Listening to reading may look like:
Listening to reading allows students to follow along with words or picture and to listen to a model of a fluent reader. It demonstrates nuances of language such as rhythm or pronunciation. It allows teachers to model reading strategies and to make predictions and connections.
Independent writing is a time when children write by themselves, exploring their ideas and practicing the skills necessary to effectively communicate through writing. Using formative assessment gathered during conferring with students, teachers can plan mini-lessons that target specific skills and strategies. Independent writing time is quiet, uninterrupted and has purpose. Children brainstorm, develop ideas and apply learned skills and strategies. During independent writing, the teacher has the opportunity to confer with students and determine writing goals.
Independent writing allows students to see themselves as writers and communicators of ideas and stories. Through guided support, students gain fluency in brainstorming, recording and revising their ideas. Gaining the skills of an independent writer increases student confidence and love of writing.
Independent reading happens when a student is reading on their own, whether it is with a print resource or something online. As the reading is occuring, students are working through the process of decoding the information to both hear the text read inside their head and to comprehend the meaning of the information. Independent reading is a traditional method for learning used in all educational settings.
Independent reading is a lifelong skill and serves many functions including personal enjoyment, learning through reading, facilitating discovery of the world around us, and can bring an immense sense of joy. It is a nuanced process that requires the combination of many different processes such as phonological awareness, fluency, and comprehension and, as such, should be practiced for 20-60 minutes every day.
Oral language is the spoken language used to communicate feelings and ideas. It mainly consists of five components: phonological skills, pragmatics (e.g., social norms), grammar (syntax), morphological skills (e.g., prefixes and suffixes) and vocabulary (semantics).
A strong foundation in oral language skills will lead to greater success in literacy achievement. Children need many opportunities to learn and practice these components of oral language to help them with mastering the reading process.
Literacy centres provide opportunities to differentiate and work with different groups of students. Each group can have a set of words to work on using a variety of consistent materials. Keeping materials consistent allows the focus to be on the words, not the materials used. Word work can be done through games, manipulatives and/or with other classroom materials.
An understanding of phonemic awareness, phonics and vocabulary are all important skills when reading and writing. Word Work is a way to teach and practice many of these literacy skills.