Topic: Daily Lit Bit

In a sense, the classroom is a sheltered environment within a noisy world where everything interferes with high-level intellectual discourse and time for reading and writing. But in these short years students have a chance to live a literate life that expands their empathy, curiosity, and competencies. Literacy is their job.

Running records will inform not only the selection of an appropriate text but the specific emphases to prioritize for your students.

You start with something you can do, like making an easy recipe or paying an easy song on a musical instrument. But after a while, the new task becomes too easy and you seek greater challenges and a higher level of expertise.

You want your students to process a complex text with proficiency and ease. That means that daily reading will be a satisfying and pleasurable experience.

Every text students read provides an opportunity for them to share ideas and get to know other people and places in a meaningful and enjoyable way.

Looking at the structure of words will help students learn how words are related to each other and how they can be changed by adding letters, letter clusters, and larger word parts.

During phonics, spelling, and word study lessons, the teacher presents short, explicit instruction to help children learn about and efficiently use sounds, letters, and words.

A student’s writing about reading represents his thinking about the book he read.

With high teacher support, you can lift students’ understanding of critical concepts that they will eventually learn to apply in independent reading.

Independent reading is placed within a strong instructional frame, through minilessons to help students apply understandings to their own reading and learn how to choose books they can enjoy; reading conferences to support thinking; and group share for further learning and assessment.

It is important to note that learning to read is not a process that stops about the second or third year of school. In fact, readers keep expanding their abilities for the rest of their lives.

Lessons are carefully planned and systematic; but there is always room for moment-to-moment adjustment given student response.

As students develop, they construct and integrate new ways of thinking because you are gently leading them forward.

Through guided reading, teachers can look for behavioral evidence and infer that strategic actions are taking place in the head.

A carefully selected text is a critical element in successful teaching of guided reading.

Precise observation of literacy behaviors is at the heart of effective teaching.

The Literacy Continuum enables teachers to attend to observable literacy behaviors, not simply the words in the book.

The Literacy Continuum is the lighthouse leading students toward being proficient readers.