Using Big Book's As A Literacy Work Station In The Classroom

Shared book reading focuses on developing comprehension, alphabetics, and general reading achievement to enhance student literacy achievement. The teacher selects a text and reads it aloud to a student and/or group of students. The shared book reading program allows the teacher to model reading strategies, increase alphabetic skills, and activate and increase comprehension skills through targeted questions, prompts, and strategies. During the reading the teacher prompts students with strategic prompts and/or questions to engage the students in the text. Moreover, the teacher directs the students to key elements within the pictures, words, and/or text features. The teacher tailors the shared reading experience to meet the needs of the participants (International Reading Association Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Committee, 2012). Hence, educators are able to alter prompts, questions, and strategies to enhance the learning needs of

The Reading/Writing Station is one of the most important stations because if a child doesn’t know how to read or write they will not be able to go to a higher level in school or even be successful later on in life. In this station, I saw the students picking a book from the box which consisted of many different professions and community helpers that they could read and learn about. Once they finished reading they would pull out a piece a paper so that

The literacy block should consist of a balance of whole-group, small-group, and independent practice. Tyner states, “The challenge in orchestrating the literacy block can be best described as putting together a literacy jigsaw puzzle.” (Tyner,2009). The components of a balanced literacy block should include modeled reading such as a read-aloud which should include texts above the students’ reading level, modeled writing so that teachers have the opportunity to demonstrate how a writer thinks while writing about a text, shared reading which includes the teacher reading most of the text but also allows the students to engage in choral reading with grade-level appropriate texts, shared writing to be used to focus on comprehension but may include the writing process as long as it is used together, small-group differentiated reading and writing, and independent reading and writing so that students can use the skills learned previously to produce a final product.

Within “Rearticulating the Work of the Writing Center” Nancy Grimm asserts that writing centers “be less tuned to helping writers master community conventions and more tuned to developing the capacity of the staff to entertain multiple perspectives, to resist binary alignments, to think in systematic and complicated ways about literacy practices, to manage emotional reactivity, to gather evidence, and to explore the contradictions in literacy work” (Grimm

Literacy is a vital part of all later learning. Because of this, the children will engage in hands on activities that relates to what they have read and give them opportunities to make up their own versions, as well as make up their own stories. They will have a large group story time and a partner reading time. An ample variety of books will be available at all times. Signs with words and pictures will be posted around the classroom showing, daily activities, objects that are used daily, and the placement of toys and

Content area teachers can implement strategies and scaffold learning when planning and designing instruction so that students will actively engage in literacy. According to Dobbs, content area reading instruction includes: the information present in the text, and the instructional plan teachers use to help students understand the content (2003, p.3). Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz explain that in order to plan instruction effectively, teachers must be aware of the explicit and functional dimensions of content literacy. The explicit aspect of content literacy involves the development of skills and strategies that enable students to comprehend what they are reading. Functional instruction focuses more on the application of strategies needed to derive knowledge from a variety of sources of information.” (2014, p. 134). Forget defined literacy as “listening, thinking, reading, and speaking in such a way that information and ideas are processed and communicated to the benefit of self and society” (2003, p. 5). Content area teachers need to plan and design lessons so that students will actively engage in literacy. Forget goes on to discuss that poor performance in schools can be do to a lack of basic literacy skills. Therefore, teachers need to implement the skills and strategies found to be successful in literacy to ensure

additional groups to work independently, reading at their own specific level. The roles of the teacher

The Literacy Collaborative program strives to utilize purposeful, explicit, and guided instruction designed to ensure learner independence. The program provides opportunities for students to engage in authentic, collaborative, and holistic language acquisition through the use of high quality rigorous cross circular instruction. The program is structured within a framework that allows educators to create a dynamic learning environment that allows for flexible grouping, collaboration, and actively involving students in the learning process. Moreover, “teachers engage students in a selection of specified activities, including interactive read-aloud, shared-reading experiences, targeted vocabulary and phonics lessons, guided reading and writing

The shared book reading program is a teacher-directed literacy program designed to allow the educator the opportunity to model developing comprehension, alphabetics, and general reading achievement skills. The program aligns with the CCSS in that is focuses on the development of comprehension, alphabetics, and general reading skills. Furthermore, the program’s flexible design allows the teacher to utlize formative assessment to create targeted lessons focused on group and individual achievement (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012).. Additionally, teachers are encouraged to use open-ended questions as well as student’s background knowledge to engage leaners during the lesson. The program encourages the use of quality trade literature

The physical setting of a classroom is essential in evolving the literacy growth of students, and can increase the amount of time a student spends with books. This includes the variety of resources that will simplify language and literacy opportunities, the thought put into classroom design, as well as planned instruction by the teacher. The planned variety and utilization of materials is vital to the development of the literacy-rich environment and must be readily available for the student to utilize. Both fiction and nonfiction literature will be made available within the classroom, which includes assorted reading materials that are utilized in daily lives to nurture the student’s comprehension of how literacy is utilized. Examples of materials that will be made available are "phone directories, dictionaries, menus, recipes, signs, printed directions, student work, and alphabet displays” (The Access Center, n.

Most of the other students in her 2nd grade classroom are able to read classroom text and complete work independently. They also read books for enjoyment on their own. The reading time in her classroom consists of a block during which the teacher works with small groups and the children are expected to work quite independently when they are not working directly with the teacher. The class uses a trade book format and this is utilized across the curriculum. Students are provided with short skills building lessons in large and small groups. Most of the time spent during explicit reading instruction is targeted to helping students develop reading fluency.

This chapter provided me with literacy areas that I will incorporate into my future classroom and recommendations for setting up and designing the classroom environment. Some of the areas I plan to set up are a book area, listening area, and writing area. These are the areas of the classroom that I am most excited to create for my students. I hope to create an environment that motivates my students to want to visit each area. I love the tips for the writing area and it is a space that always draws my attention in a classroom. I usually observe a writing area in each classroom, but it seems when it is time for centers students seem to skip over that area and attempt to blend in with their friends in the reading area. I think that if I create

I will use the Literature circle to enhance the student’s ability to collaborate on a higher level so that they can move toward independent readers, molding them to integrate in a powerful classroom activity that will activate their critical thinking skills. I will do a book study and have students to meet and discuss the importance of rotating their roles giving everyone an opportunity to share the responsibility. I will teach how to highlight in different colors distinguishing each student reading.

the students do not have to be responsible for all of the reading all of the time. It is a

The literacy-rich classroom environment must be designed with the students’ needs in mind, meaning it is student-centered with teacher guidance, integrates technology, and is flexible to allow for differentiation. The classroom should have a flexible design that can be “adaptable and easily changeable based on what the students are working on” (Sadlier School, 2017). This means that the seating arrangement is not based on individual desks, but rather tables or clusters of desks to encourage students to collaborate and communicate in small groups or pairs, promoting oral language mastery (Sadlier School, 2017). It should also promote hands-on, student-centric learning