What is structured literacy?
“Structured Literacy™ is a term created by the International Dyslexia Association in 2016 to help unify the names of the researched approaches to reading, including Orton-Gillingham, phonics-based reading instruction, systematic reading instruction and synthetic phonics.”
From the International Dyslexia Association website:
“Structured Literacy is characterized by the provision of systematic, explicit instruction that integrates listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Structured Literacy teaches the structure of language across the speech sound system (phonology), the writing system (orthography), the structure of sentences (syntax), the meaningful parts of words (morphology), the relationships among words (semantics), and the organization of spoken and written discourse.”
For many years, the prevailing view in education was that reading and writing were skills that would be naturally acquired though plenty of exposure to them.
The idea was that if you get kids excited about reading and writing, they’ll want to read and write, and that motivation (along with a little basic instruction) will lead to success.
Teachers always had kids in their class who weren’t learning, but the idea was that those kids would catch on sooner or later, and not to worry.
Nowadays it’s becoming harder to stick to that belief, as the research base is coming together to show that reading and writing are not naturally acquired through exposure - at least not for everyone. Somewhere between 50-60% of us need much more than exposure and excitement, with a little basic instruction, in order to become excellent readers and writers.
A recent Gallup study shows that 54% of US adults read at a 6th grade level or below. An interesting percentage, since it matches what the research says about how many people need more intensive, explicit instruction to learn how to read and write.
What many current adults grew up with is termed “Balanced Literacy”. It’s a balance between phonics instruction, memorization, and reading and writing activities.
If you’re a Baby Boomer like me, it probably wasn’t too balanced at all. You probably got the “look-say” method, basically memorization of words. Dr. Seuss’s Sam-I-Am was new to the world when I was in kindergarten and that’s all the phonics I remember getting (and that was at home).
The balance needs to tip much farther in the direction of explicit teaching of language skills to meet the needs of all students.
The best detailed description of Structured Literacy can be found at The Measured Mom website. She really breaks it down in a series of blog posts and when someone else has done it so well, why do it myself?
Below is The Measured Mom’s chart which shows the basic differences between the two teaching methods.
Where it gets tricky is that while we need to do our very best for students who need explicit instruction, we also need to meet the needs of students who come to school already reading and writing and those who pick it up quickly.
In other words, how to differentiate instruction to meet different learning needs.
Growing Writers is built on a structured literacy approach, but each lesson has a challenge for students who are ready for more.
Check out this video on the expandable lesson.