The document outlines a balanced literacy program designed to enhance reading and writing skills in students through various pedagogical approaches, including read-aloud sessions, guided reading, shared reading, and independent reading. It emphasizes key components like fluency, vocabulary, phonics, comprehension strategies, and writing workshops, providing specific activities and strategies for each. Assessment methods such as running records, diagnostic assessments, and writing journals are also discussed to track student progress and support their literacy development.

1. UNIVERSITY OF GUYANA
DEPARTMENT OF INSTRUCTION AND CURRICULUM
ERE4102 – Introduction to Literacy Studies
Group Assessment – Balanced Literacy
Lecturer: Miss Ayana Williams
Due Date: November 12, 2024
Jennet Fredericks USI:1051234
Pulwattie Narine USI:1050564
Keana Primo USI:1051939
Jason Marshall USI:1054407

2. A Balanced Literacy Programme.

3. Introduction
A classroom where all students are mentally present, taking part in
activities, making links between reading, writing and discussing – this is
the picture a balanced literacy program is intended to create. Integrating
different pedagogical approaches, this particular program aims at
creating readers and writers who are effective and enthusiastic. In a
balanced literacy program, the teacher deploys several approaches to
teaching, so that as many students as possible are able to acquire the
necessary skills in literacy. This Powerpoint presentation will examine
the key elements of a balanced literacy program such as: Read Aloud,
Guided Reading, Shared Reading, Independent Reading, Word Study and
Writing. All these components are central in the provision of an all round
and comprehensive literacy education which empowers the students with
the skills required for success at school and even after school

4. Characteristics and components of balanced literacy programmes.
Fluency – is the ability to effortlessly and correctly read, speak
and write English.
Writing – the process of students generating text, whether on
paper or on a screen.
Vocabulary – knowledge of words and meanings.

5. Phonics – teaching the students that specific sounds belong to
specific letters
Comprehension strategies – understanding of what they are
reading.
Phonemic Awareness – ability to hear that a spoken word is
made up of a series of discrete sounds.

6. Assessment in a balanced literacy programme.
Formative
assessment
Summative
assessment
Running
records
Writing
samples
Diagnostic
assessment
Portfolio
assessment

7. Reading Workshop

8. Guided Reading

9. Reading Workshop
Guided Reading
Objective: Tailored small-group reading sessions targeting specific reading levels and needs.
Activities and Strategies:
 Before Reading: Give a short background of the text, focusing on the vocabulary, as well
as defining a learning objective.
 During Reading: Let the students read on their own or aloud at the same time, while using
specific questions and cues to steer the students through the text. Identify specific readers
and what they are doing and observe the strategies which they are using to read.
 After Reading: After reading this text, comprehension, connections, and inference skills
should be a major point of discussion. Be verbal in your reward by proving motivating
comments and follow-up detailing.
 Skills Focus: Group reading with phonics, decoding, fluency, vocabulary and
comprehension strategies to individual groups’ requirements.
 Materials: Levelled text, graphic organizers, notebooks or jotter for taking notes and
thoughts.

10. Shared Reading

11. Shared Reading
Objective: Read with the whole class or group with the purpose of demonstrating proper
reading and showing how to understand what has been read.
Activities and Strategies:
Introduce the Text: Introduce the book or passage, using title page and cover and/or
illustrations if any. Predict what might happen.
Read Together: Finally, enlarge the text to read with your students or use an interactive
whiteboard or a big book and include the kids.
Engage with the Text: Stop for some time to give an opportunity for students to raise questions
or concerns, and to prompt students to anticipate, read, or even answer to questions.
Rereading: Read and discuss in following days with a concentration on a different aspect of
comprehension or a different word set.
Skills Focus: Sight word recognition, word recognition and phonics, high-frequency words,
vocabulary meaning, understanding, and response, and listening and viewing.
Materials: Large books, use of an interactive whiteboard, big charts used for reading

12. Independent Reading

13. Independent Reading
Objective: Promote reading stamina, enjoyment, and self-selected reading practice.
Activities and Strategies:
Set Up Reading Time: Introduce independent reading and practice daily, asking students to choose a
comfortable place to read.
Book Selection: Students need to be taught ways to select books that are neither too hard nor too easy
for them to read.
Accountability: This means that when they read, they should keep reading logs, reflection journals, or
short prediction checklists to remind them of goal setting.
Mini-Lessons: Teach brief concept mini-lessons focusing on genre study, monitoring own
understanding, and context-based learning.
Reflection: During reading, prompt students to write or talk about their learning, focusing on relativity
personal experience or other works.
Skills Focus: To monitor their own understanding, writing, thinking and creating a reading culture within
them.
Materials: Reading anthologies, classroom library of a variety of books, reading logs, journals, or an
electronic reading app.

14. Read-Aloud Sessions

15. Read-Aloud Sessions
Objective: Model expressive reading, introduce diverse genres, and expose students to vocabulary and
comprehension strategies.
Activities and Strategies:
Interactive Read-Aloud: Use modelling questions that include those which may be predictive, those
that encourage reflection or analysis at intervals. Teach students to think aloud.
Vocabulary Focus: Emphasize new or difficult words, and support them with gestures or illustrations or
a word in writing.
Think-Aloud Strategy: Teach methods such as looking ahead, creating mental pictures, or identifying
the meaning of the author.
Discussion: Following reading, a discussion or some brief activity that helps students to consolidate
their ideas about the themes, characters, and personal associations could be held.
Extension Activities: Integrate the story to writing activities, art processes or group discussions that
improve understanding.
Skills Focus: Oral fluency, understanding the meaning of new words, reading more broadly, as well as
matching with the students so that one can read or listen while the other explains.
Materials: Quality picture books – a variety of themes and topics, picture dictionaries, and discussion
questions.

16. Writing Workshop

17. Guided Writing

18. Writing Workshop
Guided Writing
Purpose: Support small groups of students who need similar guidance or skills
development in writing.
Activities and Strategies:
Focused Mini-Lessons: Every lesson starts with a brief teacher explanation on
developing focus skill/ strategy (e.g. Description, Paraphrasing, Organisation of ideas).
Think-Aloud: Explain how ideas of a writing task are being developed and what word
choices are made when thinking aloud in front of students.
Collaborative Writing: Begin a new sentence or paragraph, and let students resume the
action with his/her words if necessary.
Peer Feedback Exchange: Encourage formation of peer-writing groups that critique
their fellow student’s work

19. Shared Writing

20. Shared Writing
Purpose: Engage the whole class in the writing process, fostering a collaborative
approach.
Activities and Strategies:
Interactive Writing: This activity involves developing a large class story in
which each member of the class types one sentence or one idea so that they
appreciate the sequence of a story.
Writing Prompts with Shared Discussion: Start with a writing stimulus, and
continue in groups, expressing ideas and making a response as a group.
Teacher-as-Scribe: A chart is used by the teacher to capture students’ ideas in
relation to how they may be grouped to from a structured style.
Sentence Starters: To assist students how to get over writer’s block and to help
them develop ideas, use of sentence starters.

21. Independent Writing

22. Independent Writing
Purpose: Allow students to explore personal writing goals and practice writing
independently.
Activities and Strategies:
Writer’s Notebook: Have students use a writer’s notebook for idea, self-
reflection, and to answer questions about the day’s writing.
Choice Writing Time: So if one wants to encourage students let them decide
whether they wish to write in a particular genre ie narratives, poetry or
information writing etc.
Weekly Goal-Setting: Let students to set and discuss their weekly writing
objectives for encouraging autonomy in the writing endeavor.
Publishing Opportunities: Give opportunities to share their writing with others:
discuss ways where students can ‘publish’ what they have written (e.g. class
displays, student writers’ collection).

23. Writing Conferences

24. Writing Conferences
Purpose: Provide personalized feedback and support, helping students identify
strengths and areas for improvement.
Activities and Strategies:
One-on-One Conferences: Spend 5-10 minutes per student to discuss their current
writing, focusing on specific goals.
Use of Checklists: Develop a simple checklist for students to self-assess before the
conference, such as “Did I include descriptive details?”
Two Stars and a Wish: Offer two positive observations about the student’s writing
and one suggestion for improvement.
Goal-Tracking Sheets: Keep records of individual goals and progress over time,
helping students see their development.

25. Word study

26. Phonics

27. Word study
Phonics
Purpose: Strengthen students' understanding of sound-letter relationships to improve
reading and spelling.
Activities and Strategies:
Sound Sorting: Use picture or word cards to have students sort based on beginning,
middle, or ending sounds (e.g., sorting words with “-at” and “-an” sounds).
Blending and Segmenting: Practice combining sounds to make words and breaking
down words into individual sounds through games (e.g., “What’s My Word?” where
students sound out letters one by one).
Word Families: Focus on word families, such as “-ing” or “-ock,” to help students
recognize patterns and make connections between similar words.
Phonics Flip Books: Create flip books where students can change the beginning,
middle, or end sound to form new words (e.g., “bat” to “cat” to “sat”).

28. Spelling

29. Spelling
Purpose: Improve spelling accuracy and word recognition by teaching spelling
patterns and rules.
Activities and Strategies:
Weekly Spelling Patterns: Focus on one spelling rule or pattern each week
(e.g., “i before e except after c”) and incorporate words with the same pattern.
Word Ladders: Give students a series of words, changing one letter at a time to
create a new word, helping them recognize letter-sound relationships (e.g., “cat”
to “bat” to “rat”).
Rainbow Words: Have students write their spelling words in different colors,
reinforcing letter order and visual memory.
Partner Spelling Tests: Let students test each other, discussing any mistakes
and helping reinforce correct spelling through collaboration.

30. Vocabulary

31. Vocabulary
Purpose: Expand students’ vocabulary knowledge to enhance comprehension and
expressive language.
Activities and Strategies:
Vocabulary Journals: Students keep a journal where they write new words,
definitions, and example sentences, creating a personal dictionary.
Semantic Mapping: Use concept maps to help students connect words to meanings,
synonyms, antonyms, and usage (e.g., for the word “brave,” link to “courage,”
“fearless,” etc.).
Context Clues Challenge: Provide sentences where students use context clues to infer
the meaning of unfamiliar words.
Synonym and Antonym Puzzles: Have students match pairs of synonyms and
antonyms, which builds word knowledge and reinforces understanding of word
relationships.

32. Assessment

33. Oral Retelling
Purpose: To evaluate understanding and recall.
Strategy: Ask students to retell a story they have read. Listen for the
inclusion of main ideas and details.

34. Phonics and Sight Word Assessments
Purpose: To assess decoding skills and sight word recognition.
Strategy: Use phonics checklists or flashcards for common sight words
and track recognition and fluency in reading them.

35. Writing Journals
Purpose: To observe writing progress over time.
Strategy: Encourage students to write daily in their
notebook. Collect notebook weekly assess growth in
writing skills, vocabulary, sentence structure, and idea
development.

36. Rubrics for Writing Assignments
Purpose: To provide feedback on writing structure, spelling,
grammar, and creativity.
Strategy: Develop age-appropriate rubrics that focus on basic skills
such as sentence formation, punctuation, and staying on topic.

37. Parent-Teacher Conferences and Student Reflections
Purpose: To discuss and share progress in reading and writing.
Strategy: Hold conferences to share assessment data and work
samples. Encourage students to reflect on their strengths and goals.

38. References
Hegwood, V. (2024). 15 Guided Reading Activities and Strategies for Teachers.
Prodigygame.com. https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/guided-reading-activities/
Reading Rockets. (2024). Shared Reading | Reading Rockets. Www.readingrockets.org.
https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/classroom-strategies/shared-reading
therigorousowl. (2020, May 16). Independent Reading in the Reading Workshop Model - The
Rigorous Owl. The Rigorous Owl.
https://therigorousowl.com/independent-reading-in-the-reading-workshop-model/

39. OneStopTeacherShop. (2019, June 17). Reader’s Workshop: Ideas for Independent Reading. One
Stop Teacher Shop.
https://onestopteachershop.com/2019/06/reading-workshop-independent-reading.html
Read-Aloud Workshop – Learning in the Living Room. (2023). Learninginthelivingroom.com.
https://learninginthelivingroom.com/events/read-aloud-workshop/
therigorousowl. (2020a, May 9). The Read-Aloud in the Reader’s Workshop Model - The Rigorous
Owl. The Rigorous Owl. https://therigorousowl.com/the-read-aloud-in-the-readers-workshop-model/

40. Children's Literacy Initiative. (2016). Writing Workshop > Overview | LEARN - Children’s Literacy
Initiative. Learn.cli.org. https://learn.cli.org/best-practices/writing-workshop/overview
The WRITING Workshop -Instructional Practices and Non Negotiables. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30,
2024, from
https://www.kismetparkps.vic.edu.au/source/Writing%20Instructional%20Practices%20KPPS.pdf
Phonics Workshop WELCOME TO OUR PHONICS WORKSHOP FOR RECEPTION PARENTS.
(n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2024, from
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