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

Results and Discussion

I have organized this section into four major parts. The first three share an overview of the teaching and learning at each grade level (see Table 1). Table 1 documents which classrooms the focal children were in each year and provides a gloss of their literacy development. The majority of data used to complete Table 1 came from teachers' literacy assessments. Observations, interviews, and artifact data were used to extend the information gleaned from the informal assessments. The fourth part centers on two case studies to provide a more complete picture of literacy learning and teaching across the three years.

To tease out the glosses reported in Table 1, supporting detail is shared for each category. For example, in kindergarten, the teachers assessed letter knowledge and sound/symbol relationship understanding. For children's retelling ability and memorization of predictable text, I observed during times when children self-selected books to read. I used Sulzby's (1985) classifications of retelling behavior to guide these observations. Because the kindergarten teachers provided no other opportunities for children to engage with books and because they did not assess this behavior, I relied on observation and sometimes informal interaction with a child to gather this information.

The first and second grade teachers frequently assessed their students' oral miscues through the use of running records. Results of assessments determined the book levels of text that groups of students explored during guided reading. These levels were also used as benchmarks at the end of the year to determine if a student was at, above, or below grade level in reading. The teachers also used a qualitative spelling inventory (Bear & Barone, 1989; Bear, et al., 2000) at the beginning and end of the year to determine students' word learning strategies and knowledge. Most of the spelling assessments were evaluated and filed away. However, the second grade teachers created word study groups within their classrooms that reflected students' varying levels of word knowledge determined through the use of a spelling inventory.

The fourth section highlights the literacy learning of two children as they navigated their kindergarten through second grade classrooms. These close explorations provide a clearer picture of the learning contexts the children experienced and how they responded. The children chosen were both learning English as a new language, as their home language was Spanish. One child, Sandra, is considered to be above grade level at the end on second grade and the other child, Julio, is considered to be below grade level. Both children participated in Reading Recovery support during first grade.

Teaching and Learning in Kindergarten through Second Grade

Kindergarten Teaching. The teachers varied considerably in their literacy instruction. Mrs. Harter began her day by having children engage in a phonemic awareness activity such as recognizing the first sound in their name. She followed this by reading to the children. At the beginning of the year, she encouraged the children to participate in talk about the books she read such as Brown Bear (Martin, 1967) and alphabet books. Because the children struggled to respond in English, this conversation time became nonexistent as the year progressed. She often commented, "I am frustrated with the lack of real conversation centered on books." By November, she stopped reading to her students on a daily basis and spent the time in 30 minutes of whole group phonics activities such as identifying words that began with the same initial consonant. Next, smaller groups (about six children) were expected to complete the same assignments. Typically, they worked on a math paper, colored a take-home book, or copied words that began with a similar consonant into a journal. The only time children explored text on their own was when they looked at library books as they entered the classroom each day. For a brief time, Mrs. Harter had each child determine the words that he or she wanted to learn. The child met with her privately and she copied individual words onto cards. The child then added this word to previously collected words and practiced reading them. This strategy was abandoned after a month because of classroom management issues.