Kristen Reiter

ED 463A
Literacy Philosophy
December 10, 2013
Literacy in the classroom is very important. All children need to learn to read and write.
More importantly, however, children should develop a love of reading and have confidence in
their writing ability. As a teacher, I lean more towards student-centered instructional approaches
for reading and writing. I want my students to take responsibility of their learning and to take
risks to reach high expectations. I will create a literacy community where students feel safe in
the classroom, respect each other, and collaborate with one another.
My literacy approach is formed from the views of constructivism and sociolinguistics.
Constructivists believe that students should be actively engaged in their learning with experience
to develop their knowledge. Sociolinguists believe that students need the opportunity to talk
about their learning with the teacher and their classmates. I believe that both of these ideas are
critical in a literacy classroom because students need to be able to build off their background
knowledge in order to create their own understanding, but they also need to be able to
collaborate with their classroom community and incorporate their learning into their lives. I will
provide many opportunities for students to work together in different groups. I will also begin
reading and writing lessons by discussing what students already know about the topic.
I will have a well-stocked classroom library. Reading is very important for childrens
literacy development, so I will make sure to have books to read aloud, leveled books, and a
variety of other chapter books and picture books for the students. I will have centers where
students can practice their reading and writing skills. I loved the idea from the video we watched

where the teacher had an interactive board where students had to match a picture to the letter
sounds in the word. Those activities will help engage students in their learning. I will also have
words walls around the classroom so students can see frequently used words and words from
different themed units.
There are a variety of places where I can acquire resources for my classroom. For a read
aloud I can bring books from the school and public library to share with students. I would also
do book talks for some of the books in the schools library so that I can stimulate students
interest in reading. I can get books for my classroom library from garage sales, from my own
collection, or from websites such as Amazon. I can make the word walls and centers myself
from simple craft materials.
I will use curriculum as a guide for daily, weekly, and yearly instruction. I know that, as
a teacher, I will have to meet certain state standards throughout the year. I will look through the
standards to plan for the year and set some goals that I want my students to reach. However, I
want to be sure that I will be able to adjust my teaching when students need extra assistance.
I know the students in my classroom will learn in a variety of different ways. Some
children are more hands-on learners, while others learn better through direct instruction.
Therefore, I will differentiate the content of lessons. For example, I will have a variety of books
at different reading levels and the writing lessons will require different levels of skill, but I will
also give the students daily opportunities to read and write. I will differentiate the process by
instructing the students as a whole class, having them work together in small groups, and allow
them time to read and write independently. Lastly, I will also differentiate the way I assess
students. Since I know children have unique skills, I will provide chances for students to show
their knowledge through posters or other art projects, through multimedia oral presentations, and

through written work. This differentiation will give all students a chance to show their strengths
in the classroom so they can be successful in literacy.
Assessment is important in the classroom, especially in the literacy classroom, to make
sure that students skills are progressing and that they comprehend their readings. I will mainly
use summative assessments because learning is a never-ending process. I will need to check my
students progress several times throughout the year and I want them to feel like they always
have the chance to improve their work and their own knowledge.
I will use observations as assessments in literacy. While my students are reading or
writing, I will be walking around the classroom to recognize their individual skill level and how
they interpret the lessons. I will also plan group meetings with students, such as a book club
group, to determine how the students work through a book and activities along with the reading.
This summative assessment will allow me to check students reading and writing progress
through the year in an informal manner. This will allow the students to work at their pace and
with their strengths. They also will not know that I am assessing their skills, which would place
less pressure on each student.
I will also use conferences as another summative assessment in the literacy classroom.
Conferences are a great way to get direct feedback from the students. These conferences can be
spontaneous or planned; I will meet with my students before, during or after lessons to see how
they understood the objective and how they progressed their skills. I will conference with my
students while they are in the process of writing to review their language and during reading to
discuss comprehension.
Literacy in my classroom will be done through a mix of the basal reading program and
literature focus units, as well as a blend of literature circles and reader and writer workshops. I

will use direct instruction to teach my students different skills and strategies to use while reading
and writing, but I will also give them plenty of time to read and write so that they can practice
their skills and share feedback with their peers. I want my students to be able to collaborate with
one another, but to also move at their own pace. I know that my students will be at many
different levels of literacy development. Literature circles will allow me to group students of
similar development so that they can work at the pace they require. Group work, along with
whole class instruction, will give every student a chance to progress their own literacy
development. In the classroom, I will scaffold and differentiate students learning so that they
will become skilled, independent readers and writers.
From my own literacy history, I know the importance of reading in the classroom. One
of the few aspects I remember from elementary school is the read alouds by my second and third
grade teacher. She read chapter books aloud to the class and I remember loving those books so
much. She inspired my love of reading as a child. Therefore, I will be sure that I have many
read alouds in my own classroom. This can not only help promote an interest in reading, but it
can also help struggling readers by being able to see modeled reading. I also grew up with a
variety of books at my house and my parents read to me constantly. I will be sure to encourage
families to engage in their childs literacy development because literacy begins at home.
Family involvement is very important in the classroom. I believe that parents and
guardians should have in active role in their childs education, which means they need to be
supportive of learning needs and encourage students to be engaged in school. I will send home a
weekly newsletter to let families know what is going on in the classroom and the goals I am
trying to reach for specific literacy instruction. I also encourage parents to read to and with their

students daily. Reading is essential to literacy development. Students do not do enough reading
at school; they need to read outside of the classroom and form a habit of reading.
This class showed me the great importance of reading in a childs development. I always
knew that teachers and parents should read to children, but I did not quite realize the great impact
that reading does have on child development. I will take with me the importance of reading and
promote reading to children anywhere I can. Even before I become a teacher, I will try to
encourage the kids around me to become readers. During the summers I am a counselor at a
childrens camp. After taking this class, I will bring reading into the camp any way that I can
and I will read books aloud to the children daily. Anything I can do now to promote reading in
young children is critical in their life-long literacy development.
I will also take away from this class the many different ways to assess a childs literacy
development. I have never been a fan of high-stakes testing because I feel it does not measure a
childs true knowledge. These tests also fail to highlights the progress they may have made
during the year. Before this class, I could never think of alternate ways to assess a students
knowledge that would be effective. I will remember the various forms of summative
assessments that were discussed in the book to use in my future classroom.