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Academics » Balanced Literacy

Balanced Literacy

BALANCED LITERACY is a curricular methodology that integrates various modalities of literacy instruction, which are aimed at guiding students towards proficient and lifelong reading. The balanced literacy approach is characterized by explicit skill instruction and by the use of authentic texts.

COMPONENTS OF BALANCED LITERACY AND STRATEGIES*

Below is a synopsis of each of the components of "Balanced Literacy," for those who are unfamiliar with this literacy instructional approach.

METHOD 1: READ ALOUDS

  • An interactive experience in which readers are engaged in discussing a text throughout the reading

  • Develops high-level thinking and discourse

  • An opportunity to deepen comprehension through discourse and active thinking

  • Using cognitive resources that actively engage students in thinking about the text, such as the DOK and Bloom's levels will increase rigor and raise the caliber of conversation

 
 
METHOD 2: SHARED READING

  • Students are reading a common text with teacher support

  • The text is re-read over the course of several days with various teaching points in mind

  • Fluency is a key goal of this component ultimately leading to higher levels of comprehension

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METHOD 3: READING MINI-LESSON

  • Direct and explicit instruction

  • About 10 minutes in length

  • Clear and consistent structure

    • Connection

    • Teach

    • Try/Active Engagement

    • Link

  • Drawn from a unit of study or a class need

  • Refers to a text for instructional clarity such as a read-aloud or shared reading

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METHOD 4: INDEPENDENT READING

  • Students are reading a “Just-Right” book of their choice

  • Students are practicing reading strategies taught in the mini-lesson

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METHOD 5: CONFERRING

  • The teacher meets with students individually in order to discuss and document specific needs and the progress of the individual reader

  • The teacher may review a skill or strategy from a previous conference or may set a new goal with the student

  • Conferences with students can be based on formal (pre-and post-assessments) and informal (observations & reader's response journal) data

    • Questions during a conference can be focused on the data collected, or can be used as a means to decide what levels the individual still needs work on

    • Goals around the levels can be set with the student

  • Format: research >> decide >> teach

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METHOD 6: SMALL GROUP WORK

  • Guided Reading: One type of small-group differentiated instruction designed to help individual students learn how to process a variety of increasingly challenging texts with understanding and fluency

    • This small group of students is at the same or similar instructional reading level based on a variety of informal and formal assessments

  • Strategy Instruction: Another type of small group differentiated instruction that brings readers together who are not necessarily on the same instructional level, yet these children have demonstrated a common “strategy” need, which is identified by the teacher

METHOD 7: ASSESSMENT

  • Formative assessments are assessments FOR learning

    • Journaling, conferring, observation, self-assessment, portfolios, and so on

  • Summative assessments are assessments OF learning

    • Unit assessments, standardized assessments, portfolios, and so on

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