August 2019 – Page 2 – New Balanced Literacy Schools

August 6, 2019hmangan No Comments

The New Word Walls To Language Walls

Language Walls are Word Walls expanded to a more sophisticated level to include ideas, notions, images, and much more, providing for deeper discussions. Language walls foster both social and academic discourse, allowing the teacher to document specific aspects of language. These walls allow for building vocabulary in all content areas. The focus of a language wall is on language generation by the students which create new information and understanding about the world.

Check out the Word Walls to Language Walls article by Dr. Margaret Policastro for more information.

August 6, 2019hmangan No Comments

Discourse: The Importance Of Talk In The Balanced Literacy Classroom

By Margaret Mary Policastro, Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois

During a classroom book club discussion in our university summer reading clinic, the students we were observing had just moved their chairs into a circle to discuss The WatsonsGo to Birhmingham — 1963 and, even before they were in place, the students were eagerly discussing the book. In this open forum discussion, they were saying “I can’t believe this happened …,” “I was so sad when I read…” and “I thought it was so funny when …” Even class conversation outside of the book club seemed to be connected to the book. For example, “My dad did this funny thing last night, and it reminded me of the Watsons …” The students were eager to share and respond to each other about funny events, sad events, and much more. Parents also commented on how the children were discussing the book at home.

Creating Parent Libraries: Enhancing Family Literacy Through Access To Books

By Margaret Mary Polieastro, Diane K. Mazeski, and Becky McTague

Imagine walking into a school and the first thing you see is an inviting parent library where books are displayed and celebrated. This would be a place where parents can check out children’s books or read a book and find information about family literacy.

It has been our goal to assist reading specialists and literacy coaches to develop and create such parent libraries within the schools and districts where they work. The last several years have provided an outstanding opportunity for us to work in a large urban public school district. Most recently, we have focused our attention and efforts on understanding and creating a structure or framework for access to books for parents through designing and implementing parent libraries. This critical and essential access to books requires a confluence of ideas that bridges libraries within a school and provides access to books for families and caregivers.

Thus, the notions and ideas of family literacy permeate throughout our work and efforts. Family literacy is based on the idea that parents and children learn best when learning together and, through this process, both parents and children develop essential skills. Furthermore, this approach to literacy has been identified as a potential strategy for ameliorating the challenges of low levels of literacy and poverty (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). The purpose of this column is to introduce the idea of developing and creating parent libraries and to provide descriptions, elements, photographs, references, and a checklist. Further, we showcase several parent libraries—one recently created and another that has long been in existence as an exemplar model.

August 6, 2019hmangan No Comments

Comprehensive Literacy Basics: An Anthology By Capstone Professional

This book, compiled by experts in the filed of literacy language arts education, will provide support for educators as well as valuable knowledge in literacy development in areas such as language arts block, including whole group, small group, writing, and differentiation. Capstone publishing ensures “the quick tips and suggestions within will reinforce current practices while providing an invaluable go-to reference” (capstonepub.com).

Buy this book!

Comprehensive Literacy Basics Information Sheet

August 6, 2019hmangan No Comments

Living Literacy At Home: A Parent’s Guide

How to implement Living Literacy at Home

The joy of reading continues at home — in the kitchen, doing the laundry, painting a room, wherever!

What a wonderful book to share on parent’s night, at open house, during parent-teacher conferences, and in your newsletter’s home. Parents are partners in education and the tips and strategies in this book will strengthen the home-to-school alliance.

Discuss the book in a staff meeting and decide what might be included in the weekly principal’s newsletter. Ask your students to share their favorite stories that are read at home. Ask your parents to volunteer and come and read to the class. Children should view their parents as life long learners. You may need to help prepare the parent before, perhaps showing them a few techniques you use to model reading.

Have fun! Read together!
Buy this book!

August 6, 2019hmangan No Comments

The New Balanced Literacy School: Implementing The Common Core

This book, authored by Dr. Margaret Policastro and Dr. Becky McTague, infuses best practices of the new balanced literacy model through the lens of Common Core with support in read-alouds, independent reading and writing, language and literacy, and several other areas.

This must-read book will be the vehicle that will take you through the process of meeting the new instructional demands of the Common Core State Standards in the new balanced literacy model. This book can be used as a solo read or as a professional read for you and your colleagues. It doesn’t matter where in the process you are of looking at your practice with a new lens. Live with a chapter at a time, take notes in the margins, bring questions to your teaching partners, provide successes, and “rethinks” at your meetings. Hard to find common time to meet? You can create a web document and meet virtually. Additionally there is an educational goldmine of goodies in the appendices.

Buy this book!

August 6, 2019hmangan No Comments

Formative Assessment In The New Balanced Literacy Classroom

It is true that “assessment drives instruction”. This resource, authored by Dr. Margaret Policastro, Dr. Becky McTague, and Dr. Diane Mazeski, can easily be used as a professional read for teachers, staff and administrators. The seven chapters can be assigned to read for grade level meetings, grade band meetings, jigsaw activities for faculty meetings. These readings should be used to build capacity, deprivatize instruction and develop rich conversations. Nothing happens overnight in changing a culture of a school. This book will guide you through the steps. Be patient, change will come.

Buy this book!

August 2, 2019hmangan No Comments

“The Quickest Kid Clarksville”  By Pat Zietlow Miller; Illustrated By Frank Morrison

It’s the day before the big parade. Alta can only think about one thing: Wilma Rudolph, three-time Olympic gold medalist. She’ll be riding on a float tomorrow. See, Alta is the quickest kid in Clarksville, Tennessee, just like Wilma once was. It doesn’t matter that Alta’s shoes have holes because Wilma came from hard times, too. But what happens when a new girl with shiny new shoes comes along and challenges Alta to a race? Will she still be the quickest kid? The Quickest Kid in Clarksville is a timeless story of dreams, determination, and the power of friendship.

August 2, 2019hmangan No Comments

Richard Wright And The Library Card

As a young black man in the segregated South of the 1920s, Wright was hungry to explore new worlds through books, but was forbidden from borrowing them from the library. This touching account tells of his love of reading, and how his unwavering perseverance, along with the help of a co-worker, came together to make Richard’s dream a reality An inspirational story for children of all backgrounds, Richard Wright and the Library Card shares a poignant turning point in the life of a young man who became one of this country’s most brilliant writers, the author of Native Son and Black Boy. This book is the third in a series of biographies by William Miller, including Zora Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree and Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery. All focus on important moments in the lives of these prominent African Americans.

August 2, 2019hmangan No Comments

Ruth And The Green Book By Calvin Alexander Ramsey

Ruth was so excited to take a trip in the new family car! But she soon found out that black travelers weren’t treated well in some towns. Many hotels and gas stations refused service to black people. Finally, a friendly gas station attendant gave Ruth’s family The Green Book. This book listed all the places that would welcome black travelers. With this guidebook, Ruth’s family could finally make a safe journey from Chicago to Alabama to see her grandma.

The Green Book and its role in helping a generation of black travelers avoid some of the indignities of Jim Crow are historical fact.

As an award-winning Atlanta book author and playwright, Calvin Alexander Ramsey concentrates on what he calls “unknown pages in African American history”. In fact, Ramsey’s first work, titles The Green Book, is based on the guidebook discussed in Ruth and the Green Book, and performed in 2007. In his play, Ramsey sought to recapture interviews with scores of African Americans whom recalled emotions of peril and fear while traveling. The play sold out many performances and won recognition as a finalist in the 12^th Annual Last Frontier Conference. Visit calvinalexdanderramseysr.com for more information and other work completed by the author.