Entry 12 ~ Language Arts Development

Reading: There are many ways to develop reading in the daily curriculum. Mrs. Grigg does a read-aloud every morning to show how to think about their thinking when the students are reading independently. They have time to go to the library a couple of times during the week. There are also guided reading groups that happen during literacy centers daily. Finally, students develop reading during independent reading time during the day.

Writing: There are opportunities to develop writing as well. In every unit, Mrs. Grigg includes a writing requirement where the students write about what they have learned. For example, they were doing a unit on bats and they had to come up with several facts about bats to write about. They also write about the observations they make in science lab. They write about what they detect with their five senses, and this gives them an opportunity to add new words into their writing vocabulary that are descriptive of the materials.

Listening: The students listen to instructions and readings from the teacher. They also have a listening center for literacy centers.

Speaking: They do chants and sing songs that cement math and phonics in their minds. Mrs. Grigg does not waste any time, and when they walk down the hall, they are chanting something. They also spell their word sort words out loud to a partner and guided reading is about speaking the written words as well.

Viewing: The students view short videos teaching phonics or introducing a unit. They see posters on the walls of different things they are learning about, and words they are learning. In the computer lab, they play math games that help them learn because they view the problems in animation form.

Visually Representing: There is some visual representation happening in the classroom. When students are working on a project for a unit, they create something to go along with their written project. For example, they decorated a turkey in an outfit that would act like a disguise. Some of the end results were: a doctor, a rockstar, and sports player, etc. They visually represented what they wrote about.