Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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Embedded-Explicit Model of Emergent Literacy Intervention

Prof. Laura M. Justice
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
ljustice@virginia.edu

Prof. Joan N. Kaderavek
University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, USA
JKadera@UTNet.UToledo.Edu

            Currently, in many schools across North America, children with more severe learning challenges are being educated within general education classrooms along with their non-disabled peers. At the same time, there is increased advocacy and legislation for children with special needs to be supported as developing readers, even those with more significant levels of disability (Kaderavek & Rabidoux, 2004; U.S. Department of Education, 1997). Much of this advocacy builds upon research showing that primary prevention activities, which focus on arresting reading problems before they are able to manifest themselves, is the most effective way to reduce long term reading deficits in children (e.g., Chow & McBride-Chang, 2003; Justice & Ezell, 2000, 2002; Neuman & Roskos, 1993; O’Connor, Jenkins, Leicester, & Slokum, 1993; van Kleeck, Gillam, & McFadden, 1998; Whitehurst et al., 1999). As a result, early childhood educators are being asked to promote high-quality literacy interventions for young at-risk children, ages 3- to 6-years of age, within early childhood environments.   The Embedded-Explicit Model (EEM) of Literacy Intervention is an approach that can be used to provide a preventive emergent literacy framework for managing inclusive classrooms in which children exhibit diverse emergent literacy skills, interests, and concepts (Justice & Kaderavek, 2004; Kaderavek & Justice, 2004).   The model emphasizes the use of multi-tiered intervention for ensuring at-risk children’s attainment of critical emergent literacy skills to promote their successful transition from prereaders to readers.

An Orientation to Emergent Literacy and the Embedded-Explicit Model

We use the term emergent literacy to describe preliterate children’s skills related to reading and writing prior to their achievement of conventional literacy (Sulzby, 1985; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001). An emergent literacy skill is a reading and writing behavior which reliably predicts later reading achievements in decoding and/or comprehension. Our interest is particularly those emergent literacy skills which are amenable to intervention and which correlate strongly with later reading success. By promoting children’s these aspects of emergent literacy well prior to formal reading instruction, educators can build the foundation for children’s subsequent transitions to early or beginning reading and ultimately, the achievement of conventional, skilled reading.

Several key areas of emergent literacy which we consider to be “high priority targets” in early intervention models include phonological awareness, print concepts, alphabet knowledge, and literate language features (See Table 1). Attainment of these skills is seen as pivotal in the successful transition of children from prereaders to readers. Understanding sources of individual differences in children’s development of skills in each area is paving the way for significantly decreasing the occurrence of reading disability, as difficulty with emergent literacy appears a causal contributor to later challenges in reading achievement (Badian, 2000; Catts, Fey, Tomblin, & Zhang, 2002; Elbro, Borstrom, & Petersen, 1998; Scarborough, 1989; Speece, Roth, Cooper, & de la Paz, 1999). The importance of early attainment of emergent literacy skills to children’s later achievements in skilled reading argues the importance of developing effective models of emergent literacy intervention to reduce the likelihood of later reading difficulties.

The last decade has therefore seen a tremendous increase in applied studies of the effectiveness of emergent literacy interventions for young at-risk children (e.g., Chow & McBride-Chang, 2003; Justice & Ezell, 2000, 2002; Neuman & Roskos, 1993; O’Connor, Jenkins, Leicester, & Slokum, 1993; van Kleeck, Gillam, & McFadden, 1998; Whitehurst et al., 1994, 1999). While this field of research is relatively new, this emergent corpus of work has shown the value of early interventions for supporting literacy achievements in young at-risk children and, importantly, the potential long-term advantage of such interventions for influencing later reading achievements (e.g., Brady, Fowler, Stone, & Winbury, 1994; Ezell, Justice, & Parsons, 2000; Justice, Chow, Capellini, Flanigan, & Colton, in press; Justice & Ezell, 2002; Katims, 1991; Majsterek, Shorr, & Erion, 2000; Neuman & Roskos, 1993; O’Connor, Notari-Syverson, & Vadasy, 1996; Saint-Laurent, Giasson, & Couture, 1998; Schneider, Roth, & Ennemoser, 2000; van Kleeck et al., 1998).

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Emergent Literacy Interventions

Collective consideration of this research corpus shows emergent literacy interventions to have generally taken one of two approaches that reflect dichotomous theoretical perspectives based on either a “top-down” holistic model of reading development or those generated from a “bottom-up” reductionist learning model (Bloom & Lahey, 1978). Watkins and Bunce (1996) contrasted these models as reflecting “whole language” versus “phonological awareness” orientations of emergent literacy development. EEM is a model of early intervention which draws upon both theoretical models to support children’s learning through top-down and bottom-up learning paradigms. We believe that children must be supported generously in their incidental and authentic explorations of literacy that focus on constructing meaning (a top-down orientation) while simultaneously engaging children in discrete structured tasks which emphasize learning of high-priority literacy targets. The following paragraphs provide further description of the top-down and bottom-up orientations to literacy intervention.

 An emphasis on top down or whole language principles of reading development is reflected in interventions emphasizing children’s development of emergent literacy skills through child-directed, informal, naturalistic, contextualized, and meaningful interactions with oral and written language embedded throughout the day (Clay, 1998; Katims & Pierce, 1995; Watkins & Bunce, 1996). This is described here as an embedded approach to emergent literacy enhancement to emphasize how skills are targeted for young children, rather than using terminology that emphasizes a theoretical position on literacy development (e.g., whole language/top down). Embedded approaches to emergent literacy intervention emphasize the unique value of children’s self-initiated, naturalistic, and contextualized interactions with oral and written language embedded throughout the day. The emphasis of such approaches is children’s expression of meaning and intent through their literacy acts, and the social value of literacy behaviors. An additional emphasis of embedded approaches is the role of adults as facilitators of children’s learning, and the influence of social interactions and child-adult relationships upon children’s literacy development (Justice & Ezell, 1999; Watkins & Bunce, 1996).

In implementing embedded approaches in early intervention settings, educators capitalize on children’s motivation to participate within daily activities that support authentic learning opportunities (Pretti-Frontczak & Bricker, 2004; Wolery et al., 2002). Embedded instruction maps literacy instruction onto children’s classroom routines, such as arrival time, circle time, socio-dramatic play, outdoor play, and center time.   The daily interactive transactions within these routines are deliberately exploited to encourage the development of specific literacy domains.   Research indicates that embedded training improves children’s skill attainment and social skills (Brown & Odom, 1994; Strain, Danko, Kohler, 1995; Wolery et al., 2002). Embedding teaching requires careful planning; the teacher must arrange the environment to support targeted literacy concepts and implement teaching strategies such as adult cueing, backward chaining, prompting, and social reinforcement to facilitate literacy learning within routines (Sandall & Schwartz, 2002).

By contrast, interventions with a bottom-up orientation, an alternative and often dichotomous approach to embedded approaches, emphasize explicit teaching that directs a child’s attention to a range of discrete emergent literacy targets through directive teacher-led instructional opportunities occurring on a regularly scheduled basis. Again, with an emphasis on how skills are targeted, the term explicit approach is used here to discuss such interventions. Explicit models of emergent literacy intervention emphasize the importance of structured, sequenced adult-directed instruction for development of discrete skills. In such models, educators select particular learning targets, a sequence of exposing children to those targets, and the materials most facilitative for achieving intervention aims. Unlike embedded models, which tend to emphasize the meaning and intentions of particular literacy behaviors, explicit models take a more decontextualized and direct route to enhance basic skill units. Explicit teaching is used to direct a child’s attention to a range of emergent literacy skills through directive instructional opportunities occurring on a regularly scheduled and carefully sequenced basis. These instructional opportunities feature adult modeling, demonstration, targeted elicitation, and repeated guided practice. Explicit approaches to emergent literacy intervention operate from the perspective that at-risk children, including those with significant oral language problems, require repeated, systematic, and deliberately scaffolded exposures to those difficult-to-acquire concepts and skills.

An important goal of explicit programs is to bring aspects of language and literacy to a metalinguistic level. Operating at the “meta level” facilitates children’s conscious manipulation of structures needed for literacy success and to learn the associations among smaller and larger parts of the alphabetic code. For example, to be a successful reader, children must eventually understand the relationships between phonemes, syllables, and words. Engagement in systematic interventions that expedite part-to-whole learning is a central feature of explicit literacy interventions. Explicit approaches do not necessarily focus exclusively on phonological awareness (PA), but PA has often been a central focus of this type of interventions as deficits in this area have been consistently linked to reading disability (see Catts & Kamhi, 1999; Stanovich, 2000; Torgesen, Wagner, & Roshotte, 1994), and relatively large numbers of children with language-based reading disability have protracted difficulty in analyzing and manipulating oral language at the phonologic and phonemic levels.

In addition to PA, other foundational emergent literacy skills can be addressed through explicit teaching, including print concepts and alphabet knowledge. Skills in these areas tend to develop more slowly for children with significant language impairments and those reared in disadvantaged circumstances (Boudreau & Hedberg, 1999; Lonigan et al., 1998). Justice and Ezell (2000, 2002) have conducted several studies examining the impact of adult use of “print referencing behaviors” when reading with preschoolers. Print referencing behaviors are used by adults to create a metalinguistic focus within the book reading context, and have been shown to influence children’s alphabet knowledge and print concepts.

Explicit teaching can also be used to support children’s use of literate language features, which are an important element of decontextualized narrative discourse. Narrative discourse is an important foundational skill in children’s development of written language (Kaderavek & Sulzby, 2000; Roth & Speckman, 1986). In decontextualized discourse, meaning is conveyed through specific linguistic features, primarily grammar and vocabulary.   Westby (1999) described children’s use of precise grammar and vocabulary to linguistically render meaning in discourse as literate language. Literate language features include conjunctions, elaborated noun phrases, mental/linguistic verbs (e.g., think, know, remember), and adverbs.   Use of these forms assists children to more closely match the decontextualized lingustic structures representative of written texts (Greenhalgh & Strong, 2001; Vellutino & Scanlon, 2001).   Intervention research has shown explicit teaching approaches to effectively facilitate preschoolers’ ability to use specific structures similar to these targets (e.g., Fey, Cleave, & Long, 1997), and that children can benefit from explicit exposure to the metalinguistic features contributing to “making a good story” (Hayward and Schneider, 2000).

Individualizing Instruction through Response-to-Treatment

Within EEM, children are supported through a range of activities that build upon theoretical paradigms reflecting an embedded approach to instruction as well as an explicit one. The child receives embedded supports throughout the day within the inclusive setting, and is further provided additional large-group, small-group, and one-on-one instruction of an explicit nature in response to individual needs. Thus, a concept that is foundational to the EEM is the multi-tiered response-to-treatment paradigm. While nearly all children in the preschool or kindergarten classroom will benefit from explicit literacy-learning opportunities (Chard & Dickson, 1999), the intensity of the exposure should be differentiated to afford some children more intensive learning opportunities. Explicit literacy instruction is most effectively delivered using a multi-tiered framework, in which whole-class explicit literacy instruction is delivered to all children in the classroom (Tier 1) and small-group or one-on-one instruction is provided as a second tier of intervention to children who require additional learning opportunities (Tier 2). Children who need even more intensive learning experiences are seen as needing a Tier 3 intervention (Vaughn, Linan-Thompson, & Hickman, 2003) The response-to-treatment model has been proposed as a more appropriate determiner for reading intervention as contrasted to identification of potential reading risk based on a within-child IQ-achievement discrepancy (Fletcher et al., 1994; Fuchs, 2003; Speece & Case, 2001; Stanovich & Siegel, 1999). The response-to-treatment model does not require assumptions about causative factors for reading difficult; learning challenges are seen as potentially caused by either internal (e.g., child-based, neurological, processing) or external (instructional approach, environmental) factors, or a combination of both (Speece, Case, & Molloy, 2003).

The response-to-treatment model frequently relies on curriculum-based assessment or other alternative procedures, such as dynamic assessment, to identify children whose level and/or rate of literacy learning is below that of their peers who are receiving the same learning opportunity (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1998). Teachers observe children within large-group activities to identify those children who are and are not responding to specific activities. Observations of levels of child engagement in the literacy tasks along with probes for assessing specific literacy skills (often included within state-level assessment protocols in the US) are used to document growth. Pre-kindergarten standards for most states consist of between 10 and 40 skill-based indicators within the domains of literacy, language, and mathematics (Neuman, Roskos, Vukelich, & Clements, 2003a, 2003b). Typically, children scoring in the bottom quartile of a class on targeted probes of early literacy are targeted as needing literacy intervention (e.g., Torgeson, 2000). Thus, in a given classroom, whereas all children receive a first tier of high-quality embedded and explicit literacy learning experiences, children whose progress within the first tier is slow will receive additional tiers of more intensive supports.

An Integrated Perspective: The Embedded-Explicit Model (EEM)

EEM emphasizes the importance of supporting children’s participation in high quality daily opportunities for naturalistic, meaningful, intentional, and highly-contextualized interactions during meaningful classroom routines. The model also features the use of focused therapeutic teacher-directed interventions to explicitly target those skills most critically linked with later reading success; explicit intervention is provided to all children in the preschool or kindergarten classroom, with additional effort devoted to children who show treatment resistance. See Figure 1 for a schematic of the EEM model.

            The following sections provide an overview of specific objectives that might be addressed for children through a range of embedded and explicit learning activities.

Embedded Literacy Objectives

             Examples of instructional goals that can be incorporated into early childhood classroom routines are illustrated below.

Explicit Literacy Objectives

            The following are examples of literacy objectives that should be included in the curriculum for all children; intervention should initially be provided in the whole-class (large group) context and include explicit levels of instruction. Children who do not respond to the first tier of intervention should receive regular (2-3 times weekly) small group or individual intervention focusing on the same targets but with more intense teacher scaffolding and practice.  

In implementing the embedded-explicit emergent literacy model, the classroom experience must be deliberately designed to ensure (a) embedded literacy-learning opportunities occur across the day within meaningful classroom routines, (b) explicit instruction is provided to all children in specific critical areas of literacy (see above), and (c) additional small-group explicit instruction is provided to children who do not respond to the first tier of intervention. Learning targets for explicit large- and small-group lessons include phonological awareness, print concepts, alphabet knowledge and writing, and narrative and literate language. Following the response-to-treatment paradigm, additional small group explicit lessons are provided to children who do not respond to this combination of classroom embedded and explicit intervention. The EEM emphasizes the dual importance of embedded and explicit literacy learning opportunities within the context of multi-tiered interventions that differentiate children’s learning opportunities using a response-to-treatment paradigm. This comprehensive model of emergent literacy intervention is designed to ensure the successful transition of all young children from prereaders to readers and to support inclusive classroom environments in which children exhibit a diverse range of skills, interests, and needs.

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Table 1

Key Areas of Emergent Literacy Development: Preschool and Kindergarten

Figure 1.   Graphic depiction of embedded-explicit model of emergent literacy intervention for inclusive classrooms.

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