Literacy-Based Intervention Examples: Content & Structure Focus

Presented by Geraldine Wallach

12-Month Subscription

Unlimited access to:

  • Thousands of CE Courses
  • Patient Education
  • Home Exercise Program
  • And more
This course will be retired and no longer available as of December 31, 2024. Please complete the course by December 31, 2024, to receive credit.

Continuing with the challenges facing adolescents with language and literacy problems, practitioners often ask: “What can I do to help students access the curriculum, thrive, and survive in the classroom, and acquire the literacy skills needed to enter the workforce? Isn’t it too late to make changes?’’ Further, traditional methods relating to language intervention practices, popularly employed at elementary school levels, fall short of meeting the ongoing language literacy needs of older students. For course two, we will highlight the ways that language disorders “show themselves” across time with a focus on pathways to becoming literate (and why this is important for school learning). The three tiered framework described in chapter one will be operationalized in chapter two, providing specific examples in each area: (1) Engaging students’ background knowledge in activities, (2) Integrating requirements of content subjects into language intervention goals, and (3) Balancing content and structure knowledge in the search for meaning. Examples of specific intervention techniques will be provided in each area (mentioned above) with a focus on helping students develop the linguistic knowledge, skills, and strategies necessary for school and life-long learning. The role of metalinguistic and metacognitive ability, including self-monitoring strategies, will be weaved throughout the chapter.

Meet your instructor

Geraldine Wallach

Geraldine P. Wallach, Ph.D. (Dr. Gerry Wallach) is a Professor and Thesis Coordinator in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology at California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, California. She teaches courses in childhood and school-age language disorders, assessment, phonology, and language development. She also…

Read full bio

Chapters & learning objectives

How Language Disorders Manifest Themselves at High School Levels

1. How Language Disorders Manifest Themselves at High School Levels

This chapter will describe the continuum of language disorders and demonstrate how literacy is language and language is literacy. We will take a closer look at “disciplinary literacy,” that is, the specific requirements of content areas' subjects and the knowledge, skills, and strategies that underlie academic learning more specifically than covered in course one. The role of background knowledge in spoken and written comprehension and the retention of information will be addressed. Text dependent and text independent concepts will be discussed.

Meaningful Intervention: Importance Of Background Knowledge

2. Meaningful Intervention: Importance Of Background Knowledge

Chapter two will provide specific examples of macro (connected discourse such as narrative and expository text) aspects of language. Evidence-based activities that are highlighted will help course participants to develop language literacy goals and objectives that relate to acquiring linguistic and metalinguistic skills that connect to school learning and beyond. The continuum from unfamiliar to familiar text will be outlined and structural aspects of expository text and other academic texts (e.g., persuasive texts and, to a lesser extent, narrative texts) will be explored.

Content and Structure Knowledge and  Skills: Micro Focus

3. Content and Structure Knowledge and Skills: Micro Focus

Chapter three will be a continuation of chapter two, but its focus will be on the micro (smaller units of language such as sentences, words, etc.) aspects of language. The chapter will use the information from the “macro” chapter as a backdrop and build upon it. From syntactic knowledge and skills, to morphological awareness, to lexical (vocabulary) learning and retrieval, participants will learn how interactive components of language can be. The reciprocal nature of spoken and written language and “meta savvy” will be embedded into the discussion.

Q&A

4. Q&A

This chapter is a Q&A session with Dr. Alaine Ocampo who is a faculty member at Cal State Long Beach and the supervisor of the school-based program.