Module 4

Literacy Across the Curriculum: Literacy across the curriculum has become a popular topic in schools today, especially with the push of text complexity. It’s important for teachers to incorporate literacy into every subject taught in school. After all, literacy is the foundation to all learning. As a reading and social studies teacher, I don’ teach these two subjects in isolation, but rather together as a humanities block. I try to create a unit that incorporates both content standards (reading and social studies). This was a little time consuming at first, but as I continued to provide instruction that included both reading and social studies standards it became less time consuming and was easy to implement into the classroom.

RTI- RTI is something I am very familiar with. This year I have 5 students currently in the RTI process. The RTI is a tiered process that provides students with the necessary academic interventions. This process helps students reach their full potential and prevents educators from labeling or placing a student into special education services. The charts and pyramid in the RTI PowerPoint was a great visual that explains how the tier process works at each level.

Video- I enjoyed watching the video of the first grade students creating sentences. The lesson was very engaging for the students and individuals watching the video. Students love lessons that are hands on when learning new concepts. Using sentence strips is a great way to keep students connected to the learning task and fully engaged. The students were able to hold part of the sentence in their hands. This allowed students to be a part of the lesson and not just a spectator. The teacher did a fabulous job of keeping the students engaged and involved throughout her teaching.

Strategic Reading Instruction PPT: This PowerPoint provided a great review for me. I really enjoyed reading about student centers. Literacy centers is something I am very familiar with. My school has had a strong push on teachers incorporating literacy centers into our reading block for the past two years. The PowerPoint provided ideas that I currently use within my classroom. However, there were many other great ideas that I can’t wait to try out in my classroom. I also found the Reading Components and the Big Five very important. It made me think of two terms I use in my classroom: Reading to Learn and Learning to Read. I have a wide range of readers. Most of my students are practicing Reading to Learn and a few are still working on learning to read. The students who are learning to read are more focused on the decoding aspect of reading, whereas my other students are reading to learn. They are more focused on the comprehension aspect of reading.

Webquest PPT: I have the opportunity to create a web quest during my undergraduate. However, I haven’t used them since them. I know students love using web quest because it allows them to research and learn on their own. It’s fun and engaging for the students. In today’s society, students are very familiar with technology and by using web quests it allows for students to explore the content and enhance their technology skills. This is something I would like to start in my own classroom. I know my students would love working with web quests as a way to enhance their learning.