I would say literacy is involved in my placement in multiple ways. The students do literacy in the morning and they learn new spelling words and new definitions and how to use them in a sentence. Once the students lean new words the words get added to their word wall. They also encounter literacy during centers. They have different worksheets that forces them to use their spelling words or they'll have to find 10-12 words that have particular letters in them or are spelled a certain way. For example one day they had to find words that ended in "ed". This activity was difficult for them because there aren't a lot of words in the classroom that end in "ed". The students learn a lot about literacy and grammar and spelling through these assignments.
Additional ways to incorporate literacy in this class would be creating reading games for the students or making sure the students have a lot of literacy components in the classroom. Although I have first grade students I'm surprised by some of their reading levels. Some of the students are reading at a second grade level and even the students who are reading below level still make attempts to do better and learn. I do think literacy is a component for the students to learn and to become good at. Literacy is used all day everyday and the more practice students have with it the better their literacy skills will become.
Shantel,
ReplyDeleteIn my class, literacy is also used very often. It seems as if it is the only thing that my classroom does work on. The students have literacy groups or they sit quietly and read independently from books out of their book boxes. Sometimes, students are allowed to partner read or write during their literacy block time. I also notice that there is a lot of help offered to my students when it comes to literacy. Other instructors will come in and pull students to work on literacy with them.
One question that I have after reading your post is how much technology do you see being used in your class as far as literacy? While reading the article by Hassett and Curwood, I find it extremely imperative for students to have multi-modal print--especially in the form of technology. Students in this generation have grown up around technology. Leaving this aspect out of school will limit some students' learning capabilities.
Another question I have is how comfortable are you with using literacy in your future classroom? I am a little hesitant but again, I feel that technology in the classroom is necessary. I consider myself to be a "digital native", in that I am familiar with technology and I hope to become more of an expert in finding/utilizing new technology. What about you?