Writing Posters

I found this on Pinterest. It's a great reminder for younger students to remember what they need to focus on in their own personal writing. Using sticky notes allows you to move the students' names when they have mastered one goal and may need to move on to another goal.


Here is another poster I love about why writers write. This is wonderful to have in the classroom in order to remind students about what they can write about. They can write about expressing thoughts, sharing experiences, communicating, telling about important events, sharing feelings, wanting something, asking questings, teaching, and persuading.

Writer's Workshop

I envision writer's workshop in a very similar way to reader's workshop. If a child does not like to read, chances are he/she will not like to write as well. I would try to create mini-lessons in my writer's workshop that tailor to various needs students have when it comes to writing. My goal as a teacher would be to show students that they can overcome their obstacles in writing. I don't want to have my students give up because they can't write a particular way. With their journals, I hope to see improvement in content, fluency, and creativity. I want to stress to them that no one is a great writer overnight, it takes time and effort to become what one feels is a great writer. Conferencing will be used as a way to focus on each individual and their personal improvements for writinig. I would want my students to feel special knowing that time is being put aside for them showing that someone cares about what they write about.

Collaborative Learning

I believe collaborative learning does support literacy because two or more students working together have different prior knowledge and experiences that can help the other students.. For example, two students are working on summarizing a story, one student has never had anyone read to him/her at home or ask questions about stories before. The other student has parents who would ask him/her to tell them what was the story they just read about. This student would be able to help the other student in strategies he/she learned about summarizing a story. Having students simply work alone does not take into factor that not every student has had experience with literacy before entering school or the classroom. Collaborative learning allows students to teach each other which may help them retain the information better since it is coming from a peer.

Reader's Workshop

I envision reader's workshop as a goal in my classroom for the whole year to get students to comprehend what they are reading better. This can be done through a series of mini lessons, conferencing, and journaling. Each mini lesson would consist of a skill that is used to better understand text, with an introduction to a skill, the students will work independently from there on and be assessed on their understand of the skill and their master of the skill through meeting with the students at least once a week about their reading and the skill and by reading their journal entries that are assigned. This gives the teacher the ability to check with each individual and see what are the next steps to take with him or her.The mini lessons must be quick and interesting. I see mini lessons as being just an introduction to a skill that will go into more detail through the journaling and conferencing. The introduction must keep the students' attention in order for them to work independently on their own in the future.

Online Stories

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/short-stories

Here is a website that I found a few years ago while looking for something to do with my little cousins. They love watching and listening to these stories over and over again. There is Little Red Riding Hood and Jack & the Beanstalk that were some of their favorites. I thought this was a great way for toddlers and preschoolers to see stories come to life. On the read and write tab, children can do worksheets by a topic like aliens or learn about the word of the week. This website can be used in a PreK-1 classroom as a center option. The children can go on the computer and listen to some stories. To make sure the students comprehended the story, you could have them tell you what the story was all about. For example, there is a story about how Anansi the Spider got long legs. If a student listens to that story, you can ask how did Anansi actually get long legs. I feel like this website is a great tool for a classroom trying to show students how stories can come to life and enhance vocabulary and comprehension on many topics.

Language Arts Memory

Throughout elementary school I had a reading textbook per grade along with a workbook full of worksheets that went along with the stories. Those worksheets were either grammar based on the story we were reading or comprehension worksheets. That is all I remember. I don't remember specific teachings my teachers taught to actually comprehend what we were reading. We did a lot of SSR too. I also remember going to the Title 1 reading instructor yet in second grade but I did not understand why. As I got older I started to read more chapter books on my own and in middle school I began to hate reading class because I  hated the fact that we had to write papers and answer questions about the books we were reading. If we were having a quiz on a chapter and I got the answer wrong I would get mad because I felt that reading was not about assignments. That these authors did not write these books in order for students to anaylze them like we were doing. If I got an answer wrong I would eventually correct my mistake as I continued reading the book. Part of reading to me is thinking one way about a book, realizing that the book means something completely different and going back yourself to the previous pages and comphrend it on your own. If I said the wrong answer as to what some character did, I would eventually get to part of the book where it contradicts what I thought and I would self-check to make sure it made sense. I would eventually find out what the character really did and I hated that I had to take a quiz to tell me I was wrong in the first place.