Blog #1 Literacy Philosophy

This week our team (3rd grade) received our CSAP scores! Not a great week to ask about philosophy because the scores went down. Pretty good drop too! My teammate saw the greatest drop so it stings a little. I so dislike that what we do comes down to the CSAP scores but, at my school anyway, it does. As my teammate complied with my request for a discussion about our literacy philosophies we both agreed it is in a state of constant transition. This year the emphasis is on allowing more choice when students are doing seat work. Furthermore, discussion or oral language is now imperative to students meta cognitive process and language development. Less worksheets. So figuring out how to allow for discussion time while individual work and guided reading are supported as well, is a more recent value. We agreed that consistent guided reading schedules allowed us to meet the needs of the individual better. Where finishing a lesson, that may have been too long to begin with, is not the goal. Components of shared, oral, guided are vital and one is not necessarily more important than the other.