Literacy Pyramid Beverly J. Bruneau\'s

¶ … Literacy Pyramid

Beverly J. Bruneau's article "The Literacy Pyramid Organization of Reading/Writing Activities in a Whole Language Classroom" from the October 1997 issue of the Reading Teacher deals with what has been termed 'the literary pyramid.' This is based on the government's 'food pyramid' but works with instructional events instead of specific food items. It is designed to be a 'building block' structure like the original pyramid, however. The pyramid shape was used so that teachers and other instructional leaders could examine what kinds of events they were using in their teaching of students and work toward determining whether these were the best options. By building on specific instructional points and using those points to continue to evolve students have a much better chance of learning everything that they should learn and more.

Language arts instruction is highly important today, especially with English as a second language becoming more popular based on the number of immigrants that are coming into this country. Many of these people are completely legal and are just looking for a better life here, or their parents have brought them here or had them in this country but the parents do not speak English well enough to teach it to the children. Because of some of these issues, the instructional abilities of educators today are becoming increasingly significant where the issue of language is addressed. What type of instructional format is being used is also significant for the teacher and his or her students. Without using the proper instructional format the teacher will struggle with the material that is to be presented and the students will struggle with the learning of that same material.

As for what I think about the article, it appears that Bruneau has done her research into the issue of the literacy pyramid, but I am not certain as to whether the literacy pyramid is actually what is needed in order to create the highest level of instructional understanding for all of the students involved. While this idea might work very well for most students, there are always students that do not do well with standard instruction and these students are going to need a different type of instructional attitude so that they can succeed. Of course, this does not mean that everything should be changed based on just one or two students in a classroom, but only that the literacy pyramid might not work as well as expected on a broad scale for each and every student.

Students today appear to have more needs than students in the past did, or perhaps it is simply that they are making their needs known more easily or that teachers and others that work in the education profession are becoming more aware of what the students really need from the instruction and interaction that they receive. This is important for both the students and the teachers, because they must all interact with and work with one another throughout the process of education. If the literacy pyramid can be shown to help the majority of students and perform this task much better than what is currently being used then it would make sense to use it on an overall basis.