How HighScope Teaches Reading in Kindergarten Through Third Grade (continued)

Listening.Children listen to stories, poems, and expository text read aloud to them by adults and peers. They demonstrate oral comprehension by predicting story events, asking and answering questions about texts they've listened to, retelling stories, and relating story events to their own experiences. Children listen actively to peers and adults by asking relevant questions and by making connections to their own ideas and experiences.

Phonological awareness.Children identify and create rhymes; find words (in pictures and print) with the same beginning, ending, and middle sounds; and separate and blend word sounds (syllables and phonemes). Children also engage in word play by making rhymes and playing word games (e.g., "Sounds like pan but begins with /f/").

Phonics.Using grade-appropriate knowledge of letter-sound relationships, children sound out regularly spelled, unfamiliar words in text and when writing. They focus first on one-syllable words, such as cat and pen, with regular one-to-one letter-sound correspondences. As children's reading skills increase, they progress systematically to more complex patterns (such as blends, vowel combinations, and silent e's), to the letter patterns of multi-syllable words, and to suffixes, prefixes, and root words.

Developing vocabulary.Children learn to identify and read high-frequency, non-phonetic words by sorting and matching words, reading, being read to, and through shared and guided reading with a teacher. These words include those found on, for example, Dolch lists for each grade level. In the materials-rich environment of High/Scope classrooms, children are exposed to new vocabulary through reading and listening to a variety of texts, from names and labels of classroom materials, and from the full spectrum of sensory properties and experiences these materials and their daily use afford. Experiential referents give meaning to these words as they appear in the reading, writing, and speaking that children do when they plan, carry out, and reflect on their classroom activities during the daily plan-do-review process.

Reading books, books, and more books along with other printed material.
From a classroom or school library, children in the early elementary grades select and read 25 or more books per year at their own reading level. Children choose books on their favorite subjects and by familiar authors and are encouraged to broaden the content of their reading by choosing additional books based on their interests, those of their peers, and the recommendations of the teacher. If they haven't already done so in preschool or at home, they develop knowledge of how to handle books, turn successive pages, follow text from top to bottom and left to right on the page, and track words in print. They respond to what they have read by retelling and discussing the text with peers and adults, making predictions, representing stories in pictures, and relating stories to their own experiences.

Children engage in buddy reading, individual silent reading, and guided, small-group reading sessions with the teacher. As fluency increases, children read for information and enjoyment from books, magazines, and newspapers; follow written directions for projects and games; and use dictionaries to find word meanings. They analyze narrative texts for such elements as character, setting, problem, and resolution, and they identify similarities and differences across texts. When engaging in oral reading, they use inflection and phrasing, and they respond to punctuation.

Writing-running the reading processor in reverse.Children regularly write multiple, complete sentences to express and communicate their own experiences and creative thought. They use the phonics they are acquiring to spell out words they want to write, and they use invented spellings as needed to assure fluency and completeness of thought as they move steadily toward conventional spellings. The very act of writing makes them more conscious of letter sounds. Children learn letter formation, printing, and then cursive handwriting through teacher modeling and guidance in daily writing activities. They write stories, journals, reports, and books, and use different modes of writing, such as poetry, research reports, and essays. They also create messages, e-mail, letters, posters, lists, instructions, and other written communications in the context of diverse learning activities. Children read their own writing to peers and adults, and they are encouraged to display their writing in the classroom and to share it with parents. As fluency increases, they move through the complete process of writing-from prewriting to drafting, rewriting, editing, proofreading, and finally to publishing and reviewing selected works for the home, classroom, or school library.

Scientific evidence of High/Scope's impact on reading achievement

The High/Scope educational approach is based on scientifically conducted research studies. More than 3,000 school children in three different parts of the country were assessed over three years on such standardized tests as the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and the California Achievement Tests (Schweinhart & Wallgren, 1993). Children in classrooms using the High/Scope approach significantly outscored comparable peers in non-High/Scope classrooms on standardized achievement tests. Based on these studies demonstrating the program's significant and positive impact on student achievement, the U.S. Department of Education's Program Effectiveness Panel (PEP) validated the High/Scope elementary curriculum in 1992; High/Scope was the first comprehensive model to receive such endorsement (Schweinhart, 1991). In a later study, children who had been in High/Scope K-3 classrooms had more positive attitudes toward reading and writing in fourth grade and initiated these activities more frequently than did comparison children who did not have a High/Scope experience (Hohmann, 1996). These evaluation results demonstrate that a High/Scope education gives children specific advantages in literacy.