Welcome to our Continuum Unpacked section, where you can deepen your understanding of the Language Foundations Continuum for Reading and Writing.
The Language Foundations Continuum “provides clarification on mandatory learning. It describes the progression of fundamental language knowledge and skills relevant to Ontario students and is based on educational research on reading and language development.”
Strong foundational knowledge and skills in both oral and written language are necessary to support more complex skills such as critical thinking and problem solving. While foundational reading and writing are not the end goal of instruction, proficiency with these core skills is necessary to allow students to be reflective, critical, and independent learners and achieve academic goals.
Progression through the continuum is driven by assessment data and students’ response to instruction or intervention. It’s important to clearly state this – all students need to establish proficiency with these skills to ensure they realize their right to learn to read. While specific learning is indicated by grade level in the continuum, it is our collective responsibility to ensure that all children develop a strong foundation. Teaching and learning this knowledge and these skills may be necessary for older students, even well beyond the grade levels indicated in the continuum, to ensure they can meet their full potential.
While the continuum presents a series of foundational language and literacy skills, instruction should be integrated. Foundational language and literacy skills are interdependent and interrelated, and should be taught systematically across the academic year.
Phonological awareness refers to the ability to reflect on the sound structure of spoken language. Phonemic awareness is a subcomponent of phonological awareness. It refers to the ability to identify and manipulate the smallest unit of sound in spoken words, called a phoneme. When students begin to identify, notice, segment, blend, and manipulate individual sounds or phonemes in words, they are developing and consolidating their phonemic awareness. Teaching these skills occurs largely in the context of teaching the decoding and spelling of written words.
Alphabetic knowledge refers to knowing the letters by name and understanding alphabetic order.
Grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) refers to the association between a grapheme (a letter or cluster of letters) and its corresponding phoneme, and vice versa. It may also be called letter-sound correspondence. Understanding this relationship enables students to read by relating graphemes to phonemes and blending phonemes together to sound out words, and to spell by breaking words into phonemes and representing each phoneme with a corresponding grapheme, with automaticity. Learning these skills occurs largely in the context of learning about decoding and spelling of written words.
The English writing system is based not only on sound but also on meaning. Orthographic knowledge refers to the understanding of the English spelling system and its patterns, including grapheme positions and combinations in a word. Morphological knowledge refers to the understanding of how morphemes can be used to form words. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning within words, including prefixes, suffixes, and bases. All words are made up of one or more morphemes. Students apply their consolidated phonological awareness and phonics knowledge, as well as their developing orthographic and morphological knowledge, to read and spell words in isolation and in various text contexts.
The English writing system is based not only on sound but also on meaning. Orthographic knowledge refers to the understanding of the English spelling system and its patterns, including grapheme positions and combinations in a word.
Morphological knowledge refers to the understanding of how morphemes can be used to form words. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning within words, including prefixes, suffixes, and bases. All words are made up of one or more morphemes.
Irregular words contain spellings that are different from the grapheme-phoneme correspondences students may expect. Some frequently used words—words like of, was, do, to, what, and they—have irregularities. It’s important to note, though, that irregular words can often be at least partially decoded. In the word what, it is only the spelling for the vowel sound that is irregular. Truly irregular words are quite rare! High frequency words are not necessarily irregular: many frequency words have regular spelling, such as about, down, or make.
The process of developing vocabulary involves acquiring new words and understanding their meanings when reading and listening and writing and speaking. In learning new words, students learn the meaning, usage, form, and relationship to other words, and build the breadth and depth of their vocabulary.
Some words have different meanings in different contexts. In learning words, students should link the meanings and features of the words, such as their semantic features. The semantic features identify similarities and differences between words, which helps link new words to students’ existing word schemas.
Words have different roles and utilities in spoken and written language. Tier 2 words are found in written language as well as in oral language in the classroom and are useful across many different content areas. These words have high utility for students and should be the focus of explicit vocabulary instruction. Tier 1 words are those that frequently occur in spoken language, while Tier 3 words are generally specific to a particular content area and have less broad utility for students.
Vocabulary is developed through both explicit instruction of words and implicit learning from working with oral language and written texts in various contexts.
Fluency is the ability to read text accurately, at an appropriate pace, with expression. It is the bridge between word recognition and comprehension. As decoding is automatized, students increase their ability to read texts fluently, freeing cognitive resources to focus on the meaning of the texts. First and foremost, reading fluency relies on accuracy. Students must integrate subskills such as fluent word recognition to read words accurately, which, in turn, supports their reading of sentences and paragraphs with accuracy and fluency. Additionally, students should be able to read texts with appropriate pacing, and with expression and intonation that facilitate comprehension and convey meaning.
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