Literacy Course Reflection

This course has provided me with a strong understanding of how students in the primary grades learn to read and write and what I need to do to ensure I provide my students with the best literacy learning experiences. More specifically, I have learned foundations of literacy instruction, principles of effective literacy teachers, stages of literacy development, common core standards, the reading and writing processes, different way to assess and assessment tools, how to organize for reading and writing, classroom management skills, how to support all students in literacy, vocabulary development, and technology resources to encourage literacy. From class discussions, readings, notes, and my practicum experiences, I have a clear picture of how I will set up literacy time in my future classroom. Throughout the course, the most important thing I have learned is the importance of implementing a well-rounded, balanced approach to teaching literacy. (main theme) …show more content…
I will need to be mindful of each principle as I continue practicum experiences, begin student teaching, and finally get my own classroom. The principles are: understand how students learn, support student’s use of the cueing systems, create a community of learners, adopt a balanced approach to instruction, address standards, scaffold student’s reading and writings, organize for literacy instruction, differentiate instruction, and link instruction and assessment. All the topics we discussed in this class cover most of these aspects. Unfortunately, in my practicum experience, I did not get to experience my cooperating teacher demonstrating these principles throughout her literacy instruction. She did, however, model writing on a board for students and had individual students come to the board and sound out a word to try and spell it. This could connect to