Comprehensive+Literacy+Classroom

=After reading Chapter one of Ellery, please add to this list of how you support a comprehensive literacy classroom in your setting.=

//Rachel Roberge -// My ninth and tenth grade science classes represent a comprehensive literacy classroom because during instruction I use strategies such as teacher talk and scaffolding to support the learning of the students in the classroom.

// Courtney Cooper - // As a kindergarten teacher, literacy is an exciting part of our curriculum. I often start units of study or discussions with a KWL chart. We talk about what we know about a given subject, what we want to know, what we've learned, and sometimes, what we still want to know at the end of the unit. It allows for discussion and critical analysis of our learning. Furthermore, it clearly outlines our goals and the reason for taking part in each unit of study.

// Kara Harniman Livingston //- As a middle school teacher, I focus on my content (social studies) in planning reading lessons. I strive to use text that is engaging, challenging and relevant to the content we are studying. I agree with Ellery when she asserts that the ultimate goal of an educator is to make learning real and relevant for the students. Practical applications keep students actively involved in lessons and encourage them to use before, during and after reading strategies when working on a lesson. I think I further facilitate a comprehensive literacy classroom by encouraging discussion about critical texts during a lesson.

Monica Bueno - English as a Second Language makes use of multiple assessments to place students in a classroom that provides cross-curricular instruction with the goal of developing literacy in English language learners.

Erin Haemker - 9th & 12th grade English As I was reading chapter one of Ellery I found that there was all ready a lot I was doing in my classes to support a comprehensive literacy classroom (which is good since they are English/Language Arts classes). The one aspect that I will write my sentence on is "teacher talk" I use this often because I find it really gives the students a clear expectation of not only why you are having them do something but how you want it done. I often use "teacher talk" with my 12th graders when we are starting a new piece. I will read aloud the first page and talk them through the annotation that I would make as I read. It has really helped them learn why we use annotations and how to format them.

Laura Chianese - 7th grade special education teacher In our district, the administration is very big on Bloom's Taxonomy. For each lesson we have to have our objective stated in a spot known to the students. A quote from the Ellery text reminded me of the purpose of doing this for the students - "Effective learners can describe what they are learning, no just what they are doing... The are able to make conscious choices about what they need to do to learn the standards, and they are able to effectively apply strategies to achieve a level of success." (p. 9) This shows that students need to be aware of what they are learning and that they benefit from knowing what is coming up.


 * __Alicia Chambers__** - //Secondary English Teacher//: In a sentence, how I support a comprehensive literacy classroom...

My English III curriculum is built around thematic units that provide differentiated learning opportunities where students connect American literature with not only the cultural time frame in which it was created, but also the contemporary world and experiences students find relatable.

When working with my small groups of special education students, I incorporate a lot of "teacher talk" helping the students "process and think strategically" following reading (Ellery, 2009, p. 19.)
 * Courtney Bishop - 3rd and 4th grade special education **

Ashley Patnaude - elementary instructor Teaching in an enrichment environment can make it challenging to plan a comprehensive literacy environment since we have only ten one-hour sessions with our small groups. In order to best meet the needs of my students, I always begin with an **assessment** to gauge understanding, and then utilize content **standards** to drive my **instruction**. As Ellery states, "These three essentials are the infrastructure that gives educators a sound foundation on which to build comprehensive literacy teaching." (p. 7)

Marcy Roberts -ESL/middle school At the beginning of each nine weeks, I assess my students using a spelling inventory in the __Words Their Way Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction__ in order to individualize phonics instruction for my students.

Dawn Belden-- I believe the Module one instructions said one sentence..so I hope that is correct. I am currently a substitute teacher and so therefore, I will be responding based on my long term position that I last held. While teaching ninth grade English, I successfully implemented weekly student conferencing "check ins" and strived to provide timely, individualized feedback and response to each student in order to accurately inform, encourage and support their learning.

Tracey - I am not currently teaching in a classroom, so I will focus mostly on how I have supported comprehensive literacy in the past. When I student taught at the fifth grade level I focused on using a balanced literacy approach. I used a variety of trade books as well as the mandated reading text. I used trade books for literature circles, which was one of the best ways to directly teach the big five components. I pulled words out of the chapters for vocabulary teaching, and we did word study around those words. We practiced fluency and I reminded students about phonics generalizations that they missed. There was a very big comprehension component in the literature circles, as this was the main focus of small group discussion. In addition to the trade book circles, we did complete workbook pages, but I feel that this was much less authentic. When I was a long term sub for Kindergarten, my approach to a comprehensive literacy classroom looked different of course. The classroom was a print rich environment. There was an amazing classroom library for students to access. Letter sound correspondence was reviewed daily, as were sight words. Students had stations that they visited daily to practice phonics, and had journals that they wrote in for more practice. I did a lot of modeling of both fluency and comprehension with interactive read-alouds.

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Tammy-- Reading chapter 1 of the Ellery text made me realize that I do a lot of work with vocabulary and comprehension at the high school level. On a daily basis, I do try to start with a K-W-L model of thinking for the students to think about what we already know or have learned and what we still need to find out. I also break my class up into stages of before reading, during reading, and after reading. While I use elements mentioned in the text such as anticipation guides, highlighting, and mapping, I am eager to look further into some of the other strategies the text mentions and see how Ellery offers suggestions to work with those things that I already do. I also do try to use a variety of techniques that figure 6.2 (pg. 23) suggests with "gradual release of responsibility". While I have never thought of it in this way, I would love to make that chart bigger to give the students a visual of the process as well as remind myself of the best way to approach reading in my classroom sometimes. =====

Julie - The K to 6 teachers I work with are moving towards having a comprehensive literacy classroom with the implementation of a 100 minute literacy block, the use of the Ontario Ministry of Education curriculum standards, the incorporation of the Daily 5 framework (which is really a version of the gradual release of responsibility), and the completion of both Board level assessments and classroom level assessments in reading and writing; however, we are slow to integrate explicit literacy instruction in all content areas.

Caroline - Within my classroom I work hard to support comprehensive literacy. One way in which I implement this is through a balanced literacy approach, hosting both reader's and writer's workshop on a regular basis. Additionally, I model my class structure on something similar to Table 11 in Chapter One. This model finds me conducting read and think-alouds, and modeling both reading and writing skills. Within my classroom students work in small groups, independently, and one-on-one with me in a conference setting. I find that a gradual release of responsibility model helps to eventually create more confident, independent learners. One area I would love to address would be the amount of time I have for literacy; while our elementary schools have 90 minute literacy blocks, I still have to make do with 50 minutes.

Darryl- As I have read more about differentiation, RTI, and explicit teaching, I have found that this knowledge has naturally lead to a comprehensive literacy classroom of my own. It just makes sense! Currently, I use assessment to guide what my students need. This is done formally and informally. This year I have made more of an effort to address our classroom goals with my students, so they are not only invested in their learning, but understand //why// they are learning it! I have incorporated guided reading, guided and modeled writing and fluency activities regularly into my special education classroom. I am also fortunate to be able to support my students in the regular education setting--where students starting doing literacy centers this year--this was new for the ELA teacher and very exciting for me and the kids!!

//Maureen Cooper//
I am so happy I finally figured this Wiki out. I was trying to log in under my username from my school. Silly me. Now I can post on the reading.

Chapter 1 from Ellery...I am very familiar with everything she talked about with the Comprehensive Literacy Classroom. Our school district started a PLC group on Customized Learning so I have been doing a lot with the Common Core standards and aligning them with our **Curriculum**. I loved reading about looking at the "whole child". I am constantly interviewing or surveying the students to see what interests them. Their answers help guide what books I choose for small grouping and sometimes how I will approach teaching a new unit. Our school district uses several of the **Assessments** that Ellery mentioned. I feel up to date with them. Instruction is the most important part of what I do as a teacher. I love the set up of my classroom. I use several mini lessons through out the day and then send the students off to stations to practice their skills!

I do have 120 minutes of Literacy **Instruction** but they are broken up into 4...30 minute blocks. I find the first graders do much better at staying on task if I change it up so often. The four different blocks are their Daily 5 Independent Work Stations...Read to Self/Read to Someone, Listening to Reading, Work on Words and Work on Writing.

I have added mp3 players to Listening to reading along with cassette players, and a cd player

The students use the Smartboard to Work on Words

I added 2... I pads into the classroom to help with Listening to Reading and Work on Words.

Kate Dusel: Grade 8 English/Language Arts I think on the module 1 page it said just one sentence: So here it goes: My school has an intervention period called Targeted Assistance; the purpose of this class period is to meet students' literacy and or numeracy needs. Only students who are 2-3 years below grade level participate in this class and for literacy it is co-taught by a team of a reading teacher, and language arts teacher, and a social studies teacher. The student to teacher ratio is 3:1. (Oops... that was 3 sentences!).

Ida Beal~ Grade 2 teacher I am also going to try to do this in one sentence but I am not sure how successful I will be! I believe I have a literacy classroom where instruction is formed by individual needs, where students are asked to engage in metacognitive thinking and explain and lastly integrating content areas whenever possible. (I feel like I do so much more but I am sticking to one sentence) :)

Liza Gonzalez: Spanish Teacher 7-12 As a Language Other Than English (LOTE) teacher, I am able to incorporate multi-modal texts in order to incorporate cross-curriculum instruction and to assess the students in reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Jan Cotton: English III and English IV high school Since I teach English III and English IV in high school literacy centers do not work well in my room, but I do use the I-We-You scaffolding to assist in learning new ways to comprehend new material. For example, a reading assignment in poetry such as a sonnet. I would read the sonnet aloud to the class. Then to get to the meaning I would talk to myself and the class asking questions such as, what did I think when I read this line? What was the author thinking and what did he want me to see? Let me read it again; to the class: what do you think the author wanted us to see here? This would continue until we finished each line. Finally, the pairs would work their way through a sonnet on their own and give their interpretation to the rest of the class. Eventaully each student would do the same thing with a sonnet from the choice list.