A Literate Environment
© Leslie Rapchik
Motivation is built from a literate environment that encourages use of language and print. Read-Aloud's function as an important component of motivation because it provides a basis for expansion of speech and schemas. This also encourages children to write about what they've heard during Read-Aloud time. A key to motivating children to read and write revolves around the teacher's enthusiasm and positive feelings towards reading and writing.
Developing literacy includes participation by students, teachers and parent/guardian. In addition, when children are taught reading and writing strategies as modes of instruction, children develop literacy.
Modes of reading include independent, cooperative, guided, shared and read-aloud strategies. Teachers facilitate the learning process by being aware of how, when and which mode to use and which students will benefit from certain modes more than others. For example, cooperative reading should be incorporated into a lesson plan when some students need a little bit of support and can't handle total independent selections. The teacher can also enhance comprehension by asking children questions. Using "preview and predict" and "summarizing", the teacher stimulates the student's minds and encourages them to continue learning.
Modes of writing should also be stimulating the student's development of literacy. Writing instructional modes are independent, collaborative, guided and shared. Much like reading modes, writing instruction contributes to the learning process as well. Children need to learn how to identify and decode words so that they can develop concepts about print, phonemic awareness and letter-sound correspondences.
When students reach grades 4-6, teachers can continue the same processes and modes of instruction as in lower grades; however, reading and writing time frames should increase. In other words, independent reading should be about 15-20 minutes per day as opposed to 10-15 in lower grades. Same guidelines apply to independent writing too. Student's time periods should increase to 30-45 minutes per day from 20-30 minutes in lower grades.
The "read-aloud, read-along, read-alone" strategy can be used with older students who need a skeleton to construct meaning. This enables the student to understand complex texts and extend the shared reading instructional mode used in earlier grades. Another development that needs to be accomplished in the upper grades is how students learn how to read and write informational texts. Expository writing continues beyond high school, so the fundamentals need to be carefully applied to student's literary experiences early on.
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