Literacy:
Integrated English/Language Arts (L)
Literacy teachers develop students’ abilities to use language effectively and to appreciate the different ways readers, writers, and speakers use language through direct instruction, modeling and appropriate scaffolding. They give students constructive and timely feedback. They design appropriate re-teaching and interventions for struggling students.
Standard L 1: Establishing an Integrated Literacy Classroom
Literacy teachers understand the reciprocal nature of the processes of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing, and they provide developmentally appropriate learning activities that integrate among the language arts and across the curriculum.
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Early & Middle Childhood Literacy: Reading-Language Arts Standards, 2002, p. 43. |
L 1.1 Appropriate Instructional Materials
- Use and engage students with a wide range of written, oral, and visual texts and media.
- Gather, evaluate, and select materials that match and accommodate the developmental, cultural, and linguistic needs/differences of students.
- Collect and use resources that reflect a variety of perspectives, interests, cultures, and life circumstances for classroom use.
- Use technology tools to help students learn about the world and develop language competency.
- Use people – classmates, parents, community members, and other school staff – as important instructional resources.
- Involve students in the creation of instructional resources for curricular enrichment
L 1.2 Classroom Learning Structures
- Incorporate collaborative structures and strategies so that students have an opportunity to engage with each other to process content learning through social, oral and visual mediums
- Provide students with opportunities to explore a wide range of written, oral and visual media; investigate ideas and subjects that matter to them; and communicate to a variety of authentic audiences for real purposes so that students learn that reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing and producing media are useful as well as enjoyable.
- Use own passion for all aspects of literacy to guide practice, provide models, and inspire students.
Standard L 2: Reading
Teachers develop and refine students’ reading skills and abilities to decode, comprehend, interpret, and analyze a wide variety of texts for personal, literary, informational, and critical purposes. Teachers provide direct teaching, modeling, and guided and independent practice.
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Adolescence & Young Adulthood English Language Arts Standards, 2003, p. 39
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L 2.1 Components of Reading
Teachers know that phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary development, and comprehension strategies are keys to developing proficient readers. Motivation is also a factor. Teachers regularly monitor progress in each of the five components of reading, and create a literacy-rich classroom environment which enhances student motivation.
Because English is an alphabetic language, the first two components, Phonemic Awareness (ability to recognize that words are comprised of sounds) and Phonics (knowledge of sound/symbol relationships), must be developed and practiced. Phonics needs a base of Phonemic Awareness skills so that the student can efficiently blend and segment the sounds (represented by the symbols). Without the development of Phonemic Awareness and Phonics, reading will be labored and inefficient; therefore, the higher-level skills of Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension will not develop. |
L 2.1.1 Phonemic Awareness
- Implement a hierarchy of Phonological Awareness skill training ranging from simple awareness of environmental sounds, rhyming, syllable awareness and working toward the Phonemic Awareness skills of manipulating sounds within words in the following ways:
- isolating
- repeating
- substituting
- blending
- segmenting
- comparing
- Provide systematic Phonemic Awareness training with both formal and informal practice in preschool, kindergarten and grade 1.
- Continue Phonemic Awareness training with individuals/small groups when a specific Phonemic Awareness weakness is identified in grade 2 and up.
- Develop blending and segmenting of phonemes as a springboard for reading and spelling
L 2.1.2 Phonics
- Provide systematic and explicit instruction in how letters correspond to sounds.
- Teach the generalizations of the English language so that students can approach text sequentially, systematically and logically.
- Show students how to use knowledge of blending in reading and segmenting for spelling.
- Provide frequent practice of targeted sound/symbol relationships through oral reading and dictated spelling.
L 2.1.3 Fluency
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Model fluent reading.
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Give students opportunities for repeated oral reading through partner and choral reading, encouraging students to read passages aloud in low-risk settings.
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Provide students with systematic and explicit guidance and feedback.
L 2.1.4 Vocabulary
- Structure the classroom to provide multiple informal exposures to new words, knowing that most new vocabulary is learned indirectly through extensive reading, immersion, and conversation and not rote dictionary work.
- Provide intentional vocabulary instruction before and during reading.
- Provide direct instruction for key content vocabulary terms.
- Teach students a range of strategies they can apply to unfamiliar words
L 2.1.5 Comprehension
- Think aloud to model for students what experienced readers do before, during, and after reading.
- Help students to make connections between their personal experiences/ knowledge about the world and the written text, between and across texts, and between contemporary/ historical events and texts.
- Ask students to engage with text by asking critical questions, predicting, visualizing, summarizing, paraphrasing, comparing, synthesizing, or reformulating ideas and themes they encounter.
- Ask students to evaluate the author’s purpose and use of text structure, format, organization, rhetorical devices, and style.
- Use a range of response activities to aid and demonstrate comprehension, interpretation and appreciation of texts
L 2.2 Reading/Thinking/Learning Strategies across the Curriculum
- Match appropriate research-based strategies with individual learners to help prevent and address reading difficulties, to motivate students, and to further their development.
- Teach processes and strategies used by skilled readers.
- Think aloud to model how skilled readers use reading strategies to monitor their own understanding and to adjust their reading strategies accordingly.
- Teach students to use a variety of appropriate pre-reading, during reading and post-reading activities/strategies to help them plan, engage with, and respond to the ideas and topics.
- Integrate the study of language with all stages of reading: focusing on vocabulary, word choice, and sentence structure as they relate to style, voice, and rhetorical effect.
- Model the use of reading for real purposes in daily life and share how the purposes for reading and the types of text affect the reading process.
- Assist students in determining clear purposes/goals for reading and evaluating whether they are met.
L 2.3 Reading Applications across the Curriculum
- Examine with students the genres, forms and conventions of a wide variety of literary, informational, technical and persuasive texts and teach the strategies necessary to interpret them.
- Provide guided practice in analyzing how different text structures and features affect audiences and meaning, discussing how authors employ different genres, forms and conventions for a variety of purposes.
- Teach students to use appropriate terminology for discussion of texts.
- Teach students to interpret texts through a variety of lenses or perspectives.
- Teach students to make critical comparisons within and across texts.
- Provide guided practice in synthesizing information from multiple sources.
- Teach students how to evaluate the credibility of sources.
- Teach students criteria for selecting texts to read independently and provide opportunities for independent reading with accountability
Standard L 3 Writing
Teachers use their knowledge of writing processes, language development, writing development, and ongoing assessment to provide instruction in the components of writing, assist students in constructing meaning in their written work, and provide genuine opportunities for students to write effectively and independently different types of texts for a variety of purposes and audiences.
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Early & Middle Childhood Literacy: Reading-Language Arts Standards, 2002, p. 53 |
L 3.1 Writing Process
- Demonstrate how writing can be a process for understanding and expanding our thinking and learning.
- Demonstrate the ability to communicate through writing and model writing for students.
- Teach and model writing as a nonlinear process including pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing, as appropriate.
- Maintain a safe atmosphere in which students feel free to share their writing and take risks and grow as writers.
- Create opportunities for students to engage in oral language experiences which support the development of written language and motivate children to learn to communicate messages.
- Allow opportunities for student choice within topics and forms of writing.
L 3.2 Writing Applications Across the Curriculum
- Use writing as a means of communicating content knowledge to authentic audiences across the curriculum.
- Teach students strategies and provide opportunities for students to write as a way to learn in all content areas.
- Use authentic print materials across the curriculum (literature, letters, magazines, journals, invitations, newspapers) for students to use as models of writing for real purposes.
- Teach writing skills and techniques, including focus, organization, voice, support, descriptive language, and sentence variety.
- Teach the role of purpose, audience, and context in writing and how format and genre relate to the expression of ideas.
- Think aloud to demonstrate good writing strategies.
- Teach the conventions of written language in context, weaving spelling, grammar, and syntax skills instruction throughout the writing process.
L. 3.3 Responding to and Evaluating Writing
- Provide both peer and teacher response throughout the writing process.
- Provide feedback that is respectful, timely, specific, and constructive to student writers.
- Use and teach students to use analytic and holistic rubrics to assess writing.
- Use a portfolio approach to assess students’ writing progress following CPS guidelines.
- Also see PLANNING AND PREPARING: Assessment – Standard P.2
Standard L 4: Speaking and Listening
Teachers know, value and teach oral language development and listening and speaking skills as essential components of literacy, and they provide opportunities for students to listen and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences.
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Early & Middle Childhood Literacy: Reading-Language Arts Standards, 2002, p. 59 |
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Demonstrate, model and explain how and why speech varies in different social and cultural contexts.
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Create classroom environments and design assignments that help students explore, use, and understand the different forms of language found in various home, school, and work settings.
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Facilitate classroom conversations and discussions, providing multiple opportunities for students to talk about texts, drawing on students’ prior experiences and diverse backgrounds.
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Use formal public speaking and listening assignments to help students appreciate how tone, intonation, pitch facial expression, gestures, and graphic aids can enhance or detract from a method.
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Model and teach active listening.
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Create classroom environments and design assignments that help students set purposes for listening and hold them accountable for using listening skills.
Standard L 5: Viewing and Producing Media Texts
Teachers know, value and teach viewing as an essential component of literacy. They use a wide variety of print and non-print resources to develop students’ viewing and visual-representation skills, enabling students to read critically, evaluate, and produce messages in a variety of media.
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Adolescence & young Adulthood English Language Arts Standards, 2003, p. 47 |
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Select appropriate types of media texts to complement the teaching of reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
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Help students understand the unique characteristics of a variety of media, as well as the commercial, social, and political messages embedded in these texts.
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Teach the critical skills required to interpret, critique, and evaluate media texts.
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Provide multiple opportunities for students to express themselves visually.
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Use various technological resources for teaching students to express themselves, and oversee the appropriate selection and use of current and emerging media, including computers, CD/DVDs, pod casts, and other multimedia resources.
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