Best Literacy Practices
By Matt Benoliel
50/50 Principle
Practice
makes perfect. Students need to spend
more time reading and writing on their own.
If the teacher is doing all of the reading, the teacher is the only one
whose reading aptitude is improving.
Give students more opportunities to read silently, and to read aloud to each
other in small groups or in pairs. On
any given day, in any given class, the ratio of reading/writing to all other
activities should be as close to 50/50 as possible.
What to Read
Texts must
be engaging and appropriate to the student’s reading level. Most of the independent or paired reading
should be done on or slightly above the student’s lexile level. Additionally, the teacher should model reading
strategies for higher level texts and academic texts.
Tasks/Assignments
Should focus
on student engagement. Allow for student choice, remembering that increased
reading and writing time is the goal.
Teacher should be aware of the student’s interests and provide texts
that will increase engagement whenever possible.
Instruction
Instruction in
a Language Arts or Intensive Reading Class should include as much teacher
modeling as possible. Reading
strategies, test-taking strategies, writing strategies can all be modeled using
read aloud/think aloud strategies or, in the case of modeling writing, a smart
board or document camera. The primary
goal is for the teacher to demonstrate the thought process that goes on during
reading and writing activities.
The students
will benefit from hearing your thoughts as you read. When you model writing by writing in front of
the students, the students will see competent writing as an achievable
goal.
Tests/ Feedback
Feedback is
more important than tests. Feedback is more important than tests. Feedback is
more important than tests.
Appropriate
feedback will include the learning goal, and what the student still needs to
achieve the learning goal. Make sure
that each student has received appropriate feedback on work before the big
test.
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