Balanced Literacy

Balanced Literacy
All of the following contribute to producing literate citizens of the 21st Century.

Reading Aloud: Teacher reads selection aloud to students

• Provides adult model of fluent reading
• Develops sense of story/text
• Develops vocabulary
• Encourages prediction
• Builds a community of readers
• Develops active listening*

Shared Reading: Teacher and students read text together

•  Demonstrates awareness of text
•  Develops sense of story or content
•  Promotes reading strategies
•  Develops fluency and phrasing
•  Increases comprehension  

Guided Reading: Teacher introduces a selection at student's instructional level

• Promotes reading strategies
•  Increases comprehension
•  Encourages independent reading
•  Expands belief in own ability *

Independent Reading: Students read independently

•  Encourages strategic reading
•  Increases comprehension
•  Supports writing development
•  Extends experiences with a variety of written texts
•  Promotes reading for enjoyment and information
•  Develops fluency
•  Fosters self-confidence by reading familiar and new text
•  Provides opportunities to use mistakes as learning opportunities *

Modeled/Shared Writing: Teacher and students collaborate to write text; teacher acts as scribe

•  Develops concepts of print  
• Develops writing strategies  
• Supports reading development  
• Provides model for a variety of writing styles  
• Models the connection among and between sounds, letters, and words  
• Produces text that students can read independently  
• Necessitates communicating in a clear and specific manner*

Interactive Writing: Teacher and students compose together using a "shared pen" technique in which students do some of the writing

• Provides opportunities to plan and construct texts
• Increases spelling knowledge
• Produces written language resources in the classroom  
• Creates opportunities to apply what has been learned*  

Independent Writing: Students write independently

• Strengthens text sequence
• Develops understanding of multiple uses of writing
• Supports reading development
• Develops writing strategies
• Develops active independence*
• *Personal Qualities: Collaborative Worker, Problem Solver, Quality Producer, Self Directed Learner, Responsible Citizen