Mrs. Hupman

We offer a balanced literacy program for students in grades 3-6.

The components of balanced literacy are....

Guided Reading: Students meet in a teacher led group to read a text at their instructional level. The teacher works with the small group of no more than six students to support their reading. Students practice decoding skills and comprehension strategies. They may also write about their books and respond to the text in a variety of way with the guidance of the teacher.

Reading Workshop: Students will put all they've been learning about decoding and comprehension into action as they choose and read books on their independent levels. During this time they may be practicing a reading strategy, writing about their reading, or working on a task or skill that was modeled in a mini-lesson at the beginning of Reading Workshop. During this time, teacher is meeting with small guided reading groups or conferring with individual students while the rest of the class is reading independently.

Read Aloud: During a read aloud, a teacher reads a book, poem, or article to the entire class with an instructional purpose.

Writing: Teachers scaffold their instruction with a continuum of teacher directed lessons that help students demonstrate their ability to use writing skills and strategies to write compositions in various genres, reinforcing how the English language works using various grammar skills. Using the Writer's Workshop model, teachers plan units of study around a genre identifying skills that students need to learn to write effectively. The workshop begins with a brief lesson that provides direct instruction and models what the students will be working on independently. During their independent writing time, the teacher meets with individuals or small groups of students to guide them in the writing process.

Word Study: During this part of the day, the teacher provides direct systematic instruction to build phonological awareness and increase phonics skills. They also help students to use word parts such as prefixes, suffixes, Greek and Latin roots, etc... to decode multi-syllable words and understand word meaning.