and spoken sounds explicitly?  Are students able to apply the phonics skills they have learned when reading words and sentences in stories each day?  How are phonics and phonological awareness taught and demonstrated on a daily basis?

  4. Does the word work in the classroom include grade level standards-driven vocabulary as well as phonological awareness and phonics?  Do students understand that words have multiple meanings?  Do students recognize root words, prefixes, and suffixes?  Have students been exposed to a variety of fiction and expository texts?  Are signal words from comprehension strategies being taught explicitly?

  5. Fluency is the ability for students to read orally with speed, accuracy and expression.  How many correct words per minute should students be able to read at this grade level?  Do students read with expression as well as comprehension?

  6. Are teachers explicitly teaching comprehension strategies and applying them across content areas?  In every reading selection are students required to identify the Main Idea and Details, as well as, make inferences regardless of any other comprehension strategy that is being taught?

  7. Is writing a central activity to all literacy skills across content areas?  Are students writing every day in every subject?  Are both the writing process and summary point writing being addressed every day?

  8. Does your school or district have all of the above literacy components occur every day, including flex groups and self-selected reading?


If you answered no to any of these questions, the Comprehensive Literacy model can help you. There are workshops for implementing a comprehensive literacy model for teachers and administrators. Monitoring for literacy initiatives sessions are also offered for leadership. Please contact Client Services at www.LEARNINGFOCUSED.com or by calling 866-95LEARN (886-955-3276) to schedule a workshop.