READING

Balanced Literacy:

The structure of Reading Workshop, which takes place daily in kindergarten through fifth grade, includes a mini-lesson (brief whole class teacher-directed instruction which may be based on a read aloud or shared reading); a time when children are reading (independently, with partners, in reading centers, in book clubs or in guided reading groups) while teachers are conferring or meeting with small groups; and a shared time.

Classroom libraries are filled with a variety of books organized in bins on shelves by topic, author, series and by level of difficulty.  Teachers use a variety of tools to assess the abilities and needs of individual children throughout the course of workshop teaching. 

Writing:

The structure of Writer’s Workshop, which also takes place daily in grades kindergarten through fifth, includes a mini-lesson; a time when children are writing and the teacher is conferring; and a shared time. From kindergarten through second grade, children keep their writing in folders. Starting in third grade, children keep writer’s notebook.

LLI is a supplemental reading intervention program. LLI, Leveled Literacy Intervention, is the research-based reading intervention curriculum taught for students in grades 1 through 5 who need extra support to become proficient, grade-level readers. In a small group setting, LLI provides 30 minutes of instruction that is in addition to the core reading/language arts program. The lesson plan provides explicit, direct instruction in a lesson plan that encourages rereading for fluency, reading new books, working with words and writing. LLI develops reading fluency within a meaning based context. 

The Importance of Read Alouds for Children of All Ages

* Reading aloud gives children background knowledge, which helps them make sense of what they see, hear, and read.  The more adults read aloud to children, the larger their vocabularies will grow and the more they will know about the world and their place in it. 

*  Reading aloud lets parents and teachers be role models for reading.  When children see adults excited about reading, they will catch their enthusiasm. 

* Reading aloud can introduce books and types of literature- poetry, short stories, biographies- children might not discover on their own. 

* Reading aloud introduces the language of books, which differs from language heard in daily conversations, on television, and in movies.  Book language is more descriptive and uses more formal grammatical structures. 

*  Reading aloud lets children use their imaginations to explore people, places, times, and events beyond their own experiences.   

* Reading aloud gives children and adults something to talk about.  Talking supports the development of reading and writing skills.   

*  Reading aloud supports the development of thinking skills as children and adults discuss books, articles and other texts as they read together. 

Reading Recovery is a highly effective short-term intervention of one-to-one tutoring for first graders. Individual students receive a half-hour lesson each school day for 12 to 20 weeks with a Reading Recovery teacher.

The Wilson Reading System directly and systematically teaches students how to fluently and accurately decode. It is unlike traditional phonics programs in that instruction is very interactive and multisensory. Students learn to encode (spell) as they learn to decode.