What is Balanced Literacy?

Balanced Literacy is a true balancing act, one that is designed to keep all aspects of emergent literacy in balance. Across our K-4 literacy curriculum, our teachers maintain a balance of:

• Print work, comprehension and fluency in reading

• Structure, development and language conventions in writing

• Nonfiction and fiction texts

• Narrative, opinion and information writing genres

• Reading to students, reading with students and students reading by themselves

• Part to whole (How does one PART of literacy fit into the WHOLE?)

• Teacher scaffolding and student independence in a way that in purposeful and strategic

What does this look like for students?

Reader's and Writer's Workshop are the side posts of our literacy instruction. They provide the delivery of our grade level curriculum through mini lessons and provide time for independent practice with teacher coaching and support. But it’s the other components of balanced literacy that create the link between teacher instruction and student independence. All of these components together, in a balance that works best for our students, is what ensures that students will grow into fluency, meaning-making readers and purposeful, strategic writers.

What happens when literacy is "out of balance"?

All aspects of literacy hold equal importance. However, when there is an overemphasis on phonics, decoding and print work, especially out of the context of connected text, students often see decoding as an isolated activity and come to see reading as synonymous with decoding, rather than a meaning-making activity. Conversely, if we focus on comprehension only, overemphasizing reading strategies such as using picture clues and guessing unknown words, students will struggle to decode tricky words when they move on to books with less picture support. The key is a balance of direct phonics instruction, comprehension strategies and, most critically, teachers building a bridge between these two components of reading.