Literacy Development in the Classroom
Daily 5 Centers: Independent work and student choice is crucial to literacy development. During Daily 5 Centers, students may choose from five literacy activities: Word Work, Read to Self, Work on Writing, Buddy Read, or Listen to Reading. A variety of books from different genres are available for students to choose from our classroom library during this time. Word Work allows students to study their spelling words in many different ways including several games and hands on activities. These “centers” change throughout the year based on current studies, seasons, and skills.
Literature Circles and Guided Reading Groups: Students work together in small groups to read and discuss literature that fits their reading capabilities and interests. Tough word decoding strategies and reading comprehension skills are discussed and modeled during these small group meetings. As difficulty increases, students may have reading assignments or comprehension projects to complete independently in order to support discussion. These assignments may be completed at home as part of their 20 minutes of daily reading or during Daily 5 time at school.
Read Aloud: Modeling fluent reading is essential as students build vocabulary and work to view themselves as readers. Each day we read aloud from a chapter book, picture book, or student authored selections based on our current studies. This is also a great time to explore genre! Students also have multiple opportunities to practice their read aloud skills through Preschool Mentor Reading, Daily 5, Monthly News, and during Morning Meeting.
Spelling: During class time phonetic spelling, or "Kid Spelling", is encouraged as students work to discover their writer’s voice. As students gain more awareness of the writing process and word patterns, spelling expectations will evolve based on teacher observations. Students have many opportunities to use the room to spell correctly and they practice reference skills using classroom dictionaries, thesaurus, word walls, and other classroom resources.
*Words Their Way is the spelling curriculum we use. This curriculum is not like a traditional spelling program that gives the same list to each student and looks for memorization of individual words. Instead, Words Their Way takes students on a weekly journey through word patterns. Through this spelling program, students learn how words build off of each other. The key with Words Their Way is NOT mastery of spelling words, but familiarity with word patterns and sounds. There is a wide range of spelling development that occurs in 1st and 2nd grade and students have different spelling sorts based on what progressive area of spelling they need to practice. Through this development students solidify skills in consonant and vowel recognition, sound accuracy, spelling patterns, homophones and homographs, exceptions and synonym/antonym use. Please refer to THIS LINK if you would like more information on Words Their Way.
Writers' Workshop: Students spend time during Writers' Workshop whole group brainstorming, buddy discussing, listing, drafting, revising, editing, publishing and reading. This writing practice is guided in expectations, genre and theme. Writing workshop provides students with authentic writing opportunities that engages student inquiry and allows for students to practice voice, mechanics and vocabulary. Many writing pieces the students publish are based on concepts of study while others are whole school projects. For example, we prepare poetry for Author's Cocoa each winter and we write and publish elaborate Partner Books each year which include older or younger Willowwind students as the main characters. Students are encouraged through the year to use writing as a tool. Often they are asked to write a reminder note to their teacher or family. These are authentic writing opportunities which eventually lead us to our more formal pieces.
Handwriting Without Tears: Students in 1st and 2nd grade learn quite quickly that handwriting is separate from writing. While we are focused on improving our form of capital and lowercase letters as well as numbers, we want to maintain focus on writing about ideas, goals and dreams. More information about the Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum can be found at www.hwtears.com. We will use pencils, crayons, and various manipulatives, to practice and improve our gross and fine motor handwriting skills. We are also hoping to implement technology into this practice.