Bear, D. R., Invernizzi , M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2020). Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson.
This resource is a textbook on how children and adolescents acquire word knowledge, and it provided a glossary of definitions that were useful for defining concepts that apply to all stages of development, but I used it specifically for defining terms in the Pre-Literacy stage of literacy development when children are first learning how to acquire oral and aural language skills. This is the age in which the fundamental skills that lay the foundation for all other language acquisition and literacy development are initially formed, so it’s important to have an understanding of which skills a baby needs to have to successfully build upon that knowledge in each of the successive stages yet to come. This resource is useful to undergraduate and graduate students studying literacy because the authors describe in detail the process by which words and language are acquired throughout the literacy continuum, and they offer suggestions for ways that teachers (or parents and caregivers) can support children’s literacy growth through developmentally appropriate activities and strategies.
Bell, S. S. (2015). Librarian's Guide to Online Searching: Cultivating Database Skills for Research and Instruction (Fourth ed.). Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.
This comprehensive guide teaches librarians (or anyone else) how to effectively search online databases using a variety of strategies. Knowing how to efficiently formulate search keywords and phrases and how to apply advanced search strategies to those to get the most relevant information that answers a user’s search query is a fundamental skill that all students, but especially librarians, should possess in our information-driven world. This resource is useful to anyone reading the LibGuide because it instructs users on various aspects of database management, including search strategies, information retrieval techniques, and database evaluation. These are skills that all students in secondary and higher education institutions need to be successful and to become information-literate members of society.
Byrnes, J. P., & Wasik, B. A. (2019). Language and Literacy Development: What Educators Need to Know. New York City: The Guilford Press.
This book takes the reader through the process of literacy development from the time a child first starts to learn how to listen to and acquire spoken language through to the time when they are considered to be fluent readers at the most advanced stage of literacy development. The book is split up into five parts, and four out of those five will be highly relevant to the research that goes into writing my LibGuide. The first part is about brain development and language development, and how those affect literacy development. Part II is about the phase of literacy development where spoken language competence is achieved; this is usually called the Pre-Literacy stage because it takes part in large part when kids are not yet able to read, but they can speak and listen and acquire language and vocabulary that way. Part III is dedicated to the development of reading and writing skills, which occurs across several developmental stages during the Emergent to Fluency stages. Part V deals with effective instructional techniques to employ throughout a child’s literacy development as a means to support their growth and to ensure that they’re progressing through the stages as was to be expected. This resource is useful to corroborate information gleaned from other sources about the characteristics of the different stages along the literacy continuum, and because it can be used as a resource for deciding which pedagogical techniques and strategies to employ that will help to support children’s progression through the stages through the use of developmentally appropriate strategies and activities that are matched to the particular stage a child is in.
Canadian Children's Literacy Foundation. (2023, August 25). Early Literacy: Developmental Continuum - Literacy from the Start. Retrieved from blogs.iu.edu: https://blogs.iu.edu/earlyliteracy/2023/08/25/early-literacy-developmental-continuum/
This site had an informative graphic on it that displays children’s literacy growth and the corresponding competencies they develop as they age from birth to late childhood. I used the graphic in sections to highlight how children progress along the literacy continuum in their early childhood through to middle childhood. This graphic could be useful to college students studying the literacy continuum because it is a visual representation of the transformation children go through when they’re learning how to speak, listen, read, and write.
Carver, L. (2023). Stages of Literacy Development. In L. Carver (Ed.), Stage of Literacy Development: Integrating Reading and Writing (pp. 1-15). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
This book discusses the theory underlying the practice of facilitating literacy growth along the developmental continuum – from Pre-K through to the 12th grade. Each developmental stage is discussed in detail, starting with the Emergent stage, then progressing to the Beginning Stage, followed by the Transitional, Intermediate, and Proficient stages, and finally concluding with the Multiple Views stage (as defined by Chall, 1983), which is the most advanced stage of literacy that the book covers. The introduction, which I’ve cited here, contains a more condensed version of that description which can be used by literacy majors as a brief overview of all of the stages of literacy development, their age ranges, and characteristics that define each stage.
Chall, J. S. (1983). Chall's Stages of Reading Development. New York City: McGraw Hill.
This seminal book by Jeanne S. Chall posits six stages of reading development, starting at birth with stage zero, or Pre-reading, and continuing through to stage 5, or the Construction and Reconstruction stage, which encompasses the college years and beyond. Stage 1 is called the Decoding or Initial Reading stage, and this is where children learn the basic rules of learning how to read. This stage includes the first grade and spans from when a child is between 6 and 7 years old. Stage 2 is situated during grades 2 and 3 and ranges from seven to nine years old. Chall calls this stage the Confirmation, Fluency, and Ungluing from Print phase because the reader becomes fluent in the process of learning how to read by this stage, and they can read with automaticity. This stage is followed by stage 3, which is labeled Learning the New because children transition from learning to read to reading to learn during this phase of literacy development. This transition occurs between the ages of 9 and 14. The fifth stage (Stage 4) of Chall’s literacy continuum is called the Multiple Viewpoints stage, and it occurs between the ages of 15 and 18. This stage is characterized by the time when students are able to read inferentially, and they can take into account multiple viewpoints on a singular topic or issue. The sixth and final stage (Stage 5) is called the Construction and Reconstruction stage. It is defined as the time when students are of college age and beyond; it is during this stage that they are able to integrate the point of view of others with their own point of view and synthesize new knowledge about a given topic by merging these perspectives. This resource is useful to students studying literacy in college because Chall’s research corroborates the writings of other literacy scholars when they describe literacy development as occurring in stages with rough age or grade estimates.
Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness at Penn State. (2020). Parents' educational levels influence on child educational outcomes: Rapid literature review. University Park, PA: Author. Retrieved from https://militaryfamilies.psu.edu/resources/publications/view/parents-educational-levels-influence-on-child-educational-outcomes/
This resource describes the effect of parents’ educational levels on their children’s educational outcomes from early childhood to adulthood by performing a limited literature review of academic scholars' writings. Findings suggest that more educated parents have children who perform better and go farther in their educations than children whose parents are less educated because of the differences in the linguistic quality and quantity of time spent interacting with their children across childhood. This is related to children’s literacy outcomes because the better a child performs in school and the farther they go, the better their literacy outcomes will be, thereby affecting their overall educational attainment across a lifetime. This resource could be useful to college students studying literacy because it provides an understanding of how certain factors such as parental level of education, socioeconomic status, racial or ethnic identity, and English Language Learner status can affect the level of literacy development that children can achieve in their primary and secondary education.
Education Services Australia. (n.d.). Literacy Overview. Retrieved from Literacy Hub: https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/plan-teach-and-assess/literacy-overview/
This website lists the six key elements that go into the development of literacy fluency: oral language; phonological and phonemic awareness; phonics; fluency (prosody); vocabulary; and comprehension. These six elements all combine to influence the development and progression of literacy skills, so they are important because these are the elements that literacy educators need to pay attention to when they’re assessing which stage their students are in and how best to teach them. Additionally, there is a section dedicated to the science of reading, which provides support for practitioners who are teaching children how to read by guiding them through which strategies, techniques, and teaching methods work the best. While each of these strategies isn’t matched exactly or exclusively to a developmental stage, this section of the website can be used to inform students in literacy majors on which strategies aspiring and practicing literacy educators should employ to ensure that they’re using scientifically validated, evidence-based best practices when they’re teaching their students how to read and encouraging their progression along a predictable literacy continuum.
Feed the Children. (2024). Hunger's Effect on Education. Retrieved from Feed the Children: https://www.feedthechildren.org/our-work/stories/hungers-effect-on-education/#:~:text=Not%20only%20does%20food%20insecurity,t%20have%20enough%20to%20eat
This source highlights the impact that food insecurity has on children’s educational outcomes. There are numerous factors that affect children’s literacy outcomes, and adequate nutrition is one of those factors. It is important for literacy educators and students majoring in literacy to understand the negative effect that hunger has on how children are able to learn. The article shines a light on how food insecurity affects children’s cognitive functioning, their ability to learn new information and to concentrate, and how it can lead to chronic absences. Combined, these negative factors weigh heavily on children’s ability to acquire literacy skills and competencies because they create a perfect storm of educational inequity. The article highlights the importance of counteracting the influence of food insecurity for children from low-SES homes and families by advocating for various solutions that can be implemented to reverse this intergenerational trend toward food insecurity and sustained poverty.
First Things First. (2024). Brain Development. Retrieved from First Things First: https://www.firstthingsfirst.org/early-childhood-matters/brain-development/#:~:text=At%20birth%2C%20the%20average%20baby's,full%20grown%20%E2%80%93%20by%20age%205
Brain neurodevelopment is the most elemental of all the events that affect how literate an individual can become in their lifetime. The physical structures in the brain that support the acquisition of literacy skills across a lifetime form in the womb, but in the first five years after birth, the brain is almost completely done growing and weighs approximately 90% of an adult’s fully formed brain. This explains why early literacy development is necessary to harness the power of that exponential growth and lay the groundwork for the future development of all the literacy skills that will enable a child to learn throughout their life. This website explains how a baby’s brain grows during that consequential time in their lives, and how those who relate to the baby have the power to affect how brain connections are made and strengthened, or not made and pruned, based on the level and quality of the interactions that a child experiences in the first five years after they’re born. Literacy majors can use this website to gain a basic understanding of the physiological structure and function of brain development in the first five years after birth, and this understanding can be applied to their knowledge of how best to facilitate children’s literacy development in the Pre-reading phase.
Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2022). The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum (Second ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
This essential resource guides educators in how to assess authentic literacy learning across grades Pre-K through 8th. Eight complimentary instructional contexts are used as a framework for the exploration of the complete process of literacy acquisition for young children to adolescents. These include Interactive Read Alouds and Discussions; Shared and Performance Reading; Writing About Reading; Writing; Oral and Visual Communication; Digital Communication; Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study; and Guided Reading. When educators (either in practice or aspiring) use this resource, they can be assured that they’re getting the complete picture of all the behaviors to notice and support as students progress along a continuum of literacy learning. Over thirty years of research and observations by the authors inform the writing of this invaluable literacy toolkit. As such, I would recommend that this book serves as a wide-ranging manual for literacy students on what literacy behaviors to expect at each age and grade level, how to plan for effective literacy instruction, and what to teach students so that they can perform those desired behaviors and skills.
Institute for Multisensory Education. (2015, November 13). Stages of Reading Development | Where Should My Child Be? | IMSE | IMSE - Journal. Retrieved from IMSE Journal: https://journal.imse.com/stages-of-reading-development/
This website uses Chall’s stages of literacy development to describe how readers should be progressing through the literacy continuum as they move forward through their K-12 educations. While every child progresses at their own unique pace, there are benchmarks that caregivers and teachers should look for as an indication of which stage a child is in as they develop and hone their literacy skills. These indicators can be used to ensure that students are improving their literacy skills as they age, and they can alert parents and practitioners to potential issues if their child is falling behind so that mitigating measures can be taken before the child gets too far off track. I will be using this website as a resource for which indicators literacy practitioners should be looking for when they’re trying to determine which stage a child is in, which then translates into knowing which pedagogical techniques to use within each stage to encourage and support students’ growth along the literacy continuum.
Maryville University. (2022, April 6). Literacy Development in Children. Retrieved from Maryville Online: https://online.maryville.edu/blog/literacy-development-in-children/
This comprehensive website provides a thorough overview of the stages of literacy. It starts off by defining what it means to be literate, then talks about the development of spoken language capabilities, followed by a section on the five stages of literacy, from emergent to fluent and everything in between. The next section corroborates the factors that are necessary for literacy fluency to occur that were discussed in a previous annotation, thereby lending credibility to both sources when they agree about the necessary ingredients for promoting growth and the advancement of students’ literacy capabilities. Additionally, this website includes some great infographics that source their content from reputable, authoritative sources in the field of literacy. Literacy students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels can use the content on this site to inform their development of a definition of what it means to be literate, how that happens as a consequence of the development of verbal, reading, and writing skills, what factors contribute to the formation of a fully literate person, what kind of activities help to support and encourage literacy development and progression, and for additional references to other resources on children’s literacy development.
Richardson, J. (2016). The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading. New York City: Scholastic.
This authoritative book takes education practitioners through the characteristics of the various stages of reading development, from pre-literacy through to fluent reading, effectively highlighting which skills are needed for children to advance through each particular stage on the literacy continuum. Learning to read is a cornerstone of the literacy development that children evolve through as they pass through the early and intermediate years of their education, and this book takes a wide-ranging look at what each stage on the literacy continuum looks like in terms of reading behaviors. Additionally, there are assessment instruments that teachers can use to determine which stage a reader is in, along with suggestions for various activities and teaching strategies that educators can use with students at each particular stage to support students in the evolution of their literacy skills from basic to advanced.
The Literacy Bug. (2017a, November 19). An Overview of Literacy Development. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMGU7UIJ4RU&list=PLA95IvS-G3-vU0mjf6cFzY5tk0C6WHNQJ&index=5
The Literacy Bug. (2017b, November 24). Planning and Monitoring Effective Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZrtB8dTZEg&list=PLA95IvS-G3-vU0mjf6cFzY5tk0C6WHNQJ&index=7
The Literacy Bug. (2017c, November 24). Resources for Planning and Monitoring for Literacy Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R71j5_kegzk&list=PLA95IvS-G3-vU0mjf6cFzY5tk0C6WHNQJ&index=8
The Literacy Bug. (2017d, November 24). Teaching According to the Stages of Development. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7vUhqVXLWg&list=PLA95IvS-G3-vU0mjf6cFzY5tk0C6WHNQJ&index=9
These four YouTube videos are from a source called The Literacy Bug, which is an authoritative blog by literacy educator Eric Brace that discusses all things related to literacy development in children from birth all the way through to young adulthood (advanced fluency). The first video takes the viewer on an overview of the stages of literacy development and what that looks like in terms of oral language, speaking, reading, and writing capabilities from the earliest stage to the most advanced. The second video is about strategies that educators can use to plan for effective literacy instruction, plus self-assessment techniques for teachers to monitor and evaluate the effects that their instruction has on their students’ literacy development. The third video is a presentation on downloadable resources that literacy educators can use in their classrooms to help teach and guide students along the literacy skills spectrum, while the fourth video discusses stage-specific teaching techniques and strategies that teachers can employ with students for each particular stage of literacy development that they go through. Undergrad and graduate students studying literacy can use these videos to inform themselves of the characteristics of the various stages of literacy development, the necessary components of planning for effective literacy instruction, monitoring and self-assessing the results of that instruction, for downloadable resources, and suggestions for teaching techniques and strategies that educators should use to maximize the effectiveness of their literacy instruction for their students.
The Literacy Bug. (n.d.). Stages of Literacy Development - The Literacy Bug. Retrieved from theliteracybug.com: https://www.theliteracybug.com/stages-of-literacy
This authoritative literacy blog entry is dedicated to illustrating how children progress through the various stages of literacy development as conceptualized by Chall in her 1983 book Chall’s Stages of Reading Development. The site emphasizes the importance of targeted instructional strategies to support each stage of literacy growth, and it also provides tips and resources for educators and parents to help children to advance in their reading and writing abilities. The site also supplies charts and graphics that help the reader to visualize the literacy continuum and the factors that influence its progression in children from birth to adulthood. This would be a good resource for students studying literacy at all levels because the writing is approachable and easily understood, while some of the graphics, charts, and diagrams are more suitable for advanced learners in graduate programs who already have a precursory understanding of what it takes to help children become literate.
Zero to Three. (2024). Supporting Language and Literacy Skills from 0-12 Months | ZEROTOTHREE. Retrieved from zerotothree.org: https://www.zerotothree.org/resource/supporting-language-and-literacy-skills-from-0-12-months/
This website provides guidance on how parents and caregivers can support infants’ language and literacy development during the first year of a baby’s life. The site emphasizes the importance of playful, responsive interactions between an infant and its caregivers because these interactions lay the foundation for all future literacy learning. Therefore, talking, reading, laughing, playing, and singing with an infant in the first months after they’ve been born fosters the kind of early language learning and acquisition that will support the rest of their literacy learning yet to come. The site suggests specific activities that parents can do with their infants to help boost their literacy learning during that critical first year when infants’ brains are developing at a rapid pace and they’re soaking up the everyday experiences of their environment. Ensuring that that environment is rich in language and learning experiences provided by caring adults is the most important and consequential factor in an infant’s chances of growing up to be a literate member of society.