Reading and Language Arts
Learning to read and to write is a process! Children have individual learning preferences an therefore move through this process uniquely and at different rates. The most important role of the classroom teacher is to frequently assess each child's reading level (DRA), taking into account the child's strengths and weaknesses in the areas of fluency, decoding, and comprehension. Teaching and modeling many phonetic and comprehension strategies is essential for successful reading and writing instruction. Some children will be more comfortable with certain strategies than others. Strategies will be sent home throughout the year as they are introduced for added practice. I cannot stress the importance of this practice enough!
ALWAYS REMEMBER: TO BE A GOOD READER, YOU NEED TO READ A LOT!
Therefore, my classroom is set up for children to read, read, and read some more!
Whole Group Instruction
Skills, spelling and literature from our basal reading program are taught in a whole group setting.
Regardless of your child's DRA level, all first graders must receive this instruction to ensure that there are no gaps in specific skill areas.
Small Group Guided Reading
Children are grouped by reading levels and meet with me in a small group. Individual needs are best met with this teaching model. Children respond to literature through a "response journal", thus connecting reading and writing. Reading is the process of decoding. Writing is the opposite process of encoding. Children often master skills more quickly when reading and writing are taught simultaneously. During every guided reading meeting, I assess each child's use of strategies, fluency, and reading level with a running record assessment. This allows me to use flexible grouping and re-group if necessary. The Reading Train takes place at the end of each guided reading session. Children line their chairs in a row, each becoming a "train car". The story is read orally by all children in unison. Children may be on different pages. I move my chair from "train car" to "train car" to assess each reader with running records and documented comments.
Individual Reading
Individualized reading fosters independence and builds confidence. An anchor chart created by our class helps children know what each step of this process should look like. The sequence of steps are listed below.
#1 Read to Self
Children choose a book from a bin labeled with their individual DRA level. These numbers are "magic" numbers. Children do not know these numbers are reading levels. They find a cozy spot in the classroom to read to themselves.
#2 Read to Someone
There are times when I want the child to read to me. They are very proud to sit quietly with my individual attention. This is a very special time of bonding between teacher and student. Other times children are encouraged to read to a partner. They are taught to take this very seriously. After reading to self, the reader is better able to demonstrate fluency, expression, and comprehension. The partner's job is to be a "friend helper" encouraging and helping the reader if needed. The partner's responsibility is to report to me about the reader's progress. Children tend to be quite respectful and honest when reporting to me.
#3 Writing
The next step is to respond to the story through writing. At the beginning of the year, children simply re-tell the beginning, middle, and end of the story with illustrations and simple sentences. Throughout the year the writing responses change and may include the use of graphic organizers, reporting sequence of both fiction and non-fiction literature, re-reading for facts and information, making inferences, predicting, paragraph writing, discussion of characters and setting, and many other forms of response depending on individual needs.
#4 Listen to Reading
Children need excellent modeling by listening to good readers. I read wonderful literature to my class every day. Research indicates that children who are read to by an adult at a reading level approximately 1-2 years above the child's grade level, have better vocabulary and comprehension. During our two hour language arts block, children listen to reading on computer programs, and books on tape from our reading program.
#5 Word Work
Examples of word work are listed below..
-Reading / Writing the Room-
-Centers that allow children to manipulate letters to explore word families, initial/final consonant sounds, and short/long vowel patterns-
-Making Words phonetic program-
-Playing Student-Teacher with sight words-
-Word scrambles and searches-
-Hunting for "chunks" in words-
-Dolch word Bingo-
-Games for contractions , compound words, etc.-
-Word shapes-
-Rainbow words-
Learning to read and to write is a process! Children have individual learning preferences an therefore move through this process uniquely and at different rates. The most important role of the classroom teacher is to frequently assess each child's reading level (DRA), taking into account the child's strengths and weaknesses in the areas of fluency, decoding, and comprehension. Teaching and modeling many phonetic and comprehension strategies is essential for successful reading and writing instruction. Some children will be more comfortable with certain strategies than others. Strategies will be sent home throughout the year as they are introduced for added practice. I cannot stress the importance of this practice enough!
ALWAYS REMEMBER: TO BE A GOOD READER, YOU NEED TO READ A LOT!
Therefore, my classroom is set up for children to read, read, and read some more!
Whole Group Instruction
Skills, spelling and literature from our basal reading program are taught in a whole group setting.
Regardless of your child's DRA level, all first graders must receive this instruction to ensure that there are no gaps in specific skill areas.
Small Group Guided Reading
Children are grouped by reading levels and meet with me in a small group. Individual needs are best met with this teaching model. Children respond to literature through a "response journal", thus connecting reading and writing. Reading is the process of decoding. Writing is the opposite process of encoding. Children often master skills more quickly when reading and writing are taught simultaneously. During every guided reading meeting, I assess each child's use of strategies, fluency, and reading level with a running record assessment. This allows me to use flexible grouping and re-group if necessary. The Reading Train takes place at the end of each guided reading session. Children line their chairs in a row, each becoming a "train car". The story is read orally by all children in unison. Children may be on different pages. I move my chair from "train car" to "train car" to assess each reader with running records and documented comments.
Individual Reading
Individualized reading fosters independence and builds confidence. An anchor chart created by our class helps children know what each step of this process should look like. The sequence of steps are listed below.
#1 Read to Self
Children choose a book from a bin labeled with their individual DRA level. These numbers are "magic" numbers. Children do not know these numbers are reading levels. They find a cozy spot in the classroom to read to themselves.
#2 Read to Someone
There are times when I want the child to read to me. They are very proud to sit quietly with my individual attention. This is a very special time of bonding between teacher and student. Other times children are encouraged to read to a partner. They are taught to take this very seriously. After reading to self, the reader is better able to demonstrate fluency, expression, and comprehension. The partner's job is to be a "friend helper" encouraging and helping the reader if needed. The partner's responsibility is to report to me about the reader's progress. Children tend to be quite respectful and honest when reporting to me.
#3 Writing
The next step is to respond to the story through writing. At the beginning of the year, children simply re-tell the beginning, middle, and end of the story with illustrations and simple sentences. Throughout the year the writing responses change and may include the use of graphic organizers, reporting sequence of both fiction and non-fiction literature, re-reading for facts and information, making inferences, predicting, paragraph writing, discussion of characters and setting, and many other forms of response depending on individual needs.
#4 Listen to Reading
Children need excellent modeling by listening to good readers. I read wonderful literature to my class every day. Research indicates that children who are read to by an adult at a reading level approximately 1-2 years above the child's grade level, have better vocabulary and comprehension. During our two hour language arts block, children listen to reading on computer programs, and books on tape from our reading program.
#5 Word Work
Examples of word work are listed below..
-Reading / Writing the Room-
-Centers that allow children to manipulate letters to explore word families, initial/final consonant sounds, and short/long vowel patterns-
-Making Words phonetic program-
-Playing Student-Teacher with sight words-
-Word scrambles and searches-
-Hunting for "chunks" in words-
-Dolch word Bingo-
-Games for contractions , compound words, etc.-
-Word shapes-
-Rainbow words-