Teaching Literacy
Learning in the Modern Classroom
What Literacy Looks Like in the Classroom
Click to see a brief description of each picture.
Why is Literacy Important?
Literacy in the 21st Century
Literacy in the 21st century is knowing how to learn and know. Learning how to navigate and organize concepts into meaningful information. Students must learn to actively interact with content by asking questions, making connections and generating inferences and then using that information to their own benefit. 21st century literacy is an interactive and engaging mindset. Literacy today is more than just reading, literacy is the foundation and basis for everything and a life long process!
Literacy Lesson
Linked below is a lesson plan that I created for a wonderful class of Grade 2’s at Ross Glen Elementary School. This lesson was designed to allow students to review concepts of story elements and to learn how to retell the beginning, middle and end of a familiar story in preparation for their own creative writing.
"Emma was a joy to work with. She is enthusiastic about everything in teaching LA, and took extra time and care to research or seek out good resources in addition to thoughtful planning. She has a natural ability in the classroom in oral communication, personal relationship building and natural enjoyment/love for her students... She planned engaging lessons, read with excitement , taught in a way that made her students think, she checks for understanding and praised efforts. I wish I had more time with Emma."
Heidi Ast - Mentor Teacher
Rewards
What was the most Rewarding part of Teaching Literacy?
I had the pleasure of teaching multiple literacy focused lessons during my practicum at Ross Glen School. Each of these lessons allowed me the opportunity to plan, implement and learn about teaching literacy in a modern classroom. Students in my classroom enhanced my learning experience through their unique abilities, allowing me to better understand the strengths and struggles that students experience in our literacy focused world. I felt rewarded when I successfully tied curriculum goals to fun and engaging learning opportunities while learning that planning for these outcomes takes a lot of dedication and equal amounts of creativity. My committed lesson planning was rewarded by enthusiastic participation and authentic learning in students who have, in the past, struggled with literacy concepts. This experience was fulfilling and eye-opening for me as I realized my potential to be the “difference-maker” in the lives of students by offering them the gift of positive literacy experiences that allow them to be successful and confident participants in their own learning.
Challenges
What was the most challenging part of teaching Literacy?
One of the struggles I faced when teaching my literacy lessons was allowing students enough time to move. Planning short and concise teaching opportunities followed by movement breaks allowed my active students the best potential for success. However, planning for movement breaks complicated my lesson planning and challenged me to think about ways to tie the necessary breaks to our lesson. I was further challenged to maintain classroom management during movement breaks to ensure that we could quickly resume our lesson without losing focus on important concepts. This experience taught me that each part of my lesson must be strategic and purposeful because each moment is fleeting. Many students are challenged with a limited capacity to learn without essential movement breaks, this is also a challenge for teachers! Learning to understand the needs of my students helped me to plan effective lessons that set them up for success and saw them learning and engaging in literacy.
Lesson Artifacts
Making Learning Fun!
Creating content for my lessons plans challenged my planning skills as student teacher and allowed me to focus on curricular outcomes in a creative way. The examples below are from a Dr. Seuss themed lesson plan I created which focused on the use of adjectives, rhyming and writing. Students enjoyed these interactive centres and practiced important skills in the process.
Reading Resources
The following literacy based resources are great for referencing and helping to establishing a solid literary foundation in my future classroom as well as helpful in providing direction and book suggestions for the aspiring reader!