Johnnie Tankersley
Literacy Fellow, Cornerstone

 

When we look at the Cornerstone Framework, we see that most sections are divided into practices that fall within six language cueing systems. Those systems include surface structures (the mechanics of language) and deep structures (strategies for understanding and comprehending).

The cueing systems are:

  • Grapho-phonic - symbols, letters and letter combinations, to represent phonetic sounds.
  • Lexical - sight and memory words.
  • Syntactic - the structure of words, letters, sentences and whole texts so the texts are readable. This includes punctuation.
  • Semantic - Meaning at the word, sentence, and whole text levels.
  • Schematic - Comprehension strategies.
  • Pragmatic - Interacting with the text, discussing the text with others, writing responses to text; this takes the learning from short to long-term memory.

When Becky McKay was our "Critical Friend" in Talladega County, she served on the Cornerstone review team in one of the Philadelphia schools. She observed a lesson gleaned from Kid Writing by Cardonick and Feldus. The concept is that learning is increased as more of the cueing systems are used in teaching a single lesson or set of lessons.

Becky brought the idea back to us in Talladega County and we began to teach mini-lessons in writing using all six cueing systems. At first we called these 'Phonics Stories,' but as we continued to use this strategy, we realized it could be applied to many kinds of texts in both reading and writing. It can even be used in Guided Reading lessons.

The accompanying power point is one that I created when preparing a staff development session for the teachers in a large, church based day care and kindergarten program. The lessons are designed for younger aged children; however, the concept can easily be adapted for older students.