Reflection Paper

Within my school teaching literacy takes place in everyday classroom. The format of this teaching varies to include different activities for each day. Certain aspects of literacy are taught every week. The teachers are to ensure that the work planned is appropriate for the age stage and ability of the children. They use strategies such as talk partners and small group work to allow children to develop their oral skills and ability to communicate and cooperate with their peers. Emphasis is placed on the acquisition of effective oracy skills in the early years and foundation phase. Role play areas are set up in partnership with the children so that they can practice speaking Listening and drama based activities within a meanful context.

Throughout the course of this semester, I have continuously grown as a writer. Prior to taking this course, I had little experience or knowledge when it came to writing. I used to struggle with forming my thoughts into writing, let alone a paper. I was never confident with what I wrote. My writing had no greater purpose other than the assignment. My writing process included: writing my paper, proofreading it, and turning it in. Once the paper left my hands, it also left my mind. Throughout this course we worked with others, visited the writing lab, wrote critiques, and we were able to revise our papers. I believe that all of this is has caused me to grow greatly as a writer.

For many decades now there has been a scope of definition for what “literacy” incorporates and those are the basics skills like reading, writing, and a variety of social and intellectual practices which involve basic communication skills, and hand and eye coordination. However, with the world of technology continually growing, and the level of diversity in the student population becoming vaster it has become necessary to also include speaking, listening, viewing, and visually aspects to the curriculum. One of the best ways to address a wide range of literacy is to pair the categories with each other based upon their connections in the real world. The categories include written language (reading & writing), spoken communication (listening & speaking), and visual language (viewing & visually representing). (Standards for the English Language Arts p. 6) Many of these can be done with a range of creative activities such as students being able to choose what they write about, share their own personal experiences in their writings, and then read them together; this helps the students stay engaged in the work they’re doing, and also increases their level of retention of the material. The importance of a student being engaged is best explained in the article “Adolescent Literacy: A Policy Brief” with, “The number of students who are not engaged with or motivated by school learning grows at

For this analysis I used the survey adapted by Patty, Maschoff, and Ransom. This survey helped me realize how my school is achieving in their instructional and literacy program. I talked to my principal at my school (Stetson Hills) and discussed the topic with her and helped get an idea of how the school was doing. I’m a physical education teacher and I’m not in tune as much as I should be with our literacy program so I’m hoping this class will help me learn more about how to help my school improve the literacy program and my own personal understanding.

However, regarding the entire high school, there are many areas in our literacy program that could use attention. I was shocked to discover that our literacy program infrastructure, fundamentally, does not exist; we do not have a program or even a librarian. My greatest concern is that we do not currently have an ongoing summative assessment process which we can use to truly identify students’ areas of need. A testing program could work to also strengthen our differentiated instruction since we would be able to provide students specific assistance in

My philosophy is that I want to provide children with the best education possible. Every student has the ability to read and write, but all students are going to have different ways of learning. Some strategies will work better for some than others. It is my responsibility to find creative and fun ways to spark their want to learn. I believe to be effective in literacy instruction and assessment I have to develop strategies that balance vocabulary, reading and writing. I think with these three components including a positive learning environment that my instructions will be effective. I believe by providing students with instructions, modeling, guided practices, and independent practices; that

At Brockton High School in Brockton, Massachusetts, the school put forth an initiative to integrate literacy-related instructional strategies across all content areas. This school-wide instructional goal has attributed to the overall boost to student achievement. The leadership team at Brockton High School recognized that changing the school culture would require the adults on campus to re-evaluate curriculum and instructional strategies.`Moreover, changing the mindset of school requires an examination of data to determine the area of need. The leadership at Brockton recognized that the greatest gaps in student achievement stem from the lack of literacy skills. With the use of content-specific information, literacy skills such as reading, writing,

A literacy-rich setting accentuates the significance of “speaking, reading, and writing” (The Access Center, n.d.), in the education of every student. To provide a literate environment for students, the teacher must offer respect and encouragement, provide a supportive physical arrangement, as well as language and literacy strategies, resources, and activities.

The teacher provides sufficient time for shared reading and discussion of books daily. She reads a book as a whole group and discusses it in more detail by prompting and questioning students. There are not any informal opportunities for children to explore, read, or hear books and there is no time for reading in small groups or individually, but only large group reading or when a teacher is available during center time. This area could be strengthened by a few adjustments to the daily plan. Within the Literacy Center, the teacher provides a variety of books in different genres as well as conducts read-alouds using both non-fiction and fiction books. The teacher intentionally plans reading daily through the use of read-alouds. She provides phonological awareness during calendar time by having the students sound out words. The teacher provides the alphabetic principle by going over the alphabet daily and having a “letter of the week”. She also provides print concept by having her students write daily. During the read-alouds, the class discusses the book along with the teacher asking the students questions. During the read-aloud, the teacher will give examples that use the individual child’s understanding so that they can understand the story content better. The teacher fosters children’s active engagement with text through dialogue. In the classroom, the teacher asked a student questions regarding a book that the student had created. The student then presented a play that when along with her book. The teacher coordinates book-reading experiences with ongoing curriculum activities and learning goals for children. She picks the read-aloud book according to the curriculum. For one lesson that I witnessed, they were discussing forms of transportation and she picked a writing activity that continued with this

Throughout my field experience this semester, I learned a lot about literacy learners and teaching/learning. From my final tutoring session, I learned that literacy instruction that works for one student may not necessarily work for another and that it is important to teach literacy instruction using a variety of techniques and strategies (Serravallo, 2015). First, I learned how important it is to cater literacy instruction to the individual student. I have learned about many great instructional strategies for teaching literacy but not all strategies are going to work for every student. It is important to select strategies that build on student strengths to support the student’s literacy needs (Serravallo, 2014). I also learned that a

Jo Ann is a tenured literacy teacher at Arbor Intermediate School. Areas of concern have been noted with Jo Ann in regard to fully transitioning to the Reader’s and Writer’s Model of instruction. In addition, Jo Ann is inconsistent with maintaining program fidelity and tends to revert to methods not in line with the curriculum. Specifically, there tends to be a heavy reliance on worksheets to keep students academically occupied as well as not carefully monitoring students as they work independently in the classroom. Jo Ann is often found at her desk which does not allow for a review of student work, ensuring student engagement, nor the opportunity to work with students for the purpose of small group instruction. During formal observation Jo

It was Mission Sunday at First Reformed Church, sitting in a pew with my youth group when I was given the opportunity to go to Eden, Jamaica the summer after my freshman year. My youth pastor, Ross, was standing on the stage in church describing the past trip that he went on with our high school youth group that past summer. He talked about the mission work they did, the relationships that were created, and the amazing views they saw. He then went on to say that the next group of kids that were the incoming freshman through seniors. That was me! I was so excited! I really wanted to go!

Throughout this semester, I was able to actively participate in the service learning project. By doing so, I learned so much regarding how to apply the marketing concepts we’ve studied. The project I was a part of this semester was for the Ronald McDonald Charity House. Our CBO, Sven, assigned us two different assignments to be completed along with our marketing plan. First, we were assigned to create a promotional video for the “Meals from the Heart” program. Additionally, we were assigned to complete an assessment of their sponsor program, which corresponds with the “Meals from the Heart” program.

The efforts of a group always seem to outshine the work of an individual due to the varying talents and contribution of each person. And while I have met and worked with some excellent people at Liberty I have never seen the level of interest and thoughtful argumentation that seems present over a cup of coffee and in person.

At this time schools responsibility is to accomplish literacy programs that conforms to the state standards. Our job as reading specialist is to help students achieve academic goals. We need to make sure our students get the proper help in the reading areas of phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. The public system are studying the effectiveness of reading strategies. The reading programs should be align with the state standards. A daily reading instruction need to be included with the five components of reading instruction. In addition, different types of reading assessments to monitor the student’s improvement in academics. Small group instruction is also very helpful for an action plan. The literacy instruction should be going on with no interruptions in blocks of 90 minutes. In those blocks the small group instruction also que take place. This strategies can focus on strengths and weaknesses of each student. Skilled teachers can plan instruction and meet daily instructional goals. Teacher can take at least 20 minutes per groups of students to work with them in the areas the need most help for improvement. The weekly lesson plans can provide of regular classroom instruction. Teachers have to plan differentiated instruction for a specific at-risk or readers. Also, modifications need to be made with each weekly lesson plan the teachers prepare. The school district reading literacy plan is an essential complement for students’ academic achievements. A