Veteran Teachers’ Understanding of “Balanced Literacy”

The term balanced literacy was popularized in the mid-1990s to describe a middle ground in terms of text selection, instruction, skills, and strategies. The intention was to merge the promising elements of whole language and phonics. Interactions with educators and literacy leaders across the country currently suggest that a term that had been seemingly well defined 20 years ago had become more vague. This descriptive study polled 25 veteran teachers to identify commonalities among their definitions and instructional applications.

The science of reading provides little or no support for the widespread claim that systematic phonics should be part of initial reading instruction: A response to Buckingham

It is widely claimed that the science of reading supports the conclusion that systematic phonics should be part of initial reading instruction. Bowers (2020) challenged this conclusion after reviewing all the main evidence, and Buckingham (2020a) provided a detailed response where she argues that the evidence does indeed support systematic phonics and criticizes an alternative form of instruction called “Structured Word Inquiry” or (SWI). Here we show that every substantive criticism Buckingham makes is factually incorrect or reflects a fundamental mischaracterization. There is nothing in her article that challenges the conclusions that Bowers (2020) draws regarding systematic phonics, and nothing that challenges the claims we have made in the past regarding SWI. This should not be used to support whole language or balanced literacy, but it should motivate researchers to consider alternative methods that are well motivated on theoretical grounds, such as SWI.

Making Literacy Culturally Relevant

In this reflective chapter on culturally relevant teacher preparation, the authors begin by discussing early childhood literacy and how it has traditionally been conceptualized. They offer an overview of a balanced literacy model, including its history, structured development, and critiques. They then consider culturally relevant pedagogy as foundation to reconceptualizing early literacy and teacher preparation. To bring such reconceptualization to life, they share their work with early childhood pre-service teachers, aiming to reconceptualize early literacy. They conclude the chapter with suggestions for moving beyond balanced literacy in culturally relevant ways.

Balancing Literacies

This chapter outlines an approach to whole learner education in an elementary school literacy classroom by building upon the work of scholars in Disability Studies in Education (DSE) and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP). It begins by introducing the connections between whole learner education, DSE, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and CSP, demonstrating how these theoretical frameworks overlap and how they can be used in tandem to enhance the work already done in each field. After providing this theoretical background, the chapter outlines the components of a balanced literacy block in a third grade classroom, demonstrating how elementary school educators can work to meet the individual learning needs of developing readers in the various areas of balanced literacy (i.e., phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension), while also attending to student identities and making instruction accessible to students with learning variations.

Development of Pop-Up Book Media based on Balanced Literacy Approach to Improve Skills of Reading Class 1 Students Basic School

The background that drives this research is the low interest in reading and the lack of reading skills in grade 1 students. The purpose of this study is to produce a pop-up book based on a good quality balanced literacy approach. The test subjects in this study were 60 first grade students at SDN Pacarkeling V / 186 Surabaya. The method used in this study is the method of developing Research and Development (R&D). The development model of Borg and Gall in this study goes through 10 stages. The product developed in this research is a valid, practical and effective pop-up book media. The validation results show that the developed media is valid with very good criteria. Practicality in small scale and large scale trials reaches very good category. The effectiveness of the developed media can be seen from the increase in the results of the reading skills test using the t test with the t-test result of -11.6.