Literacy

Strategy Instruction - Readers use strategies to help them comprehend what they read. These are the strategies that we will focus on this year:

1. Making Connections - (text to text, text to self, and text to world) Readers pay more attention when they relate to the text. Readers naturally bring their prior knowledge and experience to reading, but they comprehend better when they think about the connections they make between the text, their lives and the larger world.

2. Asking Questions - Questioning is the strategy that keeps readers engaged. When readers ask questions, they clarify understanding and make meaning. Asking questions is at the heart of thoughtful reading.

3. Visualizing - Active readers create visual images in their minds based on words they read in text. The pictures they create enhance their understanding.

4. Drawing Inferences - Infererring is a the intersection of taking what is known, garnering clues from the text, and thinking ahead to make judgement, discern a theme, or speculate about what is to come.

5. Determining Important Ideas - Thoughtful readers grasp essential ideas and important information when reading. Readers must differentiate between less important ideas and key ideas that are central to the meaning.

6. Synthesizing Information - Synthesizing involves combining new information with existing knowledge to form an original idea or interpretation. Reviewing, sorting, and sifting important information can lead to new insights that change the way readers think.

7. Repair Understanding - If confusion disrupts meaning, readers need to stop and clarify their understanding. Readers may use a variety of strategies to "fix up" comprehension when meaning goes awry.

Fluency: We will focus on attending to punctuation, using expression / inflection, using appropriate phrasing, reading smoothly, and maintaining appropriate pace while reading.

Wilson Fundations

Wilson Fundations for K-3 is a phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling program for the general education classroom. Fundations is based upon the Wilson Reading System® principles and serves as a prevention program to help reduce reading and spelling failure.

Rather than completely replace core curriculum, Fundations provides the research-validated strategies that complement installed programs to meet federal standards and serve the needs of all children.

Teachers incorporate a daily Fundations lesson into their language arts classroom instruction. Fundations lessons focus on carefully sequenced skills that include print knowledge, alphabet awareness, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, decoding, vocabulary, fluency, and spelling. Critical thinking, speaking and listening skills are practiced during Storytime activities.