Emily Tittiger

Building a Literate Community

Emily Tittiger 3 Key Reading Theories: Functions of literacy o Reading is an important aspect of our daily lives. It is all around us through environmental, recreational, occupational, and informational texts. We read and we teach children to read as a way to think and understand the world around us. Reading as socio-psycho-linguistic process o Social: Communication between parents, teachers, and students is vital in supporting students literacy development. It is especially important to build relationships with parents in order to create a home/school partnership. o Psychological: A teacher should appreciate each students culture and values in order to create a curriculum that encompasses families. o Linguistic: The knowledge students will bring into the classroom starts at home with family involvement through literacy. Communication theories o Through listening, talking, reading, writing, viewing, and visually representation, these six communication systems present ways of communicating meaning. It is important for students to learn all six communication processes and apply them through meaningful activities.

Main Reading Experiences: Literature circles o Structured for student independence, responsibility, and ownership. Literature circles are guided primarily by student insights and questions, therefore the students are in charge of their own learning. Guided Reading/Basal o Guided reading is an essential element of high quality literacy instruction. The goal of guided reading is to help the students build their reading strategies for processing and comprehending texts. SSR/Dear time o Silent Sustained Reading/Drop Everything and Read o By giving students a choice in their reading, they will have a higher interest, therefore making them want to read. Interactive Read Aloud o Interactive read alouds are an essential reading experience that all children should encounter throughout their education. According to Temple, being read to stimulates childrens literacy growth. Interactive reading aloud demonstrates to children that reading is thinking, and that thinking should be a critical aspect in the reading process. The reason to read is for comprehension, and reading aloud to children enhances students oral language, comprehension, and vocabulary. Embedded Lessons o Embedded lessons are critical to the overall reading experience. Through embedded strategies/comprehension lessons, students receive instruction based on the specific skill, phonics, or comprehension they need in order to achieve. In order to fully comprehend a text, students need a balance between embedded skill as well as comprehension strategies.

Emily Tittiger 5+ Essential Quotes from 5 Different Course Readings: The goal of reading instruction is for all students to read with comprehension Temple p.192 o Teaching children to read with meaning could be a challenging task. It is the teachers job to expose children with literature, cultivate their knowledge on a range of varying subjects, stimulate their reading habits, and inspire a broad range of interests. Teachers need to know as much as possible about the parents cultural values and styles of communication with their children so that the adjustments to the school culture and style of each teacher can be made Temple 37 o The ability to recognize cultural differences, values, and styles of communication are essential while teachers attempt to create a strong home-school-community partnership. Reading is language and language is thinking Fountas and Pinnell o It is vital for students to be able to bring oral language to the understanding of a text. Oral language is extremely important. It is the most powerful system that children bring to initial experiences with reading. Regular communication with students and families provide vital information for curriculum development Endrizzi o Although teachers spend a large portion of a childs time with them, families know their children better than teachers ever will. Learning is not only developed in the classroom, but also in contexts outside of school. Students community and home life should play an important role in the curriculum designed by teachers. A teacher, no matter how skilled, loving, hardworking, and devoted, cannot provide the groundwork that parents can provide their child Bialostok o A school cannot provide the support that childcare givers can for their children in the first several years of that childs life. It is important that teachers and parents work as a team to provide children with the support they want and desperately need.

Literacy Assessment: Rubrics o One way to assess literacy is through the use of rubrics. A rubric is a scoring tool that lists criteria for a piece of work and articulates the quality for each criterion; ranging from excellent to poor. Rubrics allow teachers to observe, evaluate and assess students performance on a variety of tasks, and are able to be altered to fit each task or form of assessment; such as oral reading or a piece of writing. Teachers can fill out an observational checklist by assessing student comprehension before, during, and after reading a text. Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) o Another way to assess literacy is through the Developmental Reading Assessment. DRAs allow teachers to monitor students progress in several areas such as; reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. The main purpose of the DRA is for students to become better readers by matching them to the right books at their leveled reading. DRAs are an assessment that allows teachers to listen to students read and be able to

Emily Tittiger discover their strength and areas for improvement. This type of literacy assessment is very beneficial in determining reading skills and strategies being used while children are reading a text. Portfolios o Portfolios are a great way to assess childrens literacy development over a period of time. Portfolios are collections of student work. A diverse set of student work is kept in order to keep track of students progress in learning how to read and write. Often, the teacher is responsible for choosing the artifacts collected for the portfolio. Portfolios can be used to conference with each child, helping the student set goals for themselves; while also aiding teacher instruction. Self Evaluation o Another great way to assess literacy is through student self-evaluations. Through selfevaluations, students are able to determine perceptions of their own reading and writing knowledge and growth. This type of literacy assessment allows students to take ownership and responsibility for their own learning.

Connections to families: Family Message Journal o A family message journal could be a very appropriate type of communication from students to family and teacher. A journal can serve as a great way for families to communicate with teachers, while doing so in a relaxed and informal way. Through family message journals, parents can become active participants in their childs education.

Home-School Newsletter o Teachers need to focus on building bridges between the school and homes of children. One way to connect the two is through a newsletter. Teachers can incorporate many things into this letter, including what students are learning, ways parents can help, and upcoming events to get families more involved in their childs education. Parents Night o By creating a program where families can come into the school gives teachers an opportunity to develop and build good partnerships through trust and communication. During Parents Night, (family/caregiver) teachers and families can get to know another, work alongside, and become a team. A key to any type of parent night, open house/conference is for teachers to be open and interested in the familys perspectives and concerns; all in all, they know their child best!