By Dr. Sue Snyder
Total Literacy is a process for teaching any concept or skill in and through the arts. Children cannot read using a phonics or phonemic awareness approach until their ears and eyes are taught to discriminate between different sounds and images. Young children also learn best when they are actively involved in some physical way. Therefore, the infusion of music (sound), visual art (image), and P.E. (movement) into the literacy program should enhance both phonemic awareness/phonics and comprehension. There is no reason this program should be a threat to another research-based program, as long as the other program promotes developmentally appropriate instructional practices.
Reading Recovery is a one-on-one, intensive approach to reading. Total Literacy is a broad, classroom-based literacy approach that includes speaking, listening, reading, writing, and thinking in the languages of sound, image, gesture, and words. There is a pullout program available with Total Literacy that is usually delivered by the music or music and art teachers. This will provide additional pre-reading skill development through the arts. Reading Recovery will not conflict unless children are kept from Total Literacy/HOT Readers experiences in order to attend Reading Recovery sessions. Different "hooks" will work for different children. Reading Recovery teachers may find many of the HOT Readers/Total Literacy strategies effective as they work with their individual children. Hopefully with the implementation of Total Literacy for all children, less will need Reading Recovery after a few years.
The proposed program is designed to be implemented one grade level per year, beginning in Kindergarten. It is most likely that the second and third grade teachers will hear of many successes and become curious over the first two years of implementation. It has been our experience that teachers who are already inclined will come on board immediately, if not in the year before their implementation begins. Those who are on the fence are swayed by the introductory sessions, and the resulting successes with their first attempts to implement activities in the classroom. The students' enthusiasm will also bolster their commitment, as will students' literacy success. Teachers who are most resistant will either avoid the program totally, or come on board reluctantly. Those who resist the hardest usually become the most powerful advocates once convinced that the program has merit. We will work on a sequential program of information about the power of the arts, the research bases of the program, and the successes occurring during implementation in the first two years. With a positive outlook and past practice that allows us to anticipate the fears, stresses, and struggles of 2nd and 3rd grade teachers, we expect the majority to participate. The door will remain open, and invitations to join will continue to be offered.
The ideal implementation situation for Total Literacy is to begin with responsive classrooms where the child's voice is heard, and decisions are made in the best interest of children. In classrooms where this is not the case, we provide models of teacher/student interaction, appropriate instructional practices, reflection on purposeful classroom design, etc. during the first training year. In the second year, we provide modeling in classrooms so teachers can continue to experience child-centered, brains-on, hands-on teaching/learning strategies. Total Literacy, then, can become a change vehicle for the classroom, school, and community environment. The change is not just for change's sake, but also to bring instructional practices in line with best practices and research findings about kids, teacher, teaching, and learning.
Teachers tend to start with small, satisfying successes that do not require substantive change. A song or art project is added here and there, and everyone is really excited and happy. The longer the implementation continues, the more activities are added, but nothing is dropped or changed in the original curriculum, and there is no link made between the existing curriculum and the arts activities. Eventually the sheer volume of activity overwhelms the teacher. It is at this point that real change can and should occur. Through careful reflection, modeling, and coaching, the teacher eventually realizes that it is not possible or desirable to continue on two tracks. The arts are the vehicle for delivering the curriculum, and once this discovery is made, the two tracks are synthesized into one seamless program that deeply and richly teaches across the curriculum. The timeline for this process is: Year 1 - activity based as teacher learns understandings and skills in the arts; Year 2 - eventual feeling of being overwhelmed, reflection, synthesis; Year 3 - renewed enthusiasm and beginning of routine practice of arts-infused literacy instruction.
An additional transition revolves around power, and how it is used. Transition from teacher power to empowered teachers and children takes time and practice. It can be measured by the amount and quality of talk by class members, and where responsibility is given and assumed.
Additionally, restructuring of time is essential. There needs to be time for teachers to communicate with one another and share ideas. And there needs to be time in the discipline-based teachers' schedules for collaboration with classroom teachers, and team teaching of classroom concepts and skills.
Total Literacy is an art-based, arts-infused literacy program, designed to build literacy skills and understandings in music, visual art, movement (P.E.), and language arts (including drama).
If you have strong arts programs based on teaching and learning to the state and national standards (concepts and skills) in each of the arts disciplines through the artistic processes of creating, performing, and responding; your programs will be an invaluable part of Total Literacy. Total Literacy will also be a vehicle for strengthening support for your program. Children cannot learn through a discipline in which they have no understandings or skills. They must learn in each of the arts to be successful learning through these arts disciplines.
In addition, discipline-based arts teachers will become equal partners with the classroom teacher in delivering literacy instruction. As you learn more about each other's disciplines, you will find the common threads that link your work with children. Therefore the status of arts educators will be elevated if they are now feeling like second-class citizens.
However, the arts programs must have adequate time, resources, and curriculum. One half hour a week will not be adequate. All school community members will come to see arts instructional time as valuable work time for students, rather than recreation or "a break from real work."
As classroom teachers become clearer about the skills and understandings learned in and through the arts, they will come to value the arts components of the children's learning more and more.
Performances will increasingly become "informances," where parents and audience members discover the process behind the product they are experiencing. The pressure to perform will be replaced by performance as authentic assessment at the end of a learning process in all disciplines, and all students will be expected to use arts performances to demonstrated their understanding across the curriculum.
We will work with the arts specialists from K-12 to help them understand their crucial role in Total Literacy, and the opportunities for growth within the arts programs, and leadership in the school community. And we will work with the community to understand the value and scope of arts education.
As we develop your program, we will make it a goal to adapt the lessons for use with technology. Through Dazzle Draw and other graphic design programs, the art explorations can become opportunities for exploration of graphics on computer. Through notation and composition programs we can create compositional lessons in music that allow the children to manipulate musical sounds. We might begin to consider multimedia presentations for the upper grade applications, including dance videos and interactive listening maps. This will be a powerful addition to Total Literacy that can be constructed and tailor made to your district's needs and desires.
This application of technology is consistent with Total Literacy's focus on deep learning, and powerful use of learning tools. Let's get the computers into the hands of the students for creative problem solving, higher order thinking, and creative production.
It is easiest to implement Total Literacy in responsive classrooms, but this program can also become a vehicle for building the teacher's capacity and skill to build a responsive classroom. More training time will be spent on classroom management issues, and reflective practice concerns.
Changes will need to occur in the attitudes toward the role and status of the arts. The earlier these changes occur, the easier the transition will be.
We will have a series of planning and information sessions that allow interested parties to be part of the decision making process about how Total Literacy will be configured for your specific needs. We tailor the program specifically for you, starting with long-range goal setting and specific objectives. This process is accomplished together. We plan communication with all constituents from the beginning to avoid misunderstandings and build support/ enthusiasm for the program, and to celebrate the successes that will undoubtedly occur along the way.
The best "buy-in" is a result of student response. The kids will not only love Total Literacy, they will be increasingly able to articulate what they have learned through the process. Their enthusiasm is infectious in the best sense of the word, and is the greatest and most natural support vehicle for Total Literacy.