Balanced Literacy: An Instructional Framework
Cindy Elizabeth Ponce Ingles de Abrego
Teacher Certification Program, TeachAway
Instructors’ Names
Dr. Steve Francis
Date
January 21, 2023
In this essay I will describe some components of a balanced literacy approach,
such as Interactive Read-Aloud, Guided Reading, and Writer’s Workshop, to
support a gradual release of responsibility to finally compare the literacy
classroom from my Field Experience.
The Balanced Literacy Approach
It is a comprehensive approach for teaching reading and writing by
incorporating a variety of strategies that include whole language and phonics
instruction and focus on both teacher-led and student-centered education to better
support the student's needs and allow gradual student responsibility. According to
the National Reading Panel (2000), a balanced literacy approach includes the
following components: phonemic awareness instruction, phonics instruction,
fluency instruction, vocabulary instruction, and comprehension instruction.
Components of the Balanced Literacy approach that support the Gradual
Release Responsibility
The writer’s workshop strategy was described in the article Being a
Writer: Curriculum to Build a Community of Writers with these words “writer's
workshop is an effective way to build students' writing skills, confidence, and
motivation” as one of the best opportunities that teachers have to support students
before they write, along their writing and after they write because is a habit of the
process to encourage students through effective feedback to keep them motivated
and enjoy the process of finally celebrate their achievements when they have
finished a unit and are capable to create writing a piece of their own as they
gradually were building upon it in the stages in which they had to try out writing
independently.
Literacy Classroom and the Field Experience
About the Literacy Classroom, I learned many thighs such as the role of
the teacher during interactive read-aloud, and instruction key elements that
enhance the student’s use and comprehension of the language. However, the field
experience that I selected was more of a platform-student interaction kind of
instruction missing the naturality of the learning process that could happen in a
classroom discussion about a book. I mostly liked it better when a teacher and the
students can connect in a way in which students grow academically, personally,
and socially and they learn in a more collaborative environment.
References
National Reading Panel. (2023). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching
Children to Read, An Evidenced Based Assessment of the Scientific Research
Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction (NIH 00-4769)
Dec 2000 (First Edition). National Institute of Health.
The National Writing Project [Richard Sterling] (Director). (n.d.). Being a Writer:
Curriculum to Build a Community of Writers. The National Writing Project.
Retrieved October 12, 2015, from
https://archive.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/4214