Comprehensive Literacy for All:

Literacy Intervention for All Our Diverse Students

Introduction

Welcome to the Comprehensive Literacy Resources website! This website was created as a resource and information sharing portal for the schools I (Jane Farrall) work with. I hope you find it helpful and that it supports you in your teaching – and your students in their literacy learning.

And just a few words before we start the fun literacy stuff! This website is password protected and the password will be changed regularly. Please do not share the password with people outside of your school.

Additionally, many of the resources on this website are my intellectual property – please do not share these outside of your school without asking my permission first. Some of the resources on this website are the property of the Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies. I have permission to share these with the schools I work with – but they are very specific that they cannot be shared beyond that. Again – please do not share any resources as I would hate to have this permission removed. This may seem harsh, but I am very aware that users need a certain amount of background knowledge for these resources to be used as intended.

Differentiating Instruction

Emergent readers and writers are students who aren’t yet reading and writing with comprehension. The National Early Literacy Panel Report (US) covers the different areas in which emergent students need intervention to help them become conventional readers and writers. The diagram above shows these different areas – with the central understanding that literacy and language develop together and inter-relatedly.

Conventional readers and writers also have a set of activities that they need to participate in for ALL students to read with comprehension at one grade level higher. The diagram above shows these different areas. We recognise that no single area of literacy instruction helps all students and so we ensure that all students get instruction in all areas.  Transitional readers and writers need conventional literacy instruction at a Kindergarten level.

For much more detailed information see: Comprehensive Literacy for All: Teaching Students with Significant Disabilities to Read and Write (2020) by Erickson and Koppenhaver.   You can also get more information about emergent literacy instruction from the Emergent Literacy page on this website –  and information about conventional literacy instruction from the Conventional Literacy page on this website.

For information on using the Simple View of Reading for Guiding Comprehensive Literacy Instruction you can download the document below.

Emergent or Conventional (or Transitional)?

Your school has access to some literacy assessments that you can use with each student to determine their literacy level, and the areas where they need the most instruction. But if you have a new student or a student who hasn’t been assessed for some reason, then you can use the four questions above to help you decide which set of interventions to use.

A student for whom you would answer “no” to one or more of those questions, needs emergent literacy teaching, at any age.

A student for whom you would answer “yes” to all four questions may be transitional or conventional. Transitional students aren’t yet reading with comprehension or, perhaps, writing so that their audience can understand it, but they have all of the emergent literacy understandings complete. They need conventional instruction at a Foundation level to help them move to reading with comprehension and writing to communicate with others.

Conventional readers and writers would also be students for whom you would answer “yes” to all four questions. These students need conventional instruction at the right level to help them read and write with comprehension at one level higher.

You may have a classroom where students are both emergent and conventional literacy learners. If that’s the case, then you will need to teach both emergent and conventional interventions.

For more help on answering the Four Questions please download the document below:

Literacy in AAC

Professor Karen Erickson was the plenary speaker at the Communication Matters conference in 2019 and you can watch her presentation about Why is Literacy Critical in AAC below.

Thank-you

• Huge thank-you to Karen Erickson, David Koppenhaver and Sally Clendon for teaching me so much over the years and supporting me on my literacy in AAC journey.
• Also huge thanks to Helen Tainsh for working with me and supporting me with her amazing AAC knowledge

And some of my favourite graphics!