Developmental Literacy Continuum

What is the Developmental Literacy Continuum (DLC)?

The Developmental Literacy Continuum (DLC) is a Formative Assessment tool for teachers.  Students are tracked on the continuum to situate where they are in their literacy development (pre-K to Sec.5) in Reading, Writing, and Talk in English (3 strands of the Quebec Education Program) as well as Lire, Écrire, and Communication in French.

There are 5 phases in each continuum. Each phase is made up of a series of “indicators” that describe an observable artifact, action or behavior.  The teacher uses their professional judgement to decide if a student is demonstrating an indicator, some of the time (in progress) or consistently (attained).

The 3 choices in the DLC

A competency indicator needs to be observed, consistently, over a period of time, in a variety of situations.

Using the Developmental Literacy Continuum

In order to be able to make professional judgments about how a student is doing in a particular phase and what indicators have been demonstrated consistently, over a period of time, in a variety of situations,  the teacher will need evidence.  

One of the most effective approaches is to have students keep a collection of trace evidence of their work such as writing samples, audio and video recordings of them engaged in a learning activity. They can also share pictures of projects or events that demonstrate their competencies.  All of these traces may be hosted, for example, in a “portfolio” folders in a student’s TEAMS or GOOGLE account.

Reading, writing and talk are strongly interlinked and interdependent. That being said, a student will not necessarily be in the same phase in all three areas.  The strengths of a student can be engaged in developing teaching and learning strategies that will help develop the areas that are not as strong.  The DLC allows a teacher to determine a student’s zone of proximal development in any or all three strands and then to use this information to plan for future teaching/learning.

A set of developmental continua describe observable behaviors or actions that are called “indicators”. These indicators are organized into phases of development. Within a phase, the indicators are often interdependent and compliment each other. They work together.

The 5 phases are:

Exploring

Emerging

Developing

Fluent

Experienced

When most of the indicators in a phase are attained by the student on a consistent basis, in a variety of situations, over a period of time (more than once!!), the teacher can begin to address indicators in the next phase.

Food for thought!

  • Students can be in more than one phase at a time as they move forward.
  • Indicators within a phase reflect increasing complexity in relation to each other. It is possible that students don’t necessarily master them in a sequential manner. The order in which students attain them varies with regard to their needs and pace.

 

For example, let’s look at the following indicators taken from Exploring literacy in the Reading continuum.
6- Names some letters of the alphabet
7- Matches some sounds to letters
8- Recognizes some words in writing

Despite the order in which the indicators are presented, it is possible that different students won’t necessarily develop them in that sequence.

Once the teacher has determined the student’s development phase, they will be able to see what still needs to be developed within a phase in order for the student to move along in their learning. In other words, using the Continuum will have helped the teacher identify the student’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as defined by Vygotsky.

Food for thought!

Which pedagogical actions will enable me to support my student in developing their competencies in this phase?

The best learning conditions are found in the student’s Zone of Proximal Development!

Paper Version

Distinguish documents 

  • Global Continua
    • The Global continua show the five phases of development at a glance for each competency.
  • Detailed Continua by Phase
    • The Detailed continua show, for each phase, the indicators as well as a description of each indicator.

Quick tip! 

These documents are formatted for 8.5″ X 14″ paper. You can use them to track individual students by highlighting indicators with a transparent marker, one colour for “In Progress” and another for “Attained”.

Digital Version

  • Create groups
  • Keep track of your students’ progress
  • Create a report on each student or your class as a whole

https://dlc.learnquebec.ca/login

Quick tip!

Make sure to sign in with your professional email address. 

Curated Resources for DLC

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