Academic Standards
Alignment Chart for Academic Standards
We have prepared an alignment chart that shows how the emergent literacy skills, social and emotional skills, and other aspects of the WOVEN WORD program align with the standards set by Early Reading First, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), and Head Start. The chart also shows alignment with academic content standards from John Kendall and Robert Marzano's Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K–12 Students.
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Emergent Literacy Concepts and Corresponding Skills
Comprehension
Comprehension is essential to future reading success because it enables children to process what they hear and read (Teale and Yokota, 2000). Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Understand that words and pictures communicate meaning.
- Ask questions to comprehend the text.
- Use clues from the illustrations to comprehend the book.
- Predict what will happen next in the book.
- Identify characters' motives.
- Describe the cause and effect of certain events.
- Summarize and retell book events in sequence.
- Recall details from the book.
- Relate events from the book to personal experience.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary development plays an essential role in reading ability (Whitehurst and Lonigan, 2001). Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Repeat new words.
- Understand new words.
- Recall the meaning of new words.
- Relate new words to personal experiences.
- Use new words in appropriate contexts.
Print Conventions
Knowledge of print conventions is understanding of the way text works (Johnston, 2002; Whitehurst and Lonigan, 1998), and it is an integral part in the process of learning to read (Dickinson and Tabors, 1991; Mason, 1992). Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Recognize the front-to-back progression of a book.
- Recognize that writing is oriented left to right.
- Recognize that writing flows from the top to the bottom of the page.
Oral Language
Oral language skills include the ability to understand and produce single words, grammatically varied sentences, and oral narratives. Oral language supports other emergent literacy skills that are directly related to reading success. Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Demonstrate increased word use.
- Use grammatically correct and complete sentences.
- Take turns making comments about a book.
- Make relevant statements about a book in context.
Social and Emotional Concepts and Corresponding Skills
Feelings Identification
Feelings identification is a fundamental skill in social and emotional development and the basis for other, more complex skills, such as coping. Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Label emotions (emotion vocabulary).
- Identify own emotions by identifying physical cues.
- Identify others' emotions using physical, verbal, and situational cues.
- Recognize that feelings can change.
Coping with Strong Feelings
Strong emotions such as excitement or anger may be hard for young children to manage, but coping with strong emotions is important for social and academic success (Denham, 1998; Elias, 2003). Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Identify strong feelings that might be hard to manage.
- Identify strategies to calm down.
- Demonstrate strategies to calm down.
- Understand that calm-down strategies help manage strong feelings.
Coping with Delays
Young children can benefit from learning to calm down from strong emotions and using other coping strategies. For example, after children calm down, they may need to wait for their turn to speak or get the toy that they want. If children are able to use coping strategies to delay responses, they are more likely to manage their emotions and act in prosocial ways (Caspi, Henry, McGee, Moffitt, and Silva, 1995). Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Identify situations when it's difficult to wait.
- Identify waiting strategies.
- Demonstrate waiting strategies.
- Choose and demonstrate the waiting strategy that best fits individual needs.
- Understand that waiting strategies help manage frustration from waiting.
Attention and Noticing
Attention control is the ability to remain focused on a task or goal while resisting distractions, and it is linked to academic and social success (Barkley, 1997). Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Notice and pay attention to environment and surroundings.
- Notice and pay attention to physical cues in self to help identify and label own emotions.
- Notice and pay attention to physical, verbal, and situational cues in others to label others' emotions.
- Notice and pay attention to prosocial cues.
Making Plans and Sequencing
Planning skills are necessary not only for academic success but also for negotiating routine social interactions (Zelazo, Carter, Reznick, and Frye, 1997). Children are better able to comprehend stories and make plans when they can break events down into separate sequences and actions (Hudson, Shapiro, and Sosa, 1995). Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Understand that planning means "thinking before doing."
- Make and follow through with an individual plan.
- Identify the sequence in a class plan.
- Make and follow through with a class plan.
- Arrange story events in sequence.
- Use consequential thinking.
Prosocial Language and Friendship
Language skills that help children be successful in social situations, such as listening to others, giving compliments, taking turns, and asking questions, are prosocial language skills. Friendship skills such as inviting others to join an activity, showing consideration for others, and working cooperatively also have a place in promoting social success for children. Corresponding WOVEN WORD skills:
- Ask and respond to relevant questions from other children.
- Use descriptive statements to talk about self.
- Take turns when talking or playing.
- Demonstrate listening skills.
- Invite others to join an activity.
- Give compliments to others.
- Work cooperatively with others.
- Show consideration for others' preferences.
References
Barkley, R. A. (1997). ADHD and the Nature of Self-Control. New York: Guildford Press.
Caspi, A., Henry, B., McGee, R. O., Moffitt, T. E., and Silva, P. A. (1995). "Temperamental Origins of Child and Adolescent Behavior Problems: From Age Three to Age Fifteen." Child Development, 66, 55–68.
Denham, S. A. (1998). Emotional Development in Young Children. New York: Guildford Press.
Dickinson, D. K., and Tabors, P. O. (1991). "Early Literacy: Linkages Between Home, School, and Literacy Achievement at Age Five." Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 6, 30–46.
Elias, M. J. (2003). "Academic and Social-Emotional Learning." Educational Practices, 11, 1–31.
Hudson, J. A., Shapiro, L. R., and Sosa, B. B. (1995). "Planning in the Real World: Preschool Children's Scripts and Plans for Familiar Events. " Child Development, 66, 984–998.
Johnston, P. H. (2002). "Assessment in Reading." In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, and P. Mosenthal (Eds.), Handbook of Reading Research (pp. 147–182). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Mason, J. M. (1992). "Reading Stories to Preliterate Children: A Proposed Connection to Reading." In P. B. Gough, L. C. Ehri, and R. Treiman (Eds.), Reading Acquisition (pp. 215–241). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Teale, W. H., and Yokota, J. (2000). "Beginning Reading and Writing: Perspectives on Instruction." In D. S. Strickland and L. M. Morrow (Eds.), Beginning Reading and Writing (pp. 3–21). New York: Teachers College Press.
Whitehurst, G. J., and Lonigan, C. J. (1998). "Child Development and Emergent Literacy." Child Development, 69, 848–872.
Whitehurst, G. J., and Lonigan, C. J. (2001). "Emergent Literacy: Development from Prereaders to Readers." In S. B. Neuman and D. K Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of Early Literacy Research (pp 11–42). New York: Guilford Press.
Zelazo, P. D., Carter, A., Reznick, J. S., and Frye, D. (1997). "Early Development of Executive Function: A Problem-Solving Framework." Review of General Psychology, 1, 198–226.