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This presentation is a template of how all the different parts of literacy are needed in order for students from PreK up to grade 12 to succeed in becoming literary students. Although literacy doesn’t stop after school, students build their foundation of becoming reader and writers and continue using these skills in university, careers and just day-to-day life. Giving students the foundation starting in PreK and building upon those skills gives each student the ability to become literate. Some students may take more time than others but as long as teachers continue going back to the foundation, and building upon what a student already knows, they will keep progressing.

I have already started implanting some of the techniques and strategies that have been talked about in this class. Although I still feel very inferior about my ability to teach literacy at a proficient level, I know that my grade one students naturally have an inquisitive ability to learn. Despite there being a lot of content to decipher through in regards to literacy, the basic building blocks (phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and writing) are consistent. My time teaching kindergarten has probably helped me more at being able to teach my grade one students because everything in the kindergarten level has to be broken up and put together. I think this presentation could be useful in assisting some of my colleges and myself as a reminder of how all the parts of literacy have a place and should be used to build each child’s literary skills.

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- Cloud, N., Genesee, F., Hamayan., E. (2009) Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
- Fighting for Your Child. YouTube, Reading Rockets, 12 March, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sarIQEVQGw&t=28s

- Fountas, I., Pinnell, Gay Su. (2017). The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum: A Tool for Assessment, Planning and Teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
-K12 Reader. (2017). Reading Comprehension and Fluency. K12 Reader: Reading Instruction Resources. http://www.k12reader.com/reading-comprehension-and-fluency/
- Mermeltstein, L. (2013). The Components of Balanced Literacy. Education.com. https://www.education.com/reference/article/components-balanced-literacy/
- Quick Ways to Check Understanding . YouTube, Colorin Colorado, 30 Sept. 2016, https://www.youtube/O9Be3J23qWs
-Wilhelm, J., (2017). Understanding Reading Comprehension. Scholastic. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/understanding-reading-comprehension/
- Yukon Education. (2015). A Balanced Literacy Approach supporting student success in reading, writing, listening and speaking. http://www.education.gov.yk.ca/pdf/publications/BalancedLiteracyBooklet.pdf

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- Parents need to be informed of where their child is in regards to their literary and writing skills. They need to have a clear understanding of what the expectations are and see samples of reading material and student writing to know how to help their child succeed.
- Teacher and parent communication is a vital part of a student's growth and teachers might need to be shown examples or given strategies to help younger readers besides simply reading.
- Different websites could help in assisting parents but also offering workshops for parents on literacy techniques would be a good start in assisting parents.

Websites for parents to use with their child to assist in literacy skills
- Spellcity

- Colorincolorado(ELL) or ReadingRockets
- Starfall

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Jennifer Simpson is a mother on a mission. Unlike many parents who don't realize when their child is behind the learning curve, Jennifer knows exactly where her daughter should be -- and isn't.

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High-Stakes Assessments
- Although high-stakes assessments may seem like a stressful time for both students and teachers, it can be used to help a grade level or a class teacher see what areas that students are struggling and what areas they are thriving.
-The results could help give a clearer picture of where students started and where they ended up at the end of the year.

Classroom Assessments-
-Teachers are constantly assessing students even if a students isn't taking a test. Teachers take anecdotal notes, use progress reports or reading assessments to determine where a student is in their literacy process.
-Teachers use both formative and summative assessment techniques to monitor a student's progress.
-Assessments are vital for a teacher to determine where the students are in his/her classroom. It helps the teacher decide when to move on or when do go back and reteach.
-Students that may need more time can be pulled aside in small groups for guided reading or work with a teacher on any reading skill that the students still need more time on.
-In class assessments are extremely important for all students especially ELL students, as it gives the teacher insight on where they are at and how to plan their literary plan for a particular student.
-Assessment information also helps teachers give parents an idea on how to support their child in their literacy journey.

"...Spiegel has defined balance as a “decision making approach through which the teacher makes thoughtful choices each day about the best way to help each child become a better reader and writer” (Spiegel, 1998)." (Mermelstein, L., 2013).

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Samantha describes some of the ways she informally checks understanding, such as "thumbs up, thumbs down," or showing a certain number of fingers to indicate how well students understood a concept.

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"Observing students during planned activities is the primary and most powerful means of assessment" (Cloud, N., Genesee, F., Hamadan, E., p. 188).

A teacher will use many strategies to group students. Some reading activities are better to do as a whole group using the techniques listed below. Introducing a new lesson text may be best introduced to the whole group and later reread in smaller groups focusing on fluency, vocabulary and phonics skills, or on an individual basis to check the fluency and comprehension. Of course all the above strategies can be worked on or tweaked in any grouping, there might be different objectives depending on the need of the class, a group or individual students.

Small Group
-Guided Reading
"Based on assessment, the teacher brings together a group of readers who are similar enough in their reading development that they can be taught together. They read independently at about the same level and can take on a more challenging new text selected by the teacher" (Fountas, I., Pinnell, G., 2017, p.400).

Whole Group
-Interactive Read aloud
"Interactive read-aloud is a powerful setting for teaching students to use academic language to talk about texts" (Fountas, Pinnell, 2017, p.12).

-Shared
"Shared reading has an important role in extending students' ability to process and understand texts across the grades" (Fountas, Pinnell, 2017, p.103).

-Performance

Individual (1-on-1)
-Individual instructions
-Intervention

Students may all be working at different levels and may not be able to think beyond the text or about the text right away. Students may use different reading groups to analyze the text.

Thinking within the text:
-Searching fro and using information
-Monitoring and self-correcting
-Solving words
-Maintaining fluency
-Adjusting
-Summarizing

Thinking beyond the text:
-Predicting
-Making connections (personal, world, texts)
-Synthesizing
-Inferring

Thinking about the text:
-Analyzing
-Critiquing

The above learning strategies happen before, during and after reading a text. They might need to be readdressed or reviewed many times for a text. Regardless of the grouping strategy a teacher uses, students should be learning how to work through any kind text to help them become more aware and fluent readers.

"They [students] need components in which they work mainly on meaning and structure sources of information. They also need components in which they work mainly on visual sources of information. And finally, they need components that help them “put it all together."' (Mermelstein, L., 2013).

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Phonics
-Phonics is a strong tool that starts in PreK and becomes more automatic as students progress but it is the foundation for a child to be able to read. Along with phonemic awareness, phonics assist in writing, spelling, reading and helping students decode the letter sounds.
- Understand each letter sound with the corresponding letter. Understand that vowels have more than one sounds.

Phonemic Awareness
-Along with phonics, student should be able to break up and manipulate the sounds in a word. Students can play games using magnetic letters, replacing letters to create new words.
-Be able to change phonemes (beginning, middle or end) in CVC words to create new words.

Vocabulary
- Vocabulary is important because students need to understand what the words are that they are reading. They use inductive skills and reasoning skills to try to figure out the meaning of a word. Word study is a good tool to help give students time to dig deeper into vocabulary skills.
-Understand new words and how to apply them in reading and in writing.

Comprehension
Reading comprehension is an ever going process that doesn't stop once a child graduates school. Students need to constantly fine tune this skill while reading many different kinds of text.
- A student should be able to use the strategies listed below to think within the text, beyond and about the text of many different genres. Each grade level has its on requirements but the overall comprehension strategies are the same.
"We need to explicitly model what we do, guide and nurture them to do the same things, and then create situations that will encourage and help them to purposefully use the same strategies" (Wilhelm, J., 2017).

Fluency
Fluency skills take time and patience from the teacher, student and parents. Modeling is a key strategy for parents and teachers to help students hear the way a text might be read. Students can listen to stories read online, which might be very helpful for ELL parents if they are not as familiar with English.
- Track a students progress by counting the words read correctly. Track the words that are substituted, omitted or reversed. Give students time to practice fluency on a one-on-one basis and model when necessary to give them an understanding of what good fluency sounds like.
"By contrast, a fluent reader reads in smooth and continuous phrases and the brain can retain and comprehend what is read" (K12 Reader, 2017).

Writing
-Writing connects back to reading as students write about reading or take examples of sentence structures in their reading. The act of creating a writing piece shows the students understanding about the text or what they are choosing to write about. Younger students may use pictures to display their understanding.
-Able to write using the skills they have seen while reading, focusing less on spelling but more on getting their ideas on paper through words and drawings.

Models for Communication
-Students use oral and visuals to understand the world before they begin reading or writing. They continue communicating using these techniques and observe their teacher's, peers and other adults as they communicate orally and visually.
-Students are able to clearly express their ideas, feelings and understanding of a text orally and by using visuals such as drawings or acting out a story.

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A balanced approach of literacy comes about when phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension all work together through different modes of communication to facilitate in a child's ability to read and write.
"....learning is a process of figuring things out, asking questions, making connections, getting ideas and testing them, taking risks, making mistakes without fear of ridicule or embarrassment, trying again and eventually experiencing the satisfaction of accomplishment" (Yukon Education, 2015).

Students take in oral and visual information and have to process new information with old information to make sense of it and apply it in practice to their reading and writing. The more they read, the more it supports their writing and the more they write it supports their reading ability. The process of balanced literacy is constantly an interchange between teacher and students with additional support from family members at home.
At times students are learning as a whole group (interactive read aloud), small groups (guided reading) and other times on an individual basis (individual instruction). Each part of literacy builds on another and supports the other. Some skills like phonics and phonemic awareness are developed early and done subconsciously as students increase in ability, other skills like comprehension, fluency and vocabulary continue to strength as content reading becomes more difficult.

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Students of all ages are constantly building upon previous knowledge to build their literacy ability. Starting from Pre-K students build a foundation starting the letter recognition to phonics to later build up their phonological awareness as they slowly start to decode words and later learn to read sentences. No two students learn the same, so as a teacher many different activities and strategies will be required to help assist students as they become readers. One student may identify letters quickly and struggle with phonics and teachers have to continue to try to find ways to bridge gaps between misunderstanding, language barriers and helping students learn through different modes of communication.

"We believe that it is essential for all readers and writers to have a wide range of word-solving strategies–possibly hundreds– they can use rapidly, flexibly, and in a largely unconscious way as they move through a text, maintaining a focus on meaning" (Fountas, I., Pinnell, G., 2017, p.358).