West Middlesex Observation

A literacy rich environment is essential for any emerging reader. Emerging literacy reflects "children's natural growth and awareness of print in the environment" (Genisio & Drecktrah, 1999, p. 227) and therefore the environment has to contain suffient enough manifestations of this print and other literacy material presented in an attractive way without overwhelming the child. "Clearly, literacy-rich environments are of value. They allow children to practice literacy behaviours and language in ways that make sense to them" (Roskos & Neuman, 1994, p. 264).

Within my school literacy lesson will be planed by the teachers, the teacher will go over the

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.

For this reason, careful research and understanding of what the standards are asking educators to teach is required. Houck (2008) informs balanced literacy is a combination of teaching methods and strategies involving both whole language and skill development. Used correctly, balanced literacy has the potential to meet the needs of all students at their own individual level. All components of reading, including phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, speaking and listening, and writing are taught using this framework. Balanced literacy provides instruction by various methods. The use of read aloud, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading, word study, and writing are all used to provide students with a release of responsibility model in which they go from guided to independent work (Frey, 2005). The need for all components of reading to work together in order for comprehension to take place makes balanced literacy an instructional reform plan worth implementing (Beringer & Abbott, 2010).

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.).

According to the article, the balanced literacy allows children to choose their own books to study and work in groups, where the combination of approaches to reading and writing will be provided by a teacher. The idea is that students are “ natural readers and writers; teachers needed only to create the conditions to unleash their talents.” On another side, we have Common Core Standards call for to read books on and above the grade level with more challenging texts, where students will focus on what the text says, while balanced literacy will focus on personal response to the book.

As I arrange this reflective analysis paper on topics that relate to a foundational course and specifically searching for the modules that have given me the most information, taught me something new or expanded my knowledge on a specific topic of reading, I have come to realize how far I have come since I began this adventure. I began these courses after graduating from Marshall with my bachelors. I chose this path because of my love for reading and teaching reading. I have come to realize that these courses have enabled me to become a more effective reading teacher and I now have been given the skills, strategies and techniques that I needed to teach a child to read. I know that I will always need to keep up with classes and new techniques, but feel that I am much more capable of teaching reading than before I started these courses. The course 653 Literacy Acquisition helped me to improve and further develop my educational philosophies and beliefs. So, I chose to speak about the first lesson that was expected of me in this class, Module 1 Literacy Theories, Beliefs and Practices.

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

Educators are charged with not only teaching the content of their subject, but also responsible for creating a learning environments that fosters communication, engagement, and reflection so that the students will be prepared for their future careers and learning. Creating a classroom that fosters reading and writing is one way to engage students while promoting that they reflect on the material and communicate their understanding or misconceptions of the content. In order to form a literacy-rich classroom educators need to increase the amount of time students interact with all forms of print and literacy and the classroom environment is an essential key to setting the precedent and model behaviors that will make students more successful and capable of high level learning. (Tyson, 2013)

Creating a literacy-rich environment is one of the key elements of supporting children’s literacy development. Literacy-rich classrooms tend to look quite different than the traditional classroom, covered in pre-made posters and arranged with individual desks in rows, and instead, allow for teachers to design their classrooms with their students’ needs in mind. According to an article on the Sadlier School’s blog, all elements in a classroom must be meaningful, intentional, purposeful, and engaging when creating a literacy-rich classroom. This means that classroom design is created in a way that it provides frequent opportunities to be exposed to text via environmental print, instruction, and hands-on learning as well as encouraging communication and collaboration (Sadlier School, 2017).

In a literacy-rich learning environment contains students classwork with dictations are posted around the room.

This curriculum is based off of five components: 1) overall philosophy of how children think and learn, 2) goals and objectives for children’s learning, 3) the physical environment, 4) the teacher’s role and 5) the parent’s role (Hayes et al., 2002, p. 3). The researchers evaluated the two pilot pre-reading programs by comparing and contrasting three groups of pre-K students. All three of the groups did the Creative Curriculum. One group added the Building Literacy for Learners program, one added the Letter People program and the other group did not receive any extra instruction (Hayes et al., 2002, p.

The method the school used to improve student’s enjoyment of reading and their reading skill was a type of peer teaching. The teachers paired the students in second and third grade with children in a preschool class (Seitz and Bartholomew, 2014). The teachers were in charge of the pairing of the students and stuck to mainly same sex pairings. Due to the number of preschool students participating in the program, some of the groups consisted of three students, an older student and two preschoolers.

The importance of the structural and instructural aspects of the classroom learning environment on the children’s literacy development has been proven by numerous studies. A large quantity of research suggests that having a library

I believe all children can learn to read in a classroom that is integrated with differentiated instruction and has a safe and engaging learning environment which is rich with a variety of literature to light that spark in the children to want to learn. I will make an effort to get to know my children in order to be able to provide a classroom library with nonfiction books to inform the inquiring mind, picture books for the artistic mind, and fiction books to entertain. All books will be chosen based on their curiosity, interest, personal connection, and learning profile, in order to attract and enchant the young readers into going back to the book area again and again.