Best Practices in Literacy Instruction

Best Practices in Literacy Instruction divides literacy into all of its dimensions for discussion by authors who are expert in a particular area of literacy. Chapters include articles on decoding, comprehension, fluency, and writing as well as chapters on special populations such as students with disabilities and ELL students and the important issues related to those populations. Each chapter presents a unique view on the topic, citing related research. After the current thinking on the topic is discussed, each chapter also has a section on best practices in that area. At the end of each chapter are practical questions for educators to reflect on their practice, mini-research projects, and data collection opportunities.

This book caused me to look at some aspects of literacy in a new light. For example, a chapter on balanced literacy was not at all what I thought it would be. This chapter talked about balance in a new way - the balance of student-centered instruction and teacher-led instruction, the balance of assessment of discrete reading skills and process learning, etc. As a teacher of over 30 years, I had quite a few "ah-ha" moments as I read this book. Readers of all levels of teaching will find worthwhile information and practical suggestions that will inform their classroom instruction.

Handbook of Early Literacy: Research-Based Practice K-8

Edited by Barbara Taylor and Nell Duke
Group 1: Lynne, Mellony, Joy, Kelli, Kate, Tammy, Melissa

Building relationships that build communities.
Motivating teachers engage students by guiding them in setting personal academic and behavioral goals.
The quantity of literacy tools offered to students is associated with literacy development.
Effective teachers adjust the amount of whole class, and small group reading instruction they provide to meet lesson objectives.
Scaffolding instruction by student's needs and increasing the demands of the text as students become more adept at the required skills and strategies.
Teachers serve as the model, coach, facilitator as students engage in literacy activities.
Assessment of students' reading and writing should always include multiple indicators of learning and the Assessment task and information should be used to inform instruction.
Be explicit in your teaching.
Include culturally relevant literature and tasks.
Phonics instruction is explicit and systematic and should be taught in context, not in isolation.
Teach comprehension strategies across grade levels, beginning with the youngest students, and using a range of genres and complexity bands of texts.
Be deliberate in integrating strategy instruction.
Student discussion vs. teacher led.
Importance of scaffolding and know when to hand over responsibility of learning to the students- accountability.
The vocabulary gap children come to school with is vast. Word learning is incremental and interrelated.
Adapt instructional materials, strategies, task demands and writing tasks to meet struggling writers.
Genres are recurring, recognizable forms of communication that serve specify communicative purposes in specific social contexts.
Focus on specific strategies for specific genres.
Tie literacy practices of science to science inquiry.
Social studies can be used to teach comprehension strategies and and text structure.
Teachers need to provide literacy instruction to help students read and write texts in mathematics, and teach them to talk, write and think about math.
The arts compliment high quality literacy instruction. Learning with and through arts infusion enlivens literacy instruction, increase involvement, and deepens meaning and memory of content.

Teaching with the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts PreK-2

This book can be used as a handbook to look up how to teach certain standards. It is broken down by each standard in a chapter. It provides a framework for what the standard means. It also provides practical examples of how to teach each standard complete with a brief vignette from an actual classroom to serve as a model.

We found it very helpful that it provided specific examples and ideas for each grade level in K-2, so teachers don't have to adapt something from a different level. We also felt that it broke down the technology standards in CC and made them more approachable. The book also has an appendix that provides several examples of thematic units that are tied to the CC.

One challenges we found with the book is that it said it provided standards and examples related to PreK and we did not find that to be true. We also found the first chapter to be somewhat challenging to read through. It is heavily based on the research theory behind the CC. Beyond this chapter through, the book is very practical and helpful.