The Literacy Commitment: Reading and Writing in the Real World
A workshop will be designed for reading and writing teachers, administrators, reading specialists. This workshop can be organized in a number of ways depending on the time allotted and the needs of the teachers.
Reading Challenge
Teachers must commit time and energy to literacy for all students to become successful readers and writers. In an examination of the critical components of a balanced literacy program, teachers will learn ways to make it work in the real world of your classroom. Finding the time for reading and writing must be a priority in every school. This is true, not only for emerging readers, but for developing and fluent readers to continue to grow and improve, time for what’s important is a real challenge for educators to face.
- Teaching the Reading Process in Reader’s Workshop
- Using literature to teach the strategies needed to be a “Good” Reader
- Shared Reading
- Guided Reading
- Modeling
- Managing the process of listening to your children read and observing their behaviors as they read
- Real World Reading
- Self-Selected Reading, Silent Sustained Reading
- Structures for Paired Reading, Choral Reading
- Read Aloud and Storytime
- Conferencing
- Using poetry, magazines, and other forms of print
- Using volunteers and student tutors
The Writing Challenge
Teaching writing is very demanding. It takes a great deal of time and dedication to truly teach students to write. Grading, rubrics, expectations, and modeling are all components that need to be dealt with consistently. Making it work for the teacher, using the computer lab for word processing, and organizing your writer’s notebooks will all be discussed.
- Teaching the Writing Process in Writer’s Workshop
- How to develop good writing skills and the strategies needed to pass TAKS writing and be a “Good” Writer, Journal Writing, Letter Writing,
- Writing for variety of purposes and genres
- Tools to help you manage the writing process, know where students are in the process, what they can do, what they need to work on
- Working with Words: Developing decoding and spelling fluency, phonics, and vocabulary using a Literacy-spelling/vocabulary notebook or folder, Word Wall, and many other strategies to increase vocabulary and fluency in writing
Attendees will get practical ideas, activities, and strategies for teaching reading and writing that will fit with many of their existing. Discussions on how to use literature to teach reading and writing strategies as well as other subject areas will be included. Everyone will have the opportunity to examine what they are doing compared to what research says works best. Classroom organization, scheduling, and assessment will be addressed.
