LST - Literacy February 28, 2013

Groups ▪ Engagement Group – Caribbean A ▪ Literacy Groups – Boardroom

From the Diary of a Pre-School Teacher My five-year old students are learning to read. Yesterday one of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said, "Look at this! It's a frickin' elephant!" I took a deep breath, and then asked..." What did you call it?" "It's a frickin' elephant! It says so on the picture!" And so it does...

From the Diary of a Pre- School Teacher African Elephant

Reading Framework ▪ Process of Change

Reading Framework ▪ Process of Changes ▪ Next Steps – Continue to build framework

Reading Framework ▪ Process of Changes ▪ Next Steps – Continue to build framework – Provide video exemplars of assessment and instructional strategies – Good programming includes… – Align with Instructional Leadership

Reading Framework Story Time

Reading Framework ▪ Discuss the strategies that you used to translate the text. ▪ Discuss where each strategy fits within the reading framework. ▪ How can we help students better employ these strategies?

Literacy ▪ Data Discussion – Feedback on process of Screening/Level A Assessments – Video link ▪ School Data – Please submit your early data

Literacy Levels ▪ Elementary Group: – Boardroom ▪ Middle/High School Group: – Caribbean B

Middle/High School Literacy

Strategies ▪ Pre- ▪ During ▪ After

Strategies ▪ Traditional Pre- During After

Strategies ▪ Research Pre- During After

Pre-Reading ▪ There are 3 areas that can cause students difficulty when reading a text. Pre-teaching can help. – Background Knowledge – Vocabulary – Text Structure (different than text features)

Background Knowledge ▪ A student’s background knowledge is not wrong…so is their understanding? ▪ Activation of background knowledge increase text comprehension.

Dawn

Getting Ready to Read “What we already know determines to a great extent what we will pay attention to, perceive, learn, remember, and forget” Woolfolk, 1998

Anticipation Guide A series of questions or statements related to the topic or point of view of a particular text. Students read and then agree or disagree with each statement. They then read the text and decide if they still agree or disagree with each statement.

Purpose of Anticipation Guide ▪ Help students to activate prior knowledge and experience and think about ideas that students will be reading about. ▪ Encourage students to make a personal connection with a topic so that they can integrate new knowledge with their background experience and prior knowledge.

Activity

Differentiation ▪ Put students in pairs to complete the anticipation guide if they are having trouble making connections with the theme or topic or if they are having trouble with the language. ▪ Divide the class into small groups of 4 or 5 and ask them to tally and chart their responses before participating in a whole-class discussion. ▪ Read statements aloud.

Sort and Predict ▪ Vocabulary has been selected from a grade 6 geometry unit. ▪ Review the vocabulary. ▪ Place them in the category you feel it fits best in. You have 5 minutes. ▪ Turn to the person on your right and share your answers. Discuss your similarities and differences.

During Reading ▪ They key is to help students think and read at the same time. ▪ “Students should never read without a pen in their hand.” – Irene Heffel

During Reading ▪ Strategies help students make connections, monitor understanding and deepen understanding.

During Reading ▪ Have you ever seen a student (or some adults) highlight notes from a textbook? ▪ Some people use highlighting as a way to pay attention…but it can be overused. ▪ Highlighting should be used as a tool to identify important information.

Highlighting ▪ Look carefully at first and last sentences. ▪ Only necessary words and phrases ▪ Don’t get thrown off by details. They emphasize the main ideas. ▪ Make notes next to highlights (connections) ▪ Cue words – followed by important information ▪ Text features ▪ Surprising Information ▪ No more than one third of a paragraph should be highlighted

Example of Highlighting Good or Needs Improvement?

Activity

After Reading ▪ After reading, strategies are used to help students process ideas and apply knowledge.

Where to go for more… ▪

Back to the Boardroom