LITERACY MATTERS

STRATEGIES EVERY TEACHER CAN USE

BY ROBIN FOGARTY
Presentation by Amy Johnson

METACOGNITION AND LITERACY

Literacy is a robust concept that can be somewhat ambiguous. Aid students to identify a personal definition and person meaning. Ask students to rank their literacy elements

Reading Writing

Speaking
listening

COMPREHENSION: THE PHANTOM SKILL

Active readers are interactive readers. Utilize these strategies to build interactive readers.
Schema

theory (prior knowledge) Asking questions Finding themes Visualizing (also link to inferences) Making inferences (read between the lines) Summarizing

SUPPORT SCHEMA THEORY

Based on the constructivist view of learning, schema theory states that the learner possesses an individually held, personal schema of things in his or her mind. p. 17 Readers find connections between text and self, text and other text, and text and the world as they know it. Use an agree/disagree chart (pg 20) KWL (Know, Want, Learn)

ANALYZE WORDS TO FOSTER FLUENCY

Phonics-based Utilizing phonemics to analyze words and link common sounds etc. (the sound within words). Create a sound book for students to use everyday to build fluency.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING GROUPS

Cooperative learning makes it easier for students to query, seek aid, critique, and share in a small, safe setting. Encourages multiple intelligences Literature circles (discussion leader, wordsmith, reader, actor, illustrator, surveyor) Cooperative tear share assigning responsibility to increase engagement. Vary names and groupings to prevent negative identifications

YOU ARE A READER ATTITUDES

Provide constant and consistent feedback to encourage reading and literacy. Feedback loops (charts for marking reading, new vocab words etc.) Student portfolios (helpful for parents and future/past teachers) Performance learning (larger projects like scenarios, case studies, experiments, inventions etc. etc.)

EARLY INTERVENTION STRATEGIES

How do we intervene successfully? / intervention does not mean teach it louder and slower. One-to-One tutoring, rely on teacher modeling Examining Student Work (Collaborative)

Who has similar students Who has similar assignments Compare insights Create a rubric Examine student samples w/rubric

Reciprocal teaching (prevents word calling with no comprehension)

Summarize: verbal summary of reading Question: questions based on summary Clarify: investigate and revise Predict: what will happen next?

GETTING THE GUARDIANS INVOLVED

Schooling is a 3-legged stool: 1 leg is the teacher, 1 is the student, and 1 is the guardian. Without the guardian, the stool will fall. You dont have to read aloud with your child everyday; just on the days you eat. If a young child can recite eight nursery rhymes by the age of four, he or she will be a top reader by the age of eight.

VOCABULARY AND BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

Students need to develop an extensive vocabulary to read with fluency ABC graffiti Actual word boxes, and play Go Fish Vocabulary logs Little books (foldables and organizers) Word walls Four-fold concept development (pg 62)

TUNE-IN TO TECHNOLOGY
Using practical technology and implied technology in the classroom Email, research, texting, online-programs, blogs, word-processing, spreadsheets, presentations, illustrations etc.

READING IN THE CLASSROOM

Read Aloud Read Along (in tandem) Read Appropriately (when students can count 5 words on a page they do not recognize, then the book is too hard)

Exceptions: Anything by Nathanial Hawthorne

She was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more lady-like, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped.

GUIDED READING ACTIVITIES

BET strategy (base on fact, express possibilities, tender your bet) SQ3R for non-fiction (survey the chapter, question, read by section, recite in your own words, review to validate)

THE JOY OF READING (MY TAKE)

Differentiation is key Small and collaborative groups Do some strategies take away from the reading experience, do they turn reading into a chore? How can we, as educators, imbibe our classrooms as places wherein reading is fun and pleasurable (in addition to necessary and fundamental)