Communicating high expectations. I want my students to strive in their academics, and I will encourage them to give their best in every aspect of life.

Creative thinking. I will model creative thinking by demonstrating how to effectively and differently connect new information to previously understood ideas.  

Grabbing student’s attention. I will grab my student’s attention when reading through my facial animation, vocal variety, and body position (Vander Kolk, 2024).  This will draw my students into the reading, keeping them engaged and motivated.

Classroom space. I want to create a space where my students can engage with each other and learn from one another. I will also motivate my students when reading by creating a comfortable library with seating, stuffed animals, and good lighting (Teaching Reading in the 21st Century, Dewitz et al., 1997).

Polite disagreements. When students learn to debate and disagree politely with each other it creates a respectful dialogue between them. They can learn from each other’s perspectives and gain new unknown information.

Group projects. I will organize my class into groups to work with each other on projects like book talks and literature circles (Vander Kolk, 2024). When students participate in these projects, they earn better ideas of literacy than they might have by themselves.

Reading aloud. In my classroom, I will incorporate reading aloud to help instruct my students on the functions and forms of written language. While I read aloud, I will point and track the print and will ask my students questions about the print to keep them engaged (Vander Kolk, 2024).

Student interests. When my students are interested in a print, their attitudes change. I will intentionally get to know my students, so I can add what they are interested in to the print in my classroom. Their literacy will grow because they want to read and write about their interests.

I will input new vocabulary in my classroom through interactive reading, vocabulary notebooks, and matching games.

Vocabulary notebooks. When learning new vocab, my students will keep a notebook to write and track the new words they learn. This will help remind them to remember the words, because they will write definitions and examples.

Matching games. I will utilize matching games when learning vocab to keep the new vocabulary fresh in their head. Repetition is very important when learning new words, so matching games are a fun way to remember the words.

Chips. I will use chips to provide a visual aid when learning phonemic awareness. The chips act as the individual sounds the student hears which they will then connect to blend the word. The students can also rearrange the chips to create a different word.

Online programs. My students will use technology and online programs to help develop their phonemic awareness (Teaching Reading in the 21st Century, Dewitz et al., 1997). These programs will keep students engaged and give them diverse learning methods.

Phonemic awareness is crucial for literacy, so I plan to incorporate weekly lessons to help my students develop these skills. This will become a regular part of our routine to reinforce phonemic awareness. Additionally, I will conduct individual assessments focusing on various aspects of phonemic awareness, including rhyme, segmentation, and blending. These assessments will help me understand each student’s progress and specific needs in phonemic awareness.

Letter-matching activities. I will incorporate letter-matching activities to encourage my students to understand the difference between uppercase letters and lowercase letters. This will encourage my students to become familiar with these 26 letters and continue their phonic skills.

Modeling the writing of words. I will demonstrate how to write words on the board to teach my students the correct letter formation. This will improve handwriting in my classroom and enhance their understanding of letter knowledge.

Flashcards. While learning sight words, flashcards will help develop the different sight words. Students will have a visual of the words, which is essential because many sight words have irregular spelling so the students can start to memorize which words are difficult to spell.

Read-aloud. During read-aloud, I will use books that contain many different sight words to help my students understand how the various words we are learning fit into different sentences.

Pacing. I will utilize direct instruction while teaching pacing by modeling it. Another useful tool to work on pacing is choral or unison reading with the whole class or small group. This helps and encourages students to work on timing—not too fast and not too slow.

Prosody. Prosody is the expression in the voice. A way I will develop this in my classroom is through direct instruction. During direct instruction, I will focus on the different elements of prosody: phrasing, pitch, volume, and stress.

The text. I will ensure that the texts in my class vary in genre, style, difficulty level, theme, and appeal. This will guarantee that my students will find a text they enjoy and want to comprehend.

The context. For my students to be able to comprehend they need to know the context of what they read and build knowledge before. Comprehension cannot occur without knowledge (Teaching Reading in the 21st Century, Dewitz et al., 1997). I will teach my students how to gain extra knowledge and context like when, where, and why. This will ensure my students have the extra context and knowledge of a text to fully understand it.

VanderKolk, B. (2024, September, 18) Motivation/Engagement and Read Alouds [Lecture]

VanderKolk, B. (2024, October, 21) How Aware are You? [Lecture]

Mesmer, H. A. (2019). Letter lessons and first words: Phonics Foundations That Work. Heinemann Educational Books.

VanderKolk, B. (2024, October, 23) Phonics [Lecture]

VanderKolk, B. (2024, October, 28) I Spy With My Little Eye… a Word [Lecture]

VanderKolk, B. (2024, October, 30) Fluency [Lecture]

VanderKolk, B. (2024, November, 4) Comprehension [Lecture]

Building motivation. In my classroom, I will help build my student’s motivation by setting clear and realistic goals they can achieve. This will help motivate them to want to do the best they can to achieve their goal. I will also model building motivation by continually motivating every one of my students.

Connecting the literacy curriculum to student’s backgrounds. As I get to know my students, I will use examples from my student’s lives during literacy lessons to help keep them engaged and provide a sense of belonging (Vander Kolk, 2024).

Diverse books. In my classroom library, I will offer a diverse range of books like books in different languages, biographies about different cultural people, and different leveled books for all types of readers (picture books, chapter books, and comic books). This will encourage all students to read and read diverse books.