Jesse Boyd Elementary School practices a balanced literacy approach to teaching and learning English Language Arts. Literacy is embedded within all core subject areas. Students read and write across the curriculum. Within the balanced literacy program, students have:

Reading Aloud:

• Teacher reads selection aloud to students

• Provides adult model of fluent reading

• Develops sense of story/text

• Develops vocabulary

• Encourages prediction

• Builds a community of readers

• Develops active listening and encourages rich conversation/questioning 

• Builds background knowledge

• Allows teacher to integrate content areas

Shared Reading:

• Teacher and students read text together

• Demonstrates awareness of text

• Develops sense of story or content

• Promotes reading strategies

• Develops fluency and phrasing

• Increases comprehension

• Encourages politeness and respect

Guided Reading:

• Teacher introduces a selection at student’s instructional level

• Promotes reading strategies

• Increases comprehension

• Encourages independent reading

• Expands belief in own ability

Independent Reading:

• Students read independently

• Encourages strategic reading

• Increases comprehension

• Supports writing development

• Extends experiences with a variety of written texts

• Promotes reading for enjoyment and information

• Develops fluency

• Fosters self-confidence by reading familiar and new text

• Provides opportunities to use mistakes as learning opportunities

Phonics:

• Demonstrates how words work

• Increases letter/sound relationship

• Increases vocabulary

• Develops letter formation

• Promoates blending

• Promotes fluency

• Develops active listening

• Increases phonemic awareness

• Improves encoding and decoding words

• Supports flexibility in reading

• Encourages students to attack unknown words with confidence 

Modeled/Shared Writing:

• Teacher and students collaborate to write text; the teacher acts as a scribe

• Develops concepts of print

• Develops writing strategies

• Supports reading development

• Provides models for a variety of writing styles

• Models the connection between sounds, letters, and words

• Produces text that students can read independently

• Necessitates communicating in a clear and specific manner

Interactive Writing:

• Teachers and students compose together using a “shared pen” technique in which students do some of the writing

• Provides opportunities to plan and construct texts

• Increases spelling knowledge

• Produces written language resources in the classroom

• Creates opportunities to apply what has been learned

Independent Writing: Students Write Independently:

• Strengthen text sequence

• Develops an understanding of multiple uses of writing

• Support their reading development

• Develops writing strategies

• Develops active independence