Balanced Literacy Approach

As a future teacher of a fast-changing generation that searches restlessly for new interests, I believe that old and new must meet to keep the basic values of a balanced literacy. Focusing on prior knowledge, collaborating with colleagues, peers, families, and community, creating connections with our surrounding, and empowering students’ learning style throughout the process of gaining knowledge of reading and writing. Foremost, my personal philosophy of teaching literacy is based on constructivism and sociolinguistic, where hands on experience and guidance are priority in an informational world. To facilitate a child’s acquisition of literacy skills , as I plan for literacy instruction for my future classroom, I will take into consideration

Just as the needs of students vary teachers methods of instruction should vary. Meeting the literacy needs of students should be done through a wide variety of instructional strategies that meet the needs of students and meet the requirements of a balanced literacy program. The following information shares 12 instructional procedures to be used in a third grade classroom. The procedures are from the Tompkins’ Compendium shared in the text Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach (6th ed.).

Balanced Literacy provides the foundational structure and scheduling for delivering the North Carolina English Language Arts curriculum in kindergarten through eighth grades. Balanced literacy along with our scope and sequence defined in our pacing guides enhance vertical and horizontal

Student-centered classrooms have a lot in common with democratic and inclusive classrooms. In both, students take responsibility of their own learning. They work well with their classmates and are invested in gaining new knowledge. The role of the teacher is also similar. Teachers guide students by providing examples and modeling new concepts. They positively play off of individual differences and place emphasis on what strengths each student adds to the class. The content they cover is relevant to the real-word and challenges the students.

Words Their Way is a developmental spelling, phonics, and vocabulary program. It was developed by Invernizzi, Johnston, Bear, and Templeton. Words Their Way is intended to be part of a balanced literacy plan that includes fluency, comprehension and writing. Word study is implemented as an integral component of the literacy program, but it is also linked in actual reading and writing of texts.” Through my participation in such classes and by experiences that I have encountered with literacy and assessments, I feel that I have mastered standards 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4. I can successfully use data from assessment tools to guide the instruction needed within my classroom or on an individual basis. As a classroom teacher, I work closely with the Title I teacher and the Literacy Coach to administer Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory assessment, data was gathered and evaluated, and based on the data; we created specific literacy centers that addressed those deficit areas. The Words Their Way assessment tools have been particularly helpful to me because it enabled me to assess my students quickly and design quality student centers specific to their developmental needs in the area of word study and spelling. The data gathered from “Words Their Way” was used to individualize instruction based on individual student needs and specific deficit areas. The reason for using this assessment was threefold: first, it helped students to develop a general knowledge of the English

Continuous assessments empower teachers to create differentiated lessons that address each student’s issues. Group Work: Students team up in pairs and small groups whose membership changes as required. Learning in groups enables students to participate in important discussions and to observe and gain from each other. Students are encourage to share expertise on subject matter and gain a positive overall sense of accomplishment when they are able to help a peer and learn from them.

There are many evidence-based practices that ensure that there are comprehensive literacy instructions. The practices are supposed to ensure that they produce proficient readers and literates. Some of the characteristics of proficient readers as described in the book by Gambrell, Malloy, and Mazzoni (2007) include independence in readers who use comprehensive strategies to gain meaning from the text that is relevant to their goals. Second, they ensure they acquire word recognition, fluency in skills, vocabulary and strategies so that they have the thinking power to attain meaning, Also, they make use of technology to ensure that they acquire high-level literacy. They also follow instructions from teachers and other instructors to ensure they acquire the best level of literacy.

This resource is an externally available lesson plan from the Balance Literacy and Numeracy program. This program can be used in Year 2 as it clearly explains how to teach the essential mode of literacy which covers reading. The lesson plan is designed so it can be used to explicitly teach reading using different approaches like group discussion, modelling and role-play, in which the teacher requires the Year 2 students to participate through discussion. Using group discussion, the teacher will be able to assess student through the observation checklist (Mead & Rubin, 1985) as it is a great tool to assess students on their speaking and listening skills (O’Sullivan et al., 2006; Levy & Stockwell, 2006).

Balanced literacy, essentially is a combination of the best of both Top Down, also known as Whole Language, where authentic literature become the focus , as well as Bottom Up approach, which includes a strong focus on phonics instruction (Golche, 2016). Golche (2016) states that balanced literacy includes both reading and writing instruction. In the Balanced Literacy Model, there is a strong connection between the Reader’s Workshop and the Writer’s Workshop. Common lessons that evolve through reading and writing area reinforce the unit the children are learning at a particular period. The goal of the entire balanced literacy experience is for children to become competent readers and writers through the exposure to and active participation

Every teacher is a literacy teacher. No matter what content area you teach, you are also a literacy teacher. Teaching is not only what we teach but it is also how we teach, thus when we talk about content it is what we teach and literacy talks about how we teach in every content area. The goal of literacy teaching is to develop reading, writing, and comprehensive skills in our students in every content area. We know that these skills are equally important in every content area in the secondary level.

In my opinion, group work does not work. In group work, students are put together and expected to plan how they will work together to learn. For example, the teacher may say to the students “Discuss it as a group” or “Talk it over.” The issue, however, is that some students may do all the work whereas some students may do little to no work. Essentially, group work doesn’t work because it lacks structure, doesn’t guarantee individual accountability, and fails to ensure that students will work together effectively. As a consequence, achievement gains are not seen by all students, social skills are not facilitated since participation is not equalized and student interaction is not encouraged, and only a few students are actively engaged at once.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” (Hellen Keller) “Two heads are better than one.” (John Heywood) “ More hands make for lighter work.” (John Heywood) These adages speak to the potential groups who have to be more productive, motivated and creative than individuals on their own. Should high school classes require group work? Group work can help students develop a host of skills that are increasingly important in the professional world. Working in groups creates a share of diverse perspectives, develops a stronger communication skill and helps tackle more complex problems than one could do on their own.

Student-centered classrooms that create ways for students to demonstrate their understanding of learning activities show that students are willing to be more engaged and take on risks in classroom activities when they feel safe (Black, 1999). The teaching for understanding proponent of the Iowa Core’s “Characteristics of Effective Instruction” from the Iowa Department of Education (n.d.) encourages students to think in a provoking way. Teachers need to utilize

I used to believe that I did not perform very well in groups. I am an observer who likes to learn alone. I thought I learned best when I worked on my own. Even though I always knew group work had many positive values, I was more comfortable with the lecture-based approach and resisted group work merely because it involved change, not because it had a collaborative learning approach. However, during the learning community project, I came to realize that I learn more effectively when I work in groups. Working in a group was like an adventure for me; there were both exciting and challenging times while preparing for the learning community project.

For as long as I can remember, reading and writing have played a major roll in my life. Since the beginning of starting school, the subject of literacy has been stressed for importance and branded into my mind as the one skill you’ll need for every single aspect of your life. Children are introduced to this lovely and fun idea of reading with picture books that are pleasing to the eye and depict animal characters with a soft moral lesson present in the stories. At this age that is the extent of reading children will perform and writing is limited to simple sentences with short words that often misspelled. Soon after this stage of reading is mastered in a testable manner of fluency, the cute illustrations that you they so loved began to decrease and the words develop and increase in number. It is not long until you are introduced to longer and longer stories and passages that are now strictly about humans, their feelings, memories, and opinions. That time between learning how to read and learning how to truly write seems to have flied by, looking back now. As a currently enrolled junior in high school my understanding and feelings towards literacy have greatly changed since the time I was a young child.