Literacy

Literacy Lane

The purpose of this page is to provide strategies and activities to enhance the development of reading comprehension. As a participant in endless conferences, seminars, and university courses, I have always come away with lots of new ideas and generated some of my own. The need to internalize all of the information led me to develop extensive notes in handout format to share with others. I call it The Literarium: A Teacher's Bag of Tricks (a Compendium of Strategies and Activities to Enhance Literacy.) It's one of those "never ending stories." I'll always be a teacher researcher, looking for the better fix! Enjoy!

Now that I have retired from my job as a Language Arts Specialist, I have the time to go through things that I developed and used in the classroom as a regular education teacher. What a goldmine! I had forgotten that I worked on this as a personal literacy project while working on my masters degree. I'm really excited about finding the documents that support this page! If you see something that is not underlined and would like to move it to the front of the line for completion, let me know by sending me an e-mail at carl1404@msn.com and I'll get to it right away.

Some of these files are apparently too large to open as Word documents so I'm in the process of converting them to pdf files, while still trying to add new stuff!! If you can't open something, e-mail me and I'll convert it immediately (same day). Some things are not linked yet, and so they are not underlined. They are here as a reminder to myself to finish them ASAP.

The Literarium:
A Teacher's Bag of Tricks

Literacy: From A to Z
A is for acceleration of learning for all.
B is for books for the tall and the small.
C is for clusters, commercials and change.
D for designing a delightful exchange.
E is for evaluate and edit (sincere).
F is for fluent young readers to cheer.
G is for genre and group gallery walk.
H is for hot seat for questions and talk.
I is for interaction that never seems dull.
J is for jigsaws and journals so full.
K is for knowing how to read and to write.
L is for listening to others recite.
M is for marvelous mysteries and more.
N is for needing to think and explore.
O is for awesome oral productions.
P is for paragraphs, poems, predictions.
Q is for quietly reading each day.
R for responding to what others say.
S is for songs and stories and skits.
T is for themes. Tea parties are hits!
U is for unconditional respect.
V is for videotaping the text.
W is for taking a “walk through the mind.”
X is for extending all you’ve designed.
Y is for yearning to spread literacy.
Z is for zooming toward proficiency.

Effective Teachers and Effective Schools

Literacy Quilt

The Literacy Quilt below is a gentle reminder for teachers to include interactive instructional strategies that meet the learning styles of all children. Worksheets are often nothing but crowd control and are in actuality, an assessment tool to determine a child's independent understanding of concepts. When I was still in the classroom, I had a wall sized version of this quilt behind my desk so that I could refer to it when planning. I found that my students also used it when planning responses to literature, book commercials and special projects. They often asked for old favorites, as well. I still add to it on occasion and eventually hope to include definitions, directions, and samples for each item listed. If something catches your eye before then, let me know by e-mail (carl1404@msn.com), and I'll be happy to give you an explanation of a specific strategy and how I used it with different grade levels. Many of them (not all) are already included in the Literarium.

ABC Brainstorm	Abra-Ca-Dabra or Hocus Pocus
Accordion Books	Activating Prior Knowledge
Ad Campaign	Alphabet Books
Alternate Ending	Anticipation/Reaction Guides
Anticipation Guide Sample: Arthur's Family Vacation	Authors' Circle
And The Award Goes To . . .	Back to the Future
Banner	Block Out (Words or Phrases)
Book Commercials	Book Covers
Bookmark	Brainabulary
Buddy Reading	Bumper Sticker
Carousel Brainstorm	Cartoon
Cereal Box Book	Chain of Events
Character Birthday Party	Character Masks
Character Report Card/Judges Panel	Chunking
A Clear View (Binoculars)	Cloze http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/strats/cloze/index.html
Clustering Brainstorm	Coat of Arms
Codes	Collage
Combining Sentences	Comic Capers
Comprehension Questions	Conferences
Constructivist Teaching	Context Clues
Cooperative Learning	Copy Change
Coupons	Cube
Daily Word Daily Word Graphic	Debate
Demonstrated Writing	Dialogue Journals
Diaries/Journals	Diorama (Life in a Shoe Box)
Diorama in the Round	Door Hanger
Double Circle Gallery Walk	Double Entry Journal
Double Entry Journal Variation	DRTA (Directed Reading Thinking Activity)
Dual Dialog	Echo Reading
English Language Learner Strategies	Epitaph
Expository Instruction	Familiar Reading
Family Tree	Fiction Fashion: Wear A Word
Five W's Chart Use this chart for summarizing and retelling and/or for organizing thoughts before writing.	Fix-Up Strategies
Flag	Flap Books (for Guided Reading Extensions)
Flap Books (Please note that all of the flap book patterns and samples need to saved to your computer and then opened. Not sure why, but that's the way it works! Maybe it's the original graphics. Sorry for the inconvenience!)	T-Rex Flap Book Sample Penguin Flap Book Pattern Sports Biography Flap Book Patterns Pilgrim Flap Book Patterns Native American Flap Book Patterns Uncle Sam Flap Book Pattern Ladybug Flap Book Sample
Flawless Ways to Fluent Reading	Flip Books for Retelling Reproduce and have available for younger readers. Retelling shouldn't become a lesson in folding and cutting!
Focus Poetry	Found Poem
Four Corners Debate	Gallery Walk
Genre: Links http://www.reallygoodstuff.com/pdfs/150288.pdf	Genre Switch
Golden Line/Word	Grand Conversation
Graphic Organizer for Content Area Text	Greeting Cards
Guided Imagery	Handwriting
Hollywood Squares (Vocabulary)	Home Reading
Hot Seat	Illustrate and Associate
Illustrated Word List Illustrated Word List 2	Improvisation
Independent Reading	Interview
Jekyll and Hyde	Junior Jeopardy
Jiffy Person	Jigsaw
Job Application	Journals and Learning Logs
K-W-L	Letter Diary
Letters	List-Group-Label
Lists	Listening Post
Literacy Centers	A Literate Classroom
Literature Circle Nametags and Directions: Super Summarizer	Word Wonder
Passage Picker	Discussion Director
Clever Connector	Awesome Artist
Travel Tracker	Look It Up! (Spelling)
Mapping	Menu
Metacognition	Mobile
Modeling	Modeling Margin Notes
Morning Message: Go to http://www.jmeacham.com/message.htm#formats	Mural/Talking Picture
Name That Tune	Newspaper
Open House	Opened Ended Worksheets See samples below











Paper Chains	Paper Dolls
Passport	Peek Over/Add On (with Samples) Pirate Peek Over Pattern (Please note that you have to save the Peek Over documents to your computer and then open the files.)