Building Blocks of Literacy

Santa Catalina’s integrated approach to literacy introduces students to increasingly complex phonics concepts, builds their reading fluency and comprehension, and inspires expression through writing. Shared methods, tools, and programs across the grades ensure that students never miss a beat from year to year. And first grade is in the sweet spot.

From PreKindergarten to Grade 1, teachers present phonics using the multisensory Orton-Gillingham approach. Toward the end of kindergarten, teachers introduce an additional phonics program, Words Their Way. First grade uses this program extensively, and it follows students through fifth grade. Another program, the Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop, is also used in first grade and continues through fifth. Catalina’s guided reading program is used throughout.

“There’s a nice flow through the grades and it just keeps rolling with the students as their skills progress,” says Maddy Farr, who teaches Grade 1 with Valerie Humenik. “There’s consistent growth.” All of the programs weave together: Phonics lessons are put into practice during guided reading, and both help inform the writing process.

Through Words Their Way, first-graders engage in phonics exercises four days a week, with each day following a set routine. “In first grade, they thrive on routines,” Valerie says. On Mondays, students are introduced to a new pattern, such as the sounds of “ch” and “sh” (found in chop and shop) and how to differentiate them. The teachers read a poem that showcases words with those spelling-sound patterns and help students identify them. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, students engage in various activities to sort words that follow the pattern. And on Thursdays, they practice applying those skills by brainstorming and writing words that follow the pattern.

As Valerie and Maddy teach these sound and spelling patterns, they can draw on Orton-Gillingham strategies, which they are specially trained to teach. Strategies include having the students trace words in sand or on a textured screen, bend wax sticks to shape letters, and tap sounds down their arms. These tactile approaches are designed to help the patterns stick in students’ brains. The teachers also teach so-called non-negotiable words, or words that don’t follow the rules and just require memorization to spell—for example, “the,” because the letter “e” makes a short “u” vowel sound.

Although all students from PreK through Grade 1 use Orton-Gillingham methods, the focus shifts as students advance in grade level. As Valerie explains, “We simply build upon all that they learned before coming into first grade by beginning to shift the focus into other areas of literacy as well, like being able to produce those same sound patterns into their writing.”

We encourage parents to read to their kids no matter what age, because hearing a fluent reader is so helpful.

All of this phonics work ties into the guided reading program. In guided reading, the students meet in small, teacher-led groups four times a week. Typically, teachers will preview a new book and talk about vocabulary or unfamiliar words. Sometimes students take turns reading out loud, and sometimes the teachers listen in to an individual student while their peers whisper read independently. Whatever they read in class, they reread at home, while also using a guided reading journal to reflect on what they read.

Students are grouped by reading level so the teachers can meet them where they are and provide additional phonics practice as needed. The goal in these groups is to work on fluency and comprehension. Fluency includes skills such as decoding (sounding out words), phrasing, expression, and intonation. Maddy says, “Sometimes a student will just read through the whole page, or even book without taking a breath. So we talk about phrasing—we call it scooping up words—and noticing punctuation and other parts of the text.” Valerie adds, “We always tell them, don’t read like a robot.” Pointing out that parents are key to the process, Valerie says, “We encourage parents to read to their kids no matter what age, because hearing a fluent reader is so helpful. We pick up those habits: the pausing, the phrasing.”

The comprehension piece of guided reading goes beyond fluency skills like identifying words with particular vowel sounds to bigger conversations related to setting, problems, solutions, and character development. Valerie explains the difference between fluency and comprehension this way: “When a child is working on their fluency, they’re learning to read. When they are moving into comprehension, they’re reading to learn.”

On Fridays, the teachers review and assess what students have been learning during the week. Through a process called “reading for meaning,” they read a book together as a class, with the teachers pausing now and then to model how to sound out a word or to ask a few comprehension questions. The teachers also do phonics assessments related to the pattern of the week. At the beginning of the year, it matters more that the pattern is correct than that the whole word is spelled correctly. Toward the end of the year, the emphasis shifts, after the students have mastered several patterns.

The final piece of the literacy puzzle is the Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop, in which students are guided through each step of the writing process: drafting, editing, and publishing. They practice different styles of writing throughout the year, including personal narratives (called “small moments”), reviews, and nonfiction. This is a more independent process for students, and each of them is paired with a writing partner that they can turn to for feedback. “It’s one of the parts of our day that doesn’t have an end point,” Valerie says. “That’s different from math, where we want them to finish a problem set, or phonics where they need to glue their sorted words down. It’s very open-ended. … Writing Workshop is where they get to be more independent, more individualized, where they can take that pressure off of themselves. It’s not, ‘I need to have this done,’ but, ‘How can I make it better?’” The year ends with a publishing party where first-graders share chapter books they wrote about a particular topic, such as Malayan tigers, being a big sister, or riding a bike.

With skills that flow smoothly through the grades and lessons that continually build on one another, there’s one particular saying from the Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop that can easily apply to Catalina’s entire literacy program: As Valerie puts it, “When you’re done, you’ve only just begun!”