Connected Literacy Classrooms

Hi all.

Welcome back to a new school year. I hope everyone has had a fantastic Christmas and and a happy and healthy start to the New Year!

This year, we have had a few changes to some of our staff.

Firstly, Mrs Desiree Harding who was our Reading Recovery teacher these past 4 years has now moved back into the classroom. Mrs Harding will be teaching Prep 4 days a week. She is very excited about her new role.

Mrs Megan Escalante is now taking over the Reading Recovery role as well as maintaining her position as Deputy Principal and Literacy Leader.

Mrs Morris is still our lovely Library teacher who works every Wednesday.

My aim this year is to contribute to this blog on a regular basis and making it a worthwhile space for teachers to visit.

If you have any suggestions about how I can improve this blog, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Happy Reading!

At Holy Saviour this year we have introduced Leveled Literacy Intervention.

"The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention System (LLI) is a small-group, supplementary literacy intervention designed to help teachers provide powerful, daily, small-group instruction for the lowest achieving students at their grade level. Through systematically designed lessons and original, engaging leveled books,LLI supports learning in both reading and writing, helps students expand their knowledge of language and words and how they work. The goal of LLI is to bring students to grade level achievement in reading."

Each Level of LLI provides:

Combination of reading, writing, and phonics/word study.
Emphasis on teaching for comprehending strategies.
Explicit attention to genre and to the features of nonfiction and fiction texts.
Special attention to disciplinary reading, literature inquiry, and writing about reading.
Specific work on sounds, letters, and words in activities designed to help students notice the details of written language and learn how words "work."
Close reading to deepen and expand comprehension.
Explicit teaching of effective and efficient strategies for expanding vocabulary.
Explicit teaching for fluent and phrased reading.
Use of writing about reading for the purpose of communicating and learning how to express ideas for a particular purpose and audience using a variety of writing strategies.
Built-in level-by-level descriptions and competencies from The Continuum of Literacy Learning, PreK-8 (2011) to monitor student progress and guide teaching.
Communication tools for informing parents about what children are learning and how they can support them at home.
Technology support for assessment, record keeping, lesson instruction, and home and classroom connections.
Each Level of LLI provides:

Combination of reading, writing, and phonics/word study.
Emphasis on teaching for comprehending strategies.
Explicit attention to genre and to the features of nonfiction and fiction texts.
Special attention to disciplinary reading, literature inquiry, and writing about reading.
Specific work on sounds, letters, and words in activities designed to help students notice the details of written language and learn how words "work."
Close reading to deepen and expand comprehension.
Explicit teaching of effective and efficient strategies for expanding vocabulary.
Explicit teaching for fluent and phrased reading.
Use of writing about reading for the purpose of communicating and learning how to express ideas for a particular purpose and audience using a variety of writing strategies.
Built-in level-by-level descriptions and competencies from The Continuum of Literacy Learning, PreK-8 (2011) to monitor student progress and guide teaching.
Communication tools for informing parents about what children are learning and how they can support them at home.
Technology support for assessment, record keeping, lesson instruction, and home and classroom connections.
Detailed analysis of the characteristics of text difficulty for each book.

from https://www.heinemann.com/fountasandpinnell/lli_overview.aspx

Mrs Escalante and Mrs Harding are being trained in this program and together with Mrs Allen, we conduct the lessons. Currently we are working with children in grade 2.