Literacy

This school year, I will be using the UFLI Foundations program for phonics and spelling instruction. Your child will be learning new concepts (sounds and letter patterns) to build their skills in reading and spelling words. 

 

UFLI Foundations is an explicit, systematic approach to phonics. Each day, we begin our reading instruction with students learning how to blend, decode and encode words. They are getting a great deal of practice in this area so that they have a solid understanding of how words work. Each session consists of;

 

  1. Phonological Awareness where students blend and segment words  
  2. Visual Drill where letters are flashed on the board and students say the sound/rule 
  3. Auditory Drill where students listen to a given sound/rule and they write or say the letters 
  4. Blending Drill where the teacher manipulates letters and students read the words
  5. New Phonics Concept  students learn about a new sound/rule and practice blending, reading and writing
  6. Word Work the students take the sound/rule they just learned in the new concept and manipulate the words. The students are building and changing words with magnetic letters. They are asked to build a word and then add or drop letters to make new words (example, make at, then cat, the splat, etc.) 
  7. Irregular Words (sight words/power words) students are introduced to irregular words and taught which strategies will help them to learn these words (heart words/sounds)
  8. Decodable Texts  students read stories that have the specific grapheme-phoneme correspondence that the students just learned. 
  9. Sentence Dictation students listen to a sentence that has the particular sounds/rules they learned during the lesson and write the sentence.

 

The daily lessons are split over two days so that students are working on phonics for 30 minutes each day. Day 1 consists of lessons 1-5. Day 2 works with lessons 5-8. Students are getting two new skills a week with a review on Fridays. On Fridays, we review what we learned during the week and we have a spelling celebration. The spelling celebration words are created from the phonics skills they have learned throughout the week, asking them to apply their knowledge of letter sounds and rules, rather than just memorizing words for a spelling test. In our small reading groups, we will be working on power goals, power words, reading fluency and comprehension.

What is Balanced Reading?

Balanced reading is a program where students spend time each day engaging in whole class, small group, and independent activities that help them see, practice and apply a variety of reading skills and strategies.

 

The Components:

✓ Read Aloud

The teacher reads to students to model effective reading behaviours and comprehension strategies.

 

✓ Shared Reading

Students and teacher read together. The same text is read on back-to-back days (usually up to 5), and students and teacher focus on different skills each day: spelling patterns, fluency and expression, punctuation, vocabulary, etc. Some examples of shared reading texts are books, posters, poems, websites, and song lyrics.

 

✓ Guided Reading

Students read in a small group of 4-6 students, using a book that is at their instructional level. The teacher provides individual coaching and feedback to improve literacy skills, and students have the opportunity to practice skills they’ve learned in class.

 

✓ Independent Reading

Students take the skills they have learned during lessons and apply them to their own reading. Activities during independent reading are often done in partners or groups (despite the name!) and involve less teacher direction than the other components. Students often choose their own text to read.

 

Goals of Balanced Reading:

 

Comprehension: Developing a deeper understanding of the text by making personal connections, visualizing the text, and other strategies.

Fluency: Reading with smoothness and expression.

Decoding: Using strategies to figure out unknown words (e.g., sound it out, ask what makes sense).

Independence: applying the skills learned in reading lessons to activities in all subjects.

Growth Mindset: developing a sense of resilience, and an “I can do it!” attitude towards reading.

 

Sample Balanced Reading Activities

✓ Use of technology to practice skills

✓ Reading to a partner

✓ Responding to reading

✓ Word work activities (spelling patterns, etc.)

✓ Individual coaching from the teacher

 

Wondering how to help your child at home? Here are some tips!

  • Read with your child every day if possible
  • Be a reading role model: make sure your kids see YOU reading
  • Spend time playing literacy games like Scrabble or BOGGLE
  • Visit our class blog and check out some of the games and activities under the “Literacy Links” tab

Students will spend time each week engaging in a variety of writing activities. Similar to our reading program, students will have the chance to participate in whole group, small group, and independent writing, in order to learn, practise, and apply new skills and strategies. Throughout the year, we will explore different writing forms such as paragraphs, narratives, reports, and others. Students will also have ‘writer’s workshop’ time, during which they can write about whatever topic they’d like. Having trouble coming up with ideas? We have many prompts to get us inspired!

 

Skip to toolbar