Balanced Literacy

The article "The Components of Balanced Literacy" was personally a great read. When I thought about balanced literacy before reading the article I thought it was just whole group and guided reading. This article has given me more of an insight as to what balanced literacy actually is. As teachers, we make decisions everyday about the best ways we can help our students become better readers and writers. 

Shared writing and read aloud are components of balanced literacy that focus on building students' independence in the meaning and structure sources of information. This means the teacher does the modeling of thinking, the teacher does the physical writing while the students supply the teacher with the ideas, and the teacher reads loud a story while the students discuss the components of the story by listening and comprehending. (Mermelstein, 2006)

Interactive writing and shared reading are components of balanced literacy that focus on building students' independence in the visual sources of information. That means the teacher composes a large text with the students. The students participate by writing parts of the text. A shared reading differs from a read aloud because the teacher reads a story aloud the class has already read. The students read along with the teacher. The students use strategies to help them when they encounter difficulties.(Mermelstein, 2006)

I particularly found interactive writing and shared reading to be very interesting. I do shared writing and read alouds all the time. I think slowing down and chunking an interactive writing so the students are not bored or overwhelmed is a great idea. I also feel that shared reading is a great way to show and discuss different strategies that students can use when they are reading. When they get to a word they don't know they can use the clues in pictures and letter sounds to help them. Shared reading would be a component I would not do as frequent in whole group because most of my students know how to read. But it would be a great component to do in small groups. (Mermelstein, 2006)

Writing workshop and reading workshop are components in balanced literacy where teachers work with individuals or small groups to use meaning, structure and visual sources of information independently to compose meaning into and from texts all at once. (Mermelstein, 2006)

When using balanced literacy, teachers will decide how often to do each component based upon the assessments of their class. For example, my students would not need shared reading as often as read aloud because most of my students know how to read but need more help with comprehension. 

Over all I thought this was a must read article for teachers who teach early literacy! The ideas within this article will make you think about how you teach literacy and what are some components you could add into your routine. 

References 

Mermelstein, L. (2006). Reading/writing connections in the K-2 classroom. Boston: Pearson