Chapter 1: The Foundations of Literacy Instruction 1 Copyright © 2022 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Chapter 1 The Foundations of Literacy Instruction Learner Objectives Students will be able to:  Describe what being ―literate‖ involves, and why it may be more complex for today’s students than when their grandparents learned to read and write.  Explain how the literacy essentials support the development of reading and writing as reciprocal processes.  Identify the five stages of literacy development and summarize the major characteristics of each.  Explain the importance of teachers’ awareness of the sociocultural and language contexts of literacy learning.  Describe the importance of different levels of support in teaching literacy. Chapter Overview Chapter 1 sets the context for the rest of the text by providing a broad overview of the major components of literacy instruction and development. The chapter begins by discussing the importance of and difference between print and digital literacy. The authors make the case that both are important to literacy development. This chapter defines the strategies literate individuals use in terms of comprehension, writing, vocabulary, word structure, fluency, and motivation. It also defines each developmental phase of literacy: emergent, beginning, transitional, intermediate, and skillful. These phases are presented as the cornerstone for the ―gradual release of responsibility‖ model for literacy instruction and differentiated instruction in literacy. The chapter sets the tone for the rest of the text—what each chapter includes and why, important definitions that will be discussed in subsequent chapters, and the overall structure of the text.