Elementary Literacy

At the elementary level, the Sweet Home School District utilizes a scaffolded, balanced literacy approach and a workshop model of instruction to help all students in areas of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Units of study have been developed in reader’s and writer’s workshop as well as outside component (i.e. shared reading, interactive read aloud, word study and community writing) to help educators teach from the specific body of knowledge that students in grades K-5 must acquire in order to communicate effectively through oral and written language.

The New York State Next Generation Standards in English Language Arts form the basis for the development of the instructional units. Each unit is designed to target all components of the standards presented through a reading and writing workshop as an instructional strategy.  Readers’ Workshop and Writers’ Workshop are phrases that describe a particular structure that maximizes students’ learning. This structure does not require prepackaged curricula or specialized materials. Instead, the workshop model relies on teachers’ deep understanding of the skills and strategies that reading, writing, listening and speaking demand. It acknowledges that skillful reading and writing are developed through experience, practice by explicit teaching of the habits and techniques of accomplished readers and writers, and by giving students sufficient time to practice with authentic texts at increasingly higher levels of complexity.

Teachers have carefully developed instructional plans for interactive read-aloud, shared reading, community writing, small group instruction, word study and mini-lessons within the readers’ and writers’ workshop. In keeping with the identified units of study, components of balanced literacy address the strengths and needs of students. Reading instruction over a 90-minute period each day addresses critical reading components depending on the grade level and needs of the reader to include: phonemic awareness, word identification, vocabulary instruction, oral reading, fluency and comprehension. Writing units taught daily for at least 40 minutes provide students with a broad range of language and writing experiences with opinion/argument, information, and narrative writing. Writers are assessed and grow along an established K-5 writing progression established by the Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project of Columbia University

Units and lessons are not based on the sequence of one-size-fits-all lessons in a textbook. In order to implement these plans effectively, teachers and students need access to lots of books in various genres matched to their interests, reading levels, and instructional goals. They also need time to confer and have opportunities for sustained reading/writing in many different genres. The content of specific reading and writing mini-lessons and titles may change each day, but teachers can always use the workshop structure to organize their planning, no matter what strategies or books they use.

The reading and writing units of study, as well as literacy assessment calendars and writing rubrics at each grade level,  are summarized below: