General Components, Statements, & Best Practices of a Balanced Literacy Classroom For

General Components, Statements, & Best Practices of a Balanced Literacy Classroom for Standards Based Instruction Reading instruction includes: Explicit instruction in the areas of: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Fluency, Comprehension Explicit instruction components are: Direct Explanation, Modeling, Guided Practice, Application www.readingrocket.org/article/3479 www.readingquest.org/strat/ This site is great for explaining a variety of graphic organizers, techniques, & strategies! Principles of best practice learning: Learning should be student centered: experiential, holistic, authentic, & challenging Learning should be cognitive: developmental, constructivist, expressive, & reflective. Learning should be social: collaborative & democratic. –from Best Practices: Today’s Standards for Teaching & Learning in America’s School 3rd Edition by Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde Best practice in teaching reading: Reading is getting meaning from print – comprehension. Reading is thinking. Hearing books read aloud is important in learning to read. Reading is the best way to learn to read. Reading should allow many opportunities to interact with print. Learning to read is more successful in risk taking classrooms. Phonic is explicitly taught in high involvement activities – not worksheets. Reading should be content area based with units of study with multiple sources of print. Basal readers are not enough. Providing choice encourages reading. Children need easy books. These are needed to build fluency, comprehension, and reading power. Teacher need to model reading. Teacher helps children see reading as a useful tool. Teachers should name and teach reading strategies explicitly. Teachers need to support the child before, during, & after reading. Children should have opportunities to reflect/talk about what they have read. Teachers have students spend less time doing workbooks and worksheets. Teachers know that writing promotes the ability in reading and needs to be done often at all grade levels. Assessments for reading should be for comprehension and application and match classroom practices. –from Best Practices: Today’s Standards for Teaching & Learning in America’s School 3rd Edition by Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde