Literacy Connections

Bridges Utilizes an Asset-Based Approach to Literacy

Bridges is an arts integration approach to activate the arts and artistic process to build students literacy and language development in partnership with science of reading programs.

It includes activities, approaches & tools that support an authentic connection between arts processes and literacy processes. Bridges uses embodied comprehension to make abstract literacy concepts concrete and supports students to acquire the skills they need to communicate, express and develop their ideas.

Key approaches are:

Multisensory Literate Expression – Be it, make it, play it! A multi-sensory arts integration approach to literacy that builds on the many ways that children communicate. Educators offer kids a variety of tools such as visuals, sound and movement to explore, develop and express their ideas.

An Artist’s Work Process – Children work and think like artists as they imagine, experiment, problem-solve, collaborate, self-reflect, and revise. At the core of the Bridges model is a focus on the process artists use to grow and develop expression. The goal is not the artistic product, but the learning that occurs in the process. Teachers support learning by treating students as artists who are in charge of their own creative process and artistic vision, and observing how they work rather than evaluating the outcome.

Notice, Describe & Ask – This language protocol allows children to feel seen for who they are, while building their ability to speak for themselves. Through Notice, Describe and Ask we talk about students’ artistic work in rich detail, but without judgment. As we engage children in conversation, we help them discover their own artistic voice, while building their language and observation skills.

Classroom teachers involved in the program speak about how concepts they were struggling to get across to their students through manipulating the written word, suddenly became concrete, relevant, and engaging as they created a character puppet or a setting.

“Revising setting drawings makes “revision” concrete for my kids.” – Jeannine Longo, 2nd grade teacher

Compliments a wide variety of reading writing programs

The Bridges model is not anchored in any reading or writing programs. Bridges is not a reading or writing program, but an arts program.

The Bridges model explicitly teaches important expression and metacognitive skills that are essential to academic success and are inherent to authentic artistic working and thinking.

The Bridges model has been used and adapted by teachers using a wide variety of reading and writing programs to make them more accessible and deepen learning for all students, and scaffold to learning requirements in those programs.

We currently align with the 3 NYCPS literacy programs: HMH: Into Reading, Wit & Wisdom, and El Curriculum.

 

What does literacy building look like in Bridges?

 

Here’s how Bridges supports these Literacy Building Blocks

 

Phonemic Awareness

The ability to recognize, identify and manipulate the sounds of a language (only in spoken form- not what is seen on the page).

Purpose
To help learners to know what possible sound combinations are possible in the language.  Identifying initial or ending sounds, hearing rhyme, blending and segmenting sound combinations.
Example: Dog starts with the ‘d’ sound. The sounds ‘m’, ‘a’, ‘p’ make the word map.

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula
Students have the opportunity to gain phonemic awareness in Bridges activities that engage them in word play, onomatopoeia, sound making, rhyming and awareness of syllables. These activities include…

• Warm ups: 1)Pass the sound effect 2) Vocal Expression Activities
• Story Making strategy: Creating soundscapes
• Integrating sound effects into Puppet Play!

How does Bridges support students to gain phonemic awareness?

• Multisensory Expression: Give kids opportunities to listen to and repeat sounds, generate their own sound ideas, and embody the sounds they are making physically
•  Notice, Describe & Ask: Map language onto their sonic experience by describing the sounds. Invite kids to describe the sounds and ask them to make observations. What does that sound make you imagine/ remind you of? Yes, it is a whooshing sort of sound like the sound a wave makes!
• Artistic Process: Encourage kids to use sounds to create sounds to illustrate events/ happenings in their puppet stories. Ask them to reflect on how they used sound in their own stories or when they noticed their peers using sound in their stories.

Phonics

Matching the sound and the written symbol.

Purpose

This is the first step to actual reading.  However, students can appear to read (decode) the sounds of the word, but not make meaning (comprehension).
Example: Dog starts with the letter ‘D’ Map is spelled ‘Map’

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula
Students have the opportunity to build connections between sounds and letters in Bridges activities that chart and visualize word play, onomatopoeia, sound making, rhyming and awareness of syllables.

• Warm up: Pass the sound effect (sound out & chart the sound effects)
• Story Making strategy lessons: 1) Creating soundscapes (sounding out and charting sound effects modelled and the sound effect ideas generated by the students). 2) Across many lessons kids generate lists of ideas that are charted (Possible story problems for example) and then read the list aloud in unison.
• Writing extension: Creating a sound effect “script” or speech bubbles based on Puppet Play (See ideas for further development of resources

How does Bridges support this literacy building block?
How do Bridges educators support students to make connections between sounds and letters?

• Multisensory Expression: Give kids opportunities to listen to and repeat sounds, generate their own sound ideas, and embody the sounds they are making physically.
• Notice, Describe & Ask: Map language onto their sonic experience by describing the sounds. Invite kids to describe the sounds and ask them to make observations. What does that sound make you imagine/ remind you of? Yes, it is a whooshing sort of sound like the sound a wave makes!
• Artistic Process: Encourage kids to use sounds to create sounds to illustrate events/ happenings in their puppet stories. Ask them to reflect on how they used sound in their own stories or when they noticed their peers using sound in their stories.

Fluency

The ability to read with speed, accuracy, (automaticity). Reading with tone, expression, and proper punctuation.

Purpose

To increase comprehension by limiting the breaks during the process and creating cohesion. Sight word recognition increases fluency.
Example: See it/say it reading. Reading with emphasis. Stopping at punctuation.

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula

Students have the opportunity to gain fluency in Bridges activities that allow them to listen to, repeat describe and choose from a variety of vocal expression tools used by storytellers, actors and puppeteers for narration and character dialogue.

• Warm ups: 1)Vocal expression activities 2) 5-Senses Journey
• Story Making strategy: 1) Expressing Character Traits & Emotions 2) Generating dialogue
• Integrate narration and character dialogue into Puppet Play!
• Share/reflect: 1) Storyteller Reflection 2) Narrator reflection 3) Pair & Share 4) Fishbowl

How does Bridges support this literacy building block?

• Multisensory Expression: Model speaking story narration refrains and character dialogue with expression, intonation and emphasis and give kids the chance to repeat this language in unison. Make space for kids to layer facial & physical expression on to their vocal expression to concretize what is being communicated. Make visual aids with frequently used words/ phrases.
• Notice, Describe & Ask: Map language onto the vocal choices you notice students making by describing. “Your superhero said STOP! With an exclamation point!”
• Artistic Process: Encourage students to use vocal intonation and expression in their puppet dialogue and in narrating stories. Invite them to share, reflect and notice how vocal choices make the stories clearer and more exciting.

Vocabulary

Knowledge of the meaning of individual words.

Purpose

To understand the meaning of individual words. This essential in the meaning of the whole (context). However, not every word needs to be understood in order to make meaning.

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula

Students have the opportunity to expand their vocabulary in Bridges activities that invite them to make personal connections through embodied, hands on exploration. Their knowledge is deepened through noticing and describing the many ways the words are experienced and expressed by others. They apply vocabulary in visual mapping activities and through playing with puppets to create stories. Activities include….

• Quick Pose warm up to embody and concretize any new vocabulary or concept
• 5-Senses Journey- connecting words to describe setting details to physical expression
• Explore & Describe Visual Arts Lessons
• Emotion Vocabulary Activities- Embodying and Mapping
• Applying story vocabulary to collaborative story making through Puppet Play

 

How does Bridges support this literacy building block?

How do Bridges educators support students to expand & deepen their vocabulary?

• Multisensory Expression: Concretize unfamiliar vocabulary and concepts by guiding kids to explore and experience language physical, vocally, visually, and through experimenting with materials hands on.
• Notice, Describe & Ask: Map new vocabulary onto 1) multisensory experiences in warm ups 2) the choices explored in hand-on art lessons 3) the artistic choices that children make when working independently.
• Artistic Process: Encourage kids to apply the vocabulary and concepts they have been exploring and describing to their own choice making as artists. Support them by providing visual aids or charts for their reference as they work autonomously. Reflect to encourage kids to speak about their process and the decisions they are make as artists, using the vocabulary they are gaining.

Comprehension: Make Connections

Creating meaning from the overall text (goal of literacy). Find points of connection between the text or image that relate to your own life (text-to-self), another text or image (text-to-text) or the real-world (text-to-world).

Purpose

To make learning meaningful for students as it provides a point of reference that is familiar to the students, building on prior knowledge.

 

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula

In Bridges Activities/Curricula, students build confidence in making connections as a creative strategy across expressive media. They are given opportunities to transfer those skills to comprehension of text, and expressing their own ideas clearly through language. Activities include….

• Emotion Vocabulary Activities- Making connections between visual emojis, physical expression (how it feels to you and how it looks on others), our personal knowledge of situations and contexts that prompt emotion and vocabulary that used to describe emotions
•  Puppet Play- Children make connections to books being studied and/or to their own knowledge, experiences and interests as they create puppet characters puppet characters and setting backdrops and create stories through play.
• Explore & Describe Arts Lessons- Exploring & describing what art materials can do. Expanding connections between what they see, imagine and want to create next.
• Making Sensory Connections- 1) Warm up for our Senses ritual 2) 5-Senses Journey

 

How does Bridges support this literacy building block?

How do Bridges educators support students to make connection through the arts activities?

• Multisensory Expression: Scaffold opportunities to explore through multiple expressive modes so that kids can make connections between what they already know and new information. Example: 1) Looking at an mad emoji 2) expressing “mad” with our own face 3) discussing when they have felt VERY mad 4) embodying very mad while saying the word “FURIOUS!” 5) placing the word “furious” on a visual range and scale of emotion map. Extend prior knowledge using visual aids, slide shows, videos and sound recordings to inspire physical & vocal expression or design of puppets or setting backdrops.
• Notice, Describe & Ask: Describe the expressive choices that kids make (movement, visuals, sounds) to build connections to vocabulary. Support them in verbally expressing the connections they are making by asking them about their work.
• Artistic Process: Guide discussion to help kids make authentic and creative connections. Story making example: “What other problems could this character have? What would you do to solve this problem? Visual Arts Example: “What does the shape you made remind you of? What could you make using this line? What does this texture make you imagine?”

Comprehension: Visualization

Creating meaning from the overall text (goal of literacy). Create a mind-movie. Use words to create an image in your mind whether an illustration exists or not.

Purpose

To harness the power of images to fill-in gaps in comprehension while reading and interacting with content.

 

 

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula

In Bridges Activities/Curricula students visualize story elements and details and then embody, describe and create them visually to retell texts and/or generate and develop their own story ideas. This process builds confidence in using visualization as a strategy for comprehension.

• Quick Pose Warm Up- prompts students to visualize content relevant to their upcoming work and then physically express what they are visualizing.
• 5-Senses Journey- prompts students to imagine sensory details and express what they are visualizing using physical and vocal expression
• Explore & Describe Arts Lessons- models a process for experimenting with marks and materials and then visualizing how they could be used to communicate ideas.
•  Designing Puppet Characters & Setting Backdrops- Students are asked to visualize and describe the important features of what they are designing and then consider what shapes, textures, lines and colors they want to use to represent what they are imagining.

 

How does Bridges support this literacy building block?

How do Bridges educators support students to build & apply visualization skills?

• Multisensory Expression: In warm ups, choose prompts that will allow students to visualize key details, concepts and story elements to express physically and vocally in unison. If there is any element of story or art making in the upcoming lesson which students may not already have clear comprehension of, they should be visualizing and embodying it at the top of the lesson in unison with their peers so that they can support each other. Follow up by charting their experience visually. Example: Make a 5 senses chart after a journey to remember and visually notate all of the sensory details they visualized and embodied in the activity.
• Notice, Describe & Ask: Notice & describe the choices kids make to express what they are visualizing. Ask them to speak about their intentions. What are they visualizing? How do their choices (physical, facial, kinesthetic, visual) express what they’re?
• Artistic Process: When artists are struggling to add more detail to their work, invite them to refer back to or re-engage with the embodied visualization from the warm up. Build in time for sharing and reflection. Hearing about how others comprehend or receive the way in which you have expressed your “mind movie” helps young artists to concretely experience the way visualization, expression & comprehension work together.

Comprehension: Ask Questions

Creating meaning from the overall text (goal of literacy).
Ask wondering questions before during and after reading or hearing a story to gain deeper understanding. This may include questions that may not be answered directly in the text.

Purpose
To further connections by imagining possibilities and going deeper than surface level.

 

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula

In Bridges Activities/Curricula each session includes a “mini lesson” after the warm up and before kids have time to work independently. These lessons are structured to model and engage kids in generating ideas through experimentation and asking questions.
In each lesson 1. We wonder what will happen if _____ 2. We try something 3. We ask the group what they notice and imagine 4. We ask what else we could try or do. For example, in puppet play sessions, students are introduced to strategies for generating their own puppet stories through a questioning process. They look at a text being retold through puppetry or an original puppet stories. Then, they are asked scaffolded questions to help them first notice the choices made by the author/ puppet improvisers about specific story elements, and then generate their own ideas to explore though puppet play.

• Explore & Describe Arts Lessons
• Strategies for Story Making through puppet play lessons: 1) Puppet Action | Story Action, 2) Generate, Extend and Solve Story Problems, 3) Express Character Traits and Emotions, 4) Show, Use and Revise Story Setting Details, 4) Create Story Soundscapes 5) Generate Puppet Dialogue 6) Narration/Storytelling (name TBD)
• Reflections: 1) Storyteller Reflection 2) Pair & Share 3) Fishbowl 4) Gallery Walk

 

How does Bridges support this literacy building block?

How do Bridges educators support students to deepen comprehension through questioning?

• Multisensory Expression: Before any story making through puppet strategy lessons offer a physical/vocal warm-ups that prompts kids to explore and express choices about the particular story element they will be asked questions about in the lesson.
• Notice, Describe & Ask: As your ask students to generate their own ideas, scaffold your questions to help them expand their possible choices. For example: What was the problem in my puppet story? What are some another problems that 1) these characters could have or that could happen in this setting? 2) can happen in real life at school, at home? 3) happen in books, TV or movies? 4) could happen in a fantasy, a fairytale, an adventure story, science fiction, a silly cartoon?
• Artistic Process: Build in time for students to share their puppet play and engaging in questioning and reflection around the stories that their peers are creating.

Comprehension: Inference

Creating meaning from the overall text (goal of literacy).
Create a conclusion based on evidence in the text or image, along with prior knowledge about what is to come or why a particular thing is occurring in the story.

Purpose

To deepen understanding of text and move story making along by predicting possibilities.

 

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula

In Bridges Activities/Curricula, students explore, notice and describe how small shifts in artistic choices across expressive media can shift what is being communicated. Playing close attention to visual evidence becomes an engaging strategy that allows kids to unlock meaning and communicate their own intentions with specificity. Activities that build inference skills include…

• Vocal Expression Activities Warm ups to experience and notice how shifts in vocal choices change the emotions and characters expressed
• Emotion Vocabulary Activities- A scaffolded process of embodying and describing how emotions can be expressed physically with a visual mapping to compare & contrast scale.
• 5-Shapes Many Emotions- Kids explore and describe choices about shape, spacing, direction and pattern to discover how they can transform facial expression. Make 2-face puppets.
• Torn Paper Collage- Noticing organic shapes and describing what they could represent.
• Collaborative Story Making-1) 5-Senses Journey 2) Puppet Play- Students infer 1) what, how, and why characters are feeling and acting the way they are and 2) what might or could happen next in the story they are collaboratively creating 3) Details that might be encountered in story settings and ways that characters might react and feel.

 

How does Bridges support this literacy building block?

How do Bridges educators support students to deepen their comprehension through inference?

• Multisensory Expression: Ask kids to notice and describe choices being made across every media (vocal, physical, kinesthetic, visual) so that it becomes a habit regardless of the activity. Invite kids to reflect on the puppet stories they make the way you would ask them to look at a text (what do you see & know= what you think) Example: What did you see the alien puppet doing? What do you know happened to the alien puppets spaceship? What do you think the alien was feeling?
• Notice, Describe & Ask: Build the skill of looking at evidence in a nuanced way, by challenging yourself and the students to notice and describe subtle as well as dramatic choices and unusual as well as common choices. Choices that don’t “make sense” immediately can reveal deeper meanings with closer looking.
• Artistic Process: Spend time in the exploration process before rushing to make a product or decision. The deep learning is in experimenting all the ways that artists make small changes in their work and discovering how each small shift can change meaning.

Comprehension: Determine purpose

Creating meaning from the overall text (goal of literacy).
Explore the author’s/artist’s point of view or reason for creating the work.

Purpose

To connect students to a work and find meaning in a lesson beyond the literal level.

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula

In Bridges Activities/Curricula, students are challenged to work collaboratively which requires that they seek to understand and build on the ideas presented both in texts and by their peers. They are called upon to clarify & communicate their own intentions, so that their peers can determine and build on the purpose of their work. The comprehension strategy of determining purpose is called upon activities including:

• Guided discussion and exploration of story books to inspire puppet design, retelling and story adaptation though play.
• Visual Arts Reflections
• Collaborative story planning and making through Puppet Play in small groups
• Story making through puppet play strategy: Narration/Storytelling (name TBD)
• Peer reflection on puppet stories: 1) Storyteller Reflection 2) Narrator reflection 3) Pair & Share 4) Fishbowl

How does Bridges support this literacy building block?

How do Bridges educators support students to determine the author/ artist’s purpose to better comprehend meaning?

• Multisensory Expression: Use the warms up to set the goals for the day. Example: Let’s us the magic sprinkles to warm up our eyes, so that we are ready notice all of the details in the artwork”. Support collaborative planning with visual aids and manipulatives by making a “How will you play your story today” board.
• Notice, Describe & Ask: After noticing and describing what you see, ask kids to speak about their work, process and intentions.
• Artistic Process: Build in time for peers to reflect on each other’s work and then revise it based on the feedback they receive. Set up and model a clear protocol in which the choices artists make are described with specificity, and the audience shares what those choices make them imagine. Ask the artists if their choices are impacting the audience the way they had intended and if not support them to revise their choices and develop their work further. The process of learning how your artistic choices can be developed and to better express your own intentions is a skill that transfers directly to revision in writing and builds skills needed to comprehend the choices of others.

Comprehension: Synthesize

Creating meaning from the overall text (goal of literacy). Put the pieces together to build the whole. Stop and summarize the big idea.

Purpose

To develop big ideas (main ideas) and keep track of what was already read or said.

Application in Bridges Activities/Curricula

In Bridges Puppet Play lessons, students are challenged to synthesize the puppets and setting backdrops they have created, what the know and love about stories in general or a particular story they are retelling, strategies for story making and story elements that have been introduced, the ideas and actions that their puppet play partners bring to the table, and their own play impulses to create stories through puppet play and improvisation.

How does Bridges support this literacy building block?

• Multisensory Expression: Give kids practice synthesizing their story ideas into the warm up. Example: If they are doing a 5 senses journey every week, start to ask them for sensory details, characters, problems and solutions. In story making through puppet play lessons, make a visual chart that shows the particular ideas modelled in the sample puppet show or story plus all of the other ideas that kids generate in the lesson. When reviewing the options charted in subsequent weeks, review them with sounds, gestures and/or drawings. This will help them to synthesize all of they choices they need to make about settings, character emotions & traits, problems and solutions.
• Notice, Describe & Ask: In art making model describing how marks, shapes, lines and textures can be synthesized to create specific characters and settings.
• Artistic Process: Support collaborative work through modelling puppet scenes with a clear sequence structure and repetition that kids can borrow and use to gain confidence playing a story before adding in additional ideas. Let students synthesize their ideas concretely with their puppets, visual charts or manipulatives like the “How will I play my story today?” board first. It will be easier for them to speak and or write about their ideas once they have played their idea. If students are playing stories that they have written with their puppets, encourage them to go back and revise their stories to add in ideas that came out of puppet play