Chapter 1
LLLS 4344 - Reader Response
6 Categories of Language Arts
2. Writing
3. Listening
4. Talking
5. Viewing
6. Visually Representing
All six categories should be interactive and integrated with each other. Each category should not be separated and divided from the other categories.
4 Main Instructional Approaches to Language Arts
2. Literature Circles
3. Reading and Writing Workshops
4. Thematic Units
Use a combination of these within each lesson to help build students knowledge of what you are teaching them (plot development, character, etc.)
Strategies and Skills
Skills: Used unconsciously; Self-implemented strategies; Information-Processing Techniques
Metacognition: Knowledge children acquire about their own cognitive processes and children's regulation of their cognitive processes to maximize learning
Examples of Strategies:
Activating background knowledge, brainstorming, connecting, revising, evaluating, monitoring, inferencing, identify big ideas, predicting, organizing, questioning, summarizing, and visualizing
Teachers use a combination of direct instruction (planned) and indirect instruction (taking advantage of a teachable moment) to teach skills and strategies.
Direct and Indirect Instruction
Direct: Planned, 10-30 Minutes
Indirect: Taking advantage of a teachable moment; Rephrasing/Reexplaining/Clarifying/etc.
1. Modeling
Teacher demonstrates how to use strategy or skill
2. Coaching
Teachers encourage students active engagement in activities
3. Scaffolding
Teachers adjust the support they provide depending on students' needs
4. Fading
Teachers release control as students become more capable of performing or doing activity/skill/strategy independently
Goals of Language Arts Instruction:
Four (4) Language Systems used to Develop Communicative Competence:
1. Phonological - sound system
2. Semantic - Meaning system
3. Syntactic - grammar system
4. Pragmatic - social use system
Each grade level, teachers expand students' abilities to use the six language arts meaningfully in new contexts.
Assessment
Teachers can ask questions:
How's it going?
What is the hardest thing about this activity?
What have you learned about yourself as a reader or writer?
What do you want to learn next?
For authentic assessment to work properly and appropriately, the teacher would need to model procedures and teach students ho to talk about their thoughts.
Assessment and Evaluation are terms that are often mixed up
Assessment: Diagnostic; Ongoing: Used to plan instruction
Evaluation: Used to judge students' learning; Usually provided by a test from textbook or end-of-year exam, etc.