Our literacy program is designed to meet the components of balanced literacy. This means we dedicate time to reading, writing, speaking, and listening while focusing on comprehension, phonics, and vocabulary skills and strategies. Students will be working with texts at their independent reading level, their instructional reading level, and their grade level.
The work we do in both phonics and vocabulary is text-dependent. In addition to our text-dependent vocabulary, students will be learning the skills and strategies necessary to decode and determine the meaning of unfamiliar words that they may encounter in any given text.
Students will participate in close reading. This means that students will read, annotate, reread, and respond to each text. This process helps students fully comprehend and engage in complex texts.
Writing projects will relate to their reading and will often require students to integrate and cite information from the texts we read in class. Students will notice that the more closely they read, annotate, and analyze the texts, the easier their writing projects will become.
The skills and strategies that are taught each unit spiral. This means that students will revisit them several times throughout the year. This also means that not all students will master each skill the first time around. That is not only okay, but expected! Students will receive repeated exposure and guided practice so that they can achieve mastery by the end of the fourth grade year.
Whole Class Instruction using the Gradual Release Model
"I do" - Teacher Modeling
"We do" - Guided Practice
"You do" - Independent Practice
Read Alouds
Center Work
Small Group Instruction
Guided Reading
Strategy Groups
One-to-One Reading Conferences
