Cecil, Nancy Lee (2003). Striking a balance: Best practices for early literacy. 2nd edition. Scottsdale, AZ: Holcomb Hathaway.
359 pages
$35.95 ISBN 1-890871-43-5
Reviewed by Maureen R. Gerard
University
of
Arizona, South
November 5, 2003
The current national focus centers on young children’s beginning reading and writing. The report from the National Reading Panel (2000) generated renewed interest in early reading practices. Provisions of the No Child Left Behind legislation (2001) translate in to Reading First classroom practices and research-based reading instruction. The current thrust of federal funding policy emphasizes academic readiness. The initiative is founded in the belief that greater emphasis on academics, specifically language acquisition and literacy development in preschool and the primary years, insures reading success by third grade and, consequently, later academic success. Another Bush administration initiative, Good Start, Grow Smart, requests that each state develop voluntary standards for prekindergarten children that align with state K-12 academic standards, including standards for language and literacy, to insure reading readiness.
Nancy Lee Cecil’s second edition text, Striking a Balance: Best Practices for Early Literacy ( 2003), addresses these timely issues on the current national education agenda − early literacy and the practices which insure that young children learn to read. This edition of the text, written for preservice early childhood educators, has been updated to ensure that a balanced, comprehensive program for early readers conforms to the findings of the National Reading Panel.
Chapter 1 of Cecil’s book entitled “A Child Learns to Read: Process and Product”, explains theories of reading. The author defines the linguistic cueing systems and, then, follows with a description of some skills and characteristics of the reading process. Chapter 2 is entitled “A Quest for Balance: Moving Forward”. Cecil outlines the history of the ‘Great Debate’ in this chapter with a discussion of the cyclic spiraling between transmission, skills based models of phonics instruction and holisitic, transactional models of literacy immersion. In order to strike a balance between the two extremes, Cecil creates a three column table display of elements from phonics, a holistic model, and the balanced approach. Chapter 3 “Emergent Literacy: When and How Should We Begin” briefly touches on the oral language foundations of literacy and early reading readiness indicators. A definition of emergent literacy and the practices which foster emergent literacy are outlined for the practitioner. These positive practices are ‘tried and true’ methods for most kindergarten teachers and deserve mention in any emergent literacy text.
Chapter 4 of the Cecil text is entitled “Phonemic Awareness: The Sounds of Our Language.” The author devotes an entire chapter to understanding and teaching of the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the sounds of spoken language. The recent emphasis on an early oral and auditory ability, rather than the relationship of letter shape and its sound is noted by the author. Awareness of the individual sounds in spoken words predicts future reading success, according to the Cecil text. She offers a plan for developing phonemic awareness in young children, and provides the preservice teacher with activities, some borrowed from noted reading researchers, to instruct in phonemic awareness. Chapter 5, “Phonics Instruction: Why and How” describes direct, systematic phonics instruction. Cecil offers tips on beginning phonics instruction, a sequence for teaching phonics, approaches to teach children to sound out words, and a method for teaching sight word vocabulary. The author also addresses fluency and decoding automaticity within the chapter on phonics instruction. She recommends repeated oral readings, reader’s theatre, patterned predictable text, and choral reading as ways to build fluency in early readers.
Chapter 6 devotes focused attention to spelling and the learning of complex organizational patterns in words. The author presents a detailed stage view of spelling development beginning with the prephonetic speller progressing to the conventional speller. Cecil thoroughly explains experimental spellings and outlines the progression that experimental spellings will follow as children become more attuned to pronunciations and conventional written language. She again offers practical activities for word study to enrich the spelling curriculum. Vocabulary and word meanings are addressed in Chapter 7. Types of vocabulary instruction are explored and classroom activities are offered. Chapter 8 “Reading Comprehension: Making Sense of Print” describes a number of useful teacher directed activities to foster critical thinking and understanding of text.
Chapter 9 “Reading −Writing Connections: Reciprocal Paths to Literacy” presents the classroom management of the Writer’s Workshop approach. Each step of the writing process is defined and described for the preservice teacher. Cecil offers writing tools and tips as well as activities for writing in this chapter. Chapter 10 “Mediated Reading: Creating a Literate Community” focuses on the social nature of reading and examines shared readings in depth. Guided reading is compared to shared reading in a smaller group setting. Grouping strategies for reading instruction are offered as well.
The final three chapters of the text include “Informing Instruction: Assessment of Early Literacy Development”, “Home as Partner: The Shared Connection”, and “Early Literacy; Orchestrating a Balanced Program.” All topics are critically important to early literacy practice. Cecil includes assessment of all types in Chapter 11. Informal, ongoing, and formal assessments each inform the teaching, learning, planning cycle in a very specific way. Preservice teachers must include all of these forms of assessment in their repertoire to be effective early literacy educators. The next chapter recognizes the indissociable role of the home in literacy development. Activities to bring parents into reading instruction are included in the text. The final chapter synthesizes the text by outlining a typical day in a classroom with a rich literacy climate.
The strength of the Cecil text is its weakness. The strength of the new edition lies in the updates which reflect current research and field knowledge as these conform to the findings of the National Reading Panel. (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding: Allington, 2002; Coles, 2001; Camilli, Vargas, & Yurecko, 2003). The effort to provide research-based instruction based on guidelines from the National Reading Panel limits the picture of early literacy instruction. The first chapter of the book sets an operational definition of literacy which narrows literacy development to the reading process. Broad understandings of literacy allow the preservice teacher to envision all children as meaningful communicators whether their literacy means graphic, nonverbal, sign, enacted, or written communication. Preservice teachers who view the children in their classrooms through a broader lens understand success in a radically different manner.
Other prominent authors in the early literacy field such as Mandel Morrow, and Christie, Enz, & Vukelich establish the entwined, interrelatedness of literacy learning. Foundations in oral language, auditory capacity, early bonding, and experiences with print form a complex web in early literacy. The importance of the infant/ toddler years is overlooked by the author. The author misses the equally invaluable preschool experiences in play and oral language.
Chapter 2 begins with a recitation of the two ‘opposing’ stage and nonstage theories in reading research. In describing these two theories, Cecil sets up a dichotomy of thinking about the reading process which decades of the ‘reading wars’ have been unable to bridge even yet. The author views the pitting of phonics against a literature-based approach as a false dichotomy, however, the table and chapter 2 discussion perpetuate the dichotomy. Decades of research in reading and literacy resulted in more than just two models of reading. The title and content of this chapter begs the question, “Is balance in literacy development a ‘holy grail’ that we are on a quest to discover?” “ Is some sort of Platonic ‘mean’ the balance in this false dichotomy?”
While Cecil attempts to present a balanced approach which includes embedded instruction, she misses the authenticity of reading, writing, and communicating when instruction is embedded in real language. Instruction delivered at point of use, one-on-one is direct and systematic, yet it is immediately useful to the child for his own purposes. This differs greatly from the review and reteach done in a direct, systematic model and in the reteaching or redirecting done during ‘individual practice’. Embedded instruction demands constant vigilance and observation from the teacher while children are really reading and really writing. This defies distillation in a methods textbook.
What is missing from the definition and discussion of practices of emergent literacy in Chapter 3 are the weighty, important language experiences of the toddler and preschool years. A decade of neuroscience demonstrates how infant/toddler visual, hearing, and motor development set the conditions for language and literacy acquisition. Play in the preschool years embodies the extraordinary mode in which young children deepen representational thought, develop vocabulary, experiment with the metalinguistic features of speech, enact story structure, setting, and other literary elements. These, too, constitute early literacy but receive only passing mention from the author. Best practices in early literacy include time and opportunity for experimentation with a vast range of literacy materials during the first 5 years. A more apropos title to this text might be Striking a Balance: Best Practices in Primary Grades Literacy Instruction.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 give unbalanced attention to letter-sound relationships in early literacy; three chapters on phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling compared to a single chapter on comprehension and meaning making in literacy. The author acknowledges that making sense of reading is the ultimate purpose of the reading process. Her chapter contents indicate otherwise. An entire chapter on spelling examines stage theory of development, while a stage approach is assiduously avoided in Chapter 2. Some components of literacy development cannot follow a stage sequence of development while other components do not. The activities in these chapters smack of kinesthetic worksheet-type exercises rather than authentic reading and writing.
A single chapter on reading-writing connections gives short shrift to the powerful impetus that writing gives to early literacy growth. Cecil’s discussion of writing misses the alternating shift of balance between reading and writing (Frith, 1985).Young children are so intent on making a mark on their world, they mark on walls, on furniture, on books, and on themselves. Chapter 9 does not convey this powerful urge. Nor does this chapter convey the important role of written communication.
Striking a Balance: Best Practices for Early Literacy misses the mark in best practice for authentic literacy development. It is a ‘cookbook’ of techniques which focus on methods for 5 narrow components of the reading process and misses the child − the active learner who constructs meaning in each literacy act. The child is the starting point for all learning, all instructional planning, and all assessment. Little text is devoted to truly knowing the child, the child’s abilities, and the child’s needs. Literacy is much larger than the cognitive processes of learning to read and teaching methods for best practice. Literacy is human relationship, communicating important messages to important others, and encoding in to more than an alphabetic code. The heart of literacy is absent from the Cecil text. Heart is what young children deserve first as best practice.
References
Allington, R. (2002). Big brother and the national reading curriculum: How ideology trumped evidence. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Camilli, G., Vargas, S., & Yurecko, M. (2003). Teaching children to read: The fragile link between science and federal education policy, Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol 11, No. 15, May 8. Available online at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v11n15/.
Coles, G. (2001). Reading Taught to the Tune of the 'Scientific' Hickory Stick. Phi Delta Kappan; v83 n3 p204-12 Nov.
Frith, U. (1985). “Developmental dyslexia” In KE Patterson,( Ed) Surface Dyslexia, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Good Start, Grow Smart (2003). Bush Administration Early Childhood Initiative. http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/earlychildhood/toc.html
Mandel Morrow, L. (1989). Literacy development in the early years. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
National Reading Panel (2000).Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and its Implications for Reading Instruction.Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.
No Child Left Behind: A Desktop Reference. (2002). Washington, DC: Office of the Undersecretary. Available on line at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/reference.html"
U.S. Department of Education (2001). Reading First. http://www.ed.gob/offices/OESE/readingfirst
Vukelich, C., Chrisite, J. & Enz, B. (2002). Helping young children learn language and literacy. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
About the Reviewer
Maureen Gerard, Ph.D. is assistant professor of Teaching and Teacher Education at the University of Arizona, South, Sierra Vista, Arizona. She was formerly a faculty member at Arizona State University in Early Childhood Education and in the Elementary Education Teacher Preparation Program. She spent 12 years a multiage classroom teacher in Phoenix. Her current research interests are in young children’s use of environmental print in emergent literacy.
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