CHALLENGING THE NORM: A LITERACY SPECIALIST’S APPROACH TOWARDS DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE LITERACY INTERVENTION

Abstract

Early literacy intervention teaching spaces largely consist of approaching literacy learning and development as a linear, cognitive driven process constrained by standardized, pre-prescribed curricula and a focus on quantitative data collection through standardized testing (Purcell-Gates et al., 2004). Further, Bean and Goatley (2021) have drawn attention to the fact that current strategies implemented by literacy specialists have not seemed to produce the desired results of remediating and preventing student literacy failure, and that there must be continued efforts to improve early student literacy learning. For early childhood children, including those in literacy intervention instructional spaces, the framework of developmentally appropriate practice provides an alternative pathway for moving away from a constricted model of literacy. Instead, taking up a developmentally appropriate approach to literacy can remind literacy educators that ‘best practice’ for early childhood children is the ability to balance both children’s unique abilities and interests flexibly within a required curriculum. This practitioner inquiry dissertation sought to challenge the current prescriptivism of literacy intervention instructional spaces by implementing developmentally appropriate teaching practices alongside a scripted literacy intervention curriculum with a small group of first grade students. Exploring the overarching research question, “How do I, as a literacy specialist, incorporate developmentally appropriate teaching practices with a research-based literacy intervention program?”, findings suggest that developmentally appropriate teaching practices can indeed be implemented along with a research-based curriculum when literacy educators work to negotiate prescribed curricular practices and expand their lens of effective literacy instructional practices. Findings also found that incorporating developmentally appropriate teaching practices expands literacy educator’s instructional toolbelts and allows for joyful student learning opportunities and deep engagement. As a result, literacy practitioners, like school literacy specialists, have the opportunity to be better positioned to provide more equitable forms of literacy instruction for school’s youngest marginalized learners, such as those labeled as ‘struggling readers’.