Tidbits from my readings this week….
In the article, “Literacy: Every Student, Every Classroom,
Every Day” I gained several helpful insights. Here are just a few…
Literacy is not just about
trying to reach your struggling students. Teacher need to improve the quality
of instruction in core classrooms every day. Raising literacy skills means
improving classroom instruction school wide.
What Literacy Is Not….
·
A software application
·
Computer Lab
·
Afterschool Program
·
Summer Program
Literacy may contain some of these elements but it begins
and ends with high quality literacy instruction in the class.
What Literacy Instruction Looks like…
·
Beginning each lesson with a text-based focus
activity or “bell work”.
·
Posting essential question or “I Can” Statements
that invoke deep thoughts based on the lesson’s instruction.
·
Student engagement is KEY! Create meaningful
learning activities.
·
Practice to Product – teach to mastery! Give
students opportunity to work in groups and independently.
·
Evaluation /Assessment to provide evidence of
student mastery of skill or objective.
·
Reflection/Summary – students need the
opportunity to synthesize what they have learned. This increases student
retention of material learned and invokes higher order thinking.
“The best place to
improve literacy skills is by integrating purposeful reading, writing and
discussion into all content areas. In fact, when students actively engage with
course content by reading, writing, and discussing, their retention and mastery
increases.”
McDaniel, T. L., & Riddile, M. (2015). Literacy: every
student, every classroom, every day: a school-wide instructional framework is
key to developing and implementing literacy initiatives. Principal
Leadership, (9). 58.
