Philosophy Of Literacy Instruction
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Literacy Defined
Literacy embraces reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Integrating all of these into a literacy program is key. Teachers must provide endless and ongoing opportunities for their student to read, write, listen, and speak.
There are many components that make up literacy. In order to effectively teach students these components the teacher must model the concept for the students. As teachers, we cant expect or assume that the student already knows what we expect of them. Modeling gives students a basis of what to go by. Modeling is the first and most important step in order for the students to gain mastery of a concept. A teacher must also undergo guided practice with the students. A teacher should always provide as much guided practice that is needed. Students should never move on to independent practice until it is evident that they are ready. For example, I was teaching a guided reading lesson in my EDU 218 classroom, in which my peers were posing as students. The lesson involved the students to complete a story map on a book that they read. Although I knew that the students would be slightly familiar with a story map I still modeled the use of it for them. I modeled the use of the story map based on a book that I knew the students were familiar with. So when the students set out to complete the story map on their own they could recall and look back to the story map that I had modeled for them. It is also important to note that not all students grasp the material at the same time. One student could be ready for independent practice, as another may still need a vast amount of guided practice. There is no need to caution if students are not at the same level, unless of course if there is a real developmental delay.
Literature is a key component when speaking of literacy. Teachers need to provide students with endless amounts of practice experiences in reading to build their fluency rate. This should be done with different genres of texts and different levels. Reading a wide variety of literature help children develop rich vocabularies.
Phonemic Awareness is very important part of literacy. Phonemic awareness includes sounds of a word, the breakdown of words into sounds. It includes rhyming and alliteration, isolation, counting words in sentences, syllables and phonemes, blending words, segmenting, and manipulating.
Phonics instruction is also an important part of literacy. Phonics involves understanding the relationship between letters and sounds. Phonics is for the purpose of learning to read and spell.
Comprehension is also an important factor when speaking of literacy. Students should be taught the many strategies that will help them with comprehension and word recognition. In my experience in a first grade classroom I used many of these strategies. Within my lessons I included the activation of prior knowledge to construct meaning, the use of context clues in a sentence, pictures clues, predicting, and drawing inferences about ideas or characters in the text. I always made sure that I modeled the strategy for the student before they set of to do it.
Components of My Literacy Program
The components of my literacy program will work together. I will incorporate shared reading and writing, guided reading and writing, independent reading and writing, read alouds and write alouds, and cooperative reading and writing within my classroom.
Motivation will be key for my literacy program. I know that if the students are highly motivated then they will learn more readily. I will build motivation in my classroom by having a positive, warm learning environment. I will have a variety of literature of different genres and of different levels within my classroom. I will also have a variety of areas and centers for the students to participate in.
I will design my lesson in such a way that each child can actively participate in the learning process. I believe in positive reinforcement rather than negative feedback. I believe that students need to hear a great amount of positive reinforcement. For every area of development that I need to address with a student I will make sure that I have at least two positives to go along with it. This will not bring a child down.
Another important part of my literacy program will be communication with home. I will send home newsletters and have school meetings where the parents are invited to attend. I will always keep the parents/guardians informed on everything we are doing in class. I will send home praise notes rather than just negative notes on students.
In my classroom I will have a specific outline as to what a literacy lesson will look like. Each lesson will focus on reading, writing, speaking, and listening. I will have a set behavior management plan that will be followed at all times. I will always introduce a lesson by activating prior knowledge, motivating the student, and by stating the objectives. I will always model for the students what it is that they are expected to do. The students will always undergo guided practice before they set off on their own to do something. Then when I am sure that the students understand I will have them independently practice. Once the concept is mastered I will assess each student to be sure that they can apply what they have learned.
When my students pick up a