Journal Writing

 I would allow time for free writing in a student’s individual journal. By giving students the opportunity to write freely in their journal, students can be creative and express their thoughts. Students would be allow to use pictures and any style of writing that they want in their journals.  I would look for writing strengths in my students. I think it is important for students to be able to express their thoughts freely.  Teachers can find out a lot of information about their students from their journal. 

Explicit Writer's workshop

These are some expectations that I would explicitly go over in a mini lesson and then I would display them in my classroom.

I will use Writer’s Workshops.  This is a great opportunity for students to write creatively and receive immediate feedback on content, style and grammar.  I will start by explaining how the students should behave.  I would clearly explain the objective of the session.  Students must maintain a low level of noise when writing; learn how to properly how to hold a pencil, and where to write on the paper.  I will focus my mini-lesson on a specific topic, such as using descriptive words. A mini-lesson is an ideal time to teach grammar concepts. Students need to apply these skills to their writing assignment. After the mini-lesson, students would practice using descriptive words and the grammar rules. As students are writing, I would hold individual conferences with them. I think conferencing is an important time during the workshop, as I will have the opportunity to see the student’s thinking.  While I will give them feedback, I will not over emphasize grammar or spelling issues during these private sessions. It is important to let students be creative. Students will have a chance to experience different forms of writing. I will take notes during the conferences to monitor progress.  To conclude Writer’s workshop, I would make the class come together for Share time. During share time I would emphasize the skill or strategy and how to use it in their future work. 

Guided Reading Groups

 I will setup Guided Reading Groups. I will evaluate students’ reading levels at the beginning of the year by getting a record of a child’s oral reading performance . A running record will help me understand what the students are struggling with. According to Clay(2000) " running records capture what the readers said and did while reading the books or texts. Having taken the record teachers can review what happened immediately, leading to a teaching decision on the spot, or at later time as they plan for next lessons" (Running Record for the Classroom Today pp. 4). Clay describes "one use of Running Record is a check on whether students are working on material of appropriate difficulty, neither too difficult nor too easy, but offering a suitable level of challenged to the learner"(Running Record for the Classroom Today pp. 4). This allows the teacher to see the child's weaknesses and strengths in reading. I will choose the leveled based on the student running record performance. The teacher can use the running I will divide the class into “same level” reading groups. Each group will have a chance to read together and to discuss the book with one other. I will meet with the different leveled groups in order to check students’ progress. Goldberg & Serravallo (2007) state "I find it to be very effective to use conferring to individualize a reader’s needs based on skill and strategy work that a particular level demands. Sometimes,I
preteach some content to help a student with prior knowledge in a new book" ( Goldberg, G. & J Serrvallo Conferring with Readers Supporting Each Student’s Growth and Independence pp.88-100). During the conference the teacher needs to realize what the student understand to do when reading and what the child needs help with. According Goldberg & Serravallo (2007) " My goal in this conference is to help support a student with one of the demands of this new level.I teach the student one strategy to help with
this new skill.Here is one example of how a conference like that might go" (pp. 95). The ultimate goal is guided reading groups is for the student to move up to the next level of reading materials. It is important for the teacher to provide guidance on how each student moves up to the reading level.
While meeting with reading groups, I will set up literacy centers. In these literacy centers, I would create activities to practice literacy concepts. At the centers, I will incorporate technology including listening to sound of words on tape and posting on the class blog. These centers give students the chance to explore literacy concepts in a manner other than teacher-directed instruction. Also, the centers are a great way to bring in different learning styles because at some station you might be listening to words, other stations might be drawing a picture about the book you are reading. The station ideas are endless and the students can be part a of creating the stations as well.

Independent Reading

Teachers need allow students to choose books based on the student interest and reading level. Students need to choose different types of literature. Sibbererson and Szymuiak (2003) explain " the key is placing value on all genres and types of reading materials so that students experience the variety they will encounter outside of school(63). I think it is very important for teachers to stress the importance of choosing things that children are interested in reading other than novels. This is important because students are not going to be reading novels all their life they may have to read articles, annual reports etc. This allows students to become more familiar with text earlier in their lives so they are prepared for the future. Also, it allows students to explore different kind of writing styles and they might not get bored reading different types of reading material if they are interested in it. During Independent reading the teacher should go around the classroom and observe the students. There are many ways to assess students during independent reading.  Sibberson and Szymuiak (2003) state things teachers can do 

• Analyze reading logs to learn about students' reading patterns. We also encourage students to reflect on their logs to discover what they can learn about themselves as readers
• Take the status of the class each day to become familiar with what students are doing and decide how and when to support them in their reading 
• Learn from the student's reflection about their own reading and the reading goals they identify for themselves
• Listen to conversations and observe students during independent reading time(67)

These methods are great way to see how the students' reading strengths and weaknesses. The teacher should help the student so they can strive to become more independent readers. 

Read Aloud and Read Aloud notebooks

Some examples of read aloud books

A teacher should have an Interactive read aloud. A read aloud allows the teacher to model how to read a book and the students have the opportunity to concentrate on understanding the book. In a read aloud the teacher should allow students to talk about the book. A read aloud is important for students to understand how they should read and what they should doing when they read the story. Also, read aloud model conversation teachers want their students to have during guided reading groups. Read aloud provide the students the opportunity to concentrate on strategies for comprehension. This is great way for students to learn in a different way because the students are watching the teacher and listening to the teacher read. According to Sibberson & Szymusicak (2003) " the read-aloud notebook is a safe place for readers to use writing as means to think more deeply about the text. We don't give much direction. We simply ask students to write down whatever they are think. This allows us to see the ways students naturally respond to text. It helps us to see who is risk taker and who is worried about "getting it right"(Sibberson & Szymusicak, 2003, pp. 37). The read aloud notebooks allows the students the freedom to respond the answer. The teacher can see what the child understands and what the child struggles with. We can notice the progress the student has made throughout the year by comparing read aloud entries.