Literacy Reading and Writing Instruction

What is Balanced Literacy?

Learning language: ‘doing language through talking, listening, reading, writing, viewing

Learning about language: exploring how language functions and the conventions used to communicate

Learning through language: using reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing as tools to explore concepts and ideas, and to learn about and critique our world

Beliefs about…

Learners & learning

Effective teaching practices

Your own knowledge and skills

Approaches to literacy instruction

Basal reading programs

Literature focus units

Literature circles/book clubs

Reading and writing workshop

Four Blocks

Balanced Literacy Program

Daily Five

  As an intern, how will you prioritize these principles of effective instruction?

• Understand how children learn
• Support students’ use of the cueing systems
• Create a community of learners
• Adopt a balanced approach to instruction
• Scaffold students’ reading and writing
• Organize for literacy instruction
• Link instruction and assessment
• Become partners with parents

When students are treated as competent they are likely to demonstrate competence  

With instructional scaffolding, students move from what they know to what they need to know 

Students’ real-life experiences are legiti-mized as they become part of the ‘official curriculum’ 

The focus of the classroom must be instructional 

Real education is about extending students’ thinking and abilities 

Involves in-depth knowledge of both the students and the subject matter

Reader Response Perspective	Critical Perspective	Interactive Perspective	Social Action Perspective
Major Focus: Reading Literature	Major Focus: Teaching Literature	Major Focus: Teaching Reading Skills & Strategies	Major Focus: Taking a critical stance toward literature and teaching for social justice
Reading viewed as transaction with text	Reading viewed as acquisition of literary knowledge	Reading viewed as developing reader and text factors	Reading viewed as a political act
Encourages engagement, response, connections	Emphasizes text factors (literary elements, genre, etc.)	Emphasizes skills & strategies for making meaning	Emphasizes questioning, taking action