Objective 2.4: Literacy Strategies
Indicator: Candidates collaborate with classroom teachers to reinforce a wide variety of
reading instructional strategies to ensure P-12 students are able to create
meaning from text.
In the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is told by her teacher not to read outside of school. Scout reflects upon this stating, “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” I interpret this quote in two ways. First, reading is something that should be a natural part of living—it should take place without hesitation or extreme difficulty. Second, reading is something that should not be taken for granted. It is a skill that should be treasured each and every day. Like Scout, I believe that reading is important. In order to ensure that we are creating independent learners, reading should be infused throughout the school day for children of all ages.
Collaboration with classroom teachers should be a goal of any school librarian. Through this partnership it is possible to create content-based learning opportunities that embrace reading and 21st century information literacy skills. During my course work, I had the chance to collaborate with other school librarian students in order to create learning activities focused on the 10th grade Social Studies unit of immigration. It was our task to integrate multi-genre resources, as well as creative teaching and reading strategies, into the content curriculum. Our final product featured multimedia, fiction, and non-fiction resources that were perfectly suited for the immigration unit. Furthermore, our teaching strategies, which ranged from warm-ups to group projects and research assignments, were carefully crafted to suit the diverse learning styles and needs of our students. No matter how different the strategies, each called for students to enhance their reading skills. Whether it was reading a non-fiction text for informational purposes, navigating electronic sources to gather research, or using fiction texts to derive commonalities with their class notes, all students were reading for a specific purpose.
From this experience, I know that it is possible to incorporate reading, in an engaging yet educational way, into any content area of a school. I am eager to work with various classroom teachers because I can open their eyes to the many resources available that support their content. When they realize that multiple reading sources can enhance their lessons, we will reach our overarching goal: to create students who are advanced readers and thus have critical thinking skills. If we have students read multiple genres, as well as in varied formats, we are diversifying our teaching methods to meet all learner needs. By challenging our students to develop these skills, we are allowing them to examine diverse texts, build connections with prior knowledge, and form their own conclusions. In addition, students will understand that reading comes in many platforms, not only in school but also in life. I believe that the more we expose our students to reading, the more we guarantee that our influence will carry on after they leave our buildings. Reading truly is something that should be as natural for our students as breathing. We must show our students that all resources, whether it is multimedia, graphic novel, electronic, or book, have readability. By developing a collection that supports teacher curricula and working with classroom teachers to create activities that feature literacy strategies, we give our students the opportunity to become independent and critical thinkers. |
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