Second Grade is Important: Literacy Instruction and Learning of Young Children in a High-Poverty School

Journal of Literacy Research, Winter 2003/2004 by Barone, Diane

Literacy instruction was seen as important in this school. In the primary grades, the morning was blocked for literacy instruction without interruption. Instruction was balanced and focused on oral language, phonological skills, read aloud, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading, interactive writing, and independent writing. To help teachers with strategies to support this curriculum there was professional development in literacy provided each week. Additionally, there were two reading consultants in the school-one worked with primary teachers and the other with intermediate teachers. Reading Recovery was available for qualifying first graders. These structures were in place prior to the No Child Left Behind legislation.

Participants

Children. I identified 16 focal children during their first week of kindergarten. The teachers met with each child individually for assessment. I met with parents while their child was assessed to gain their permission for their child to be included in the study. At first I approached any family that arrived, but later I only approached families with boys, for instance, when I had a sufficient number of girls. A bilingual aide helped with this process.

I selected equal numbers of boys and girls who represented the ethnic diversity within the school. At the beginning of the study, there were nine children of Hispanic origin (eight of the children had families that came from various locations in Mexico; one family came from El Salvador), one child was Filipino, two children were African-American, and three children were European-American. Of the ten focal children who were learning English as a new language, only one had any preschool experiences. Three children (one European-American girl with English as her home language, one African-American boy with English as his home language, and one Hispanic boy with Spanish as his home language) moved between kindergarten and second grade and are not included in the analysis (see Table 1 for further information about the children).

Kindergarten Teachers. During the kindergarten year, I worked with three teachers. The children attended school for half of the day. In one room, Mrs. Harter was responsible for the morning and afternoon classes all four days (kindergarten students only attended school on Mondays through Thursdays; Fridays were used for staff development). In the other room, Mrs. Martin and Mrs. George, split a contract. Each teacher taught two days each week and they alternated coming to staff development on Fridays (see Table 2 for details about each teacher).

First-Grade Teachers. Four sets of first grade teachers team-taught because although there was class-size reduction in the primary grades in the state of the study, there was not sufficient classroom space to support stand-alone classes. The teams of teachers were: Mrs. Kirby and Ms. Mears, Mrs. Cullen and Mrs. Adams, Mr. Shott and Mrs. Sims, and Mrs. Messina and Mrs. Denton.

Second-Grade Teachers. In second grade, the children were in three, team-taught classrooms. The teams were: Mrs. Stewart and Mrs. Harrison, Miss Scott and Miss Ford, and Miss Stevens and Mrs. Smith.