1. Demonstration of care and commitment

My classroom is full of materials that reflect the diversity inside and outside of my classroom. Being literate means more than being able to understand the words on the page – it means being able to question the ideas and understand the perspective and impact that spoken and represented language has on ourselves and our communities of learning. My classroom purchases are guided by what messages I need to promote, what skills I need my students to use and what will motivate them to grow as learners.

Everyone who walks into – or even just past—my classroom knows that this is a positive place where ideas are accepted and students are valued as part of a team focused on their needs.

2. Support for student learning

The Education for All document, recently published by the Ministry of Education in Ontario, acts as an integral component of my personal philosophy because it emphasizes one key point: access to equitable education is a right and that right applies to all children – not just those who learn in the same way that I learn!

To gauge what will interest my students I use student surveys that ask the students about their reading preferences, experiences and desires. I use standardized testing programs as a method of comparing my observations and personal judgments about student’s reading behaviours.

Differentiated instruction is the basis for my planning. I find out what the strengths of the child are and then use those strengths to help them develop through Word Study, Guided Reading, Independent Reading, Shared Reading and Writing. My practice is firmly rooted in Balanced Literacy.

The texts I choose differ according to the needs of the students. I do not use a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach; instead I use the inventories and hunt through the school library, public library, Scholastic catalogues and my Professional Learning Communities to find what best suits the child. I regularly use non-fiction / expository text from the Social Studies and Science curriculum to teach how to read and use non-fiction text to gain understanding of new ideas.

3. Equitable and respectful treatment

I have been lucky to receive training in assistive technology. Using technology such Google Read and Write, Co Writer and Write Out Loud, Google translate, iPads & Chromebooks, help give students that struggle just that extra bit of independence and has been a fantastic break-through in my classroom. I believe in carefully selecting a program and then having the student use the program to decide if it meets her/his needs.

Promoting choice and access in the classroom is essential to modeling fairness and equity.

4. Growing as individuals and as contributing members of society

Part of motivating students to read and inquire about the world around them is linking what we are doing with what is going on in their world. Emphasizing the use of making connections between the text and themselves, other texts and life lessons is a way of inspiring students to use what they know and to learn something new.

Explicitly teaching questioning as a strategy to focus attention and to help organize information helps me to share responsibility for learning from myself to the students. Through explicit teaching, modeling and student practice of reading strategies I am able to move away from the traditional ‘sage on the stage’ to a facilitator for student-centered learning. A goal of mine is for each of my students to feel confident that they have a secure place in our learning community.

5. Assistance in becoming lifelong learners

Through using a balanced approach to teaching that fills my lessons with croos-curricular activities, I am able to invite multiple perspectives to explore real-world issues. When we explore issues like Free Trade we also explore the impact of Fair Trade and partially subsidized trade options and connect that to our lifestyle choices as consumers affected by media. My students develop their own perspectives!

To find out what my students understand I ask them to reflect on their learning. When investigating a larger idea we question how we can be certain of what we know. We use sticky notes to leave a trail of our thinking processes as we read so that I am able to follow their thought process. I stress that my students have to recognize what works for them and that we need to use our strengths to develop our challenge areas. For example, my students do not put their head down and give up when they come across a word problem in Math, or challenging text in any context because they know there are many strategies they can use to find out what they know. I share my own strategies and encourage problem-solving skills.