1. Commitment to Balanced Literacy
Teagan Kohlbeck
Edu 640

2. Best Practice in Balanced Literacy
“Good Teachers, effective teachers, manage to produce better achievement regardless of which curriculum materials, pedagogical approach, or reading programs is selected” –Richard L. Allington
Exemplary teachers include the following “6 T’s of effective elementary literacy instruction” (Allington) in their classrooms on a daily basis.
Time
Texts
Teach
Talk
Tasks
Test

3. My Goals
My goals are to focus on the following 3 T’s in my classroom: teach, talk, and tasks. These goals for my commitment to balanced literacy are based off of Richard L. Allington’s 6 T’s of effective elementary literacy instruction from his article, “What I’ve learned about effective reading instruction from a decade of studying exemplary elementary classroom teachers”. Upon careful reflection of my current teaching practices, I have identified areas in which I do well and areas I will improve on in literacy instruction. I believe focusing on these goals will help me grow as a professional and improve my teaching by using best practices.

4. Teach
Richard L. Allington states, “… expert teaching requires knowing not only how to teach strategies explicitly, but also how foster transfer from the structured practice activities to independent use while engaged in reading”.
An effective teacher uses modeling and demonstrations in instruction on a daily basis.
Students need to be taught how to use different strategies in order for them to use them independently.
Active teaching is an important part of effective literacy instruction.

5. Teach- Things I Do Well Now
I use modeling techniques in my K4 classroom. I model book handling skills, writing skills, and early literacy/reading skills. It is important to model for students at such a young age because it will build their reading and writing skills.
I use think-alouds in my classroom. I demonstrate my own thinking before, during, and after reading stories so students can form higher level thinking strategies. I also use think-alouds during KWL charts to help students form their own responses.
I use small groups during reading to focus on specific skills and strategies based on individual student needs.
I allow students independent practice to work on the skills demonstrated and modeled.

6. Teach
This is a picture of my students independently making the “letter of the week”. We talk about the letter sounds, words that begin with the letter, and sing a song about the letter. I model several times how to make the letter and where to begin forming the letter. Students then write the upper-case and lower-case letter in the air. After they have done this, they are each given a personal whiteboard and dry erase marker. We make the letters together as a whole group, then students make the upper and lower case letters on their personal whiteboards independently. I walk around to assist with any students struggling. After they are done, they hold up their whiteboards to show the class.

7. Teach- Areas of Improvement
One area I would like to improve on is modeling. While I currently use modeling in the classroom, this article helped me realize the importance of using modeling more often than I currently do. I will do this by incorporating modeling in all subjects including math, social studies, science, and health. I will do this by planning mini-lessons in these subjects where I demonstrate and model the specific skills students will be working on.
Another area I would like to work on improving is using less “assign and assess”. I will replace assigning and assessing with actual teaching that is differentiated for individual students based on their unique needs.
I will reflect on my teaching practices and eliminate areas that do not include active teaching. I will include more differentiation strategies to insure that meaningful learning is taking place for all students. I will use re-teaching and additional modeling when needed.

8. Talk
“Talk”, one of Richard L. Allington’s 6 T’s is a vital component of balanced literacy instruction. Students should be engaged in multiple purposeful conversations on a daily basis in the classroom.
Lessons should include both teacher-student and student-student conversations.
Questions posed to students should be open-ended and include a variety of possible answers. Questions should not be “right or wrong” answers but allow students to reflect on the question and give meaningful responses.

9. Talk- Things I Do Well Now
I use KWL charts in my classroom to help students reflect on what they already know and what they want to know about a topic. Using these charts allows students to think deeper about the topic and questions they still have. It also allows me, as a teacher, to see where students’ knowledge about the topic is and guide my instruction.
When reading books in guided reading groups, I ask the students questions about their own experiences related to what the book is about. This helps the students form real-life connections to the books we read. Students also learn more about their peers by listening and taking part in the conversations that occur.
I use “talk sticks” in my classroom. These are popsicle sticks with each child’s name on it. When having classroom discussions, I use the talk sticks to choose which student will share. This ensures that all students are held responsible for taking part in the conversation and it is not the same students always volunteering to share.
If a student is unsure how to complete a task or activity, I encourage them to ask their peers before asking me. The saying I use in my classroom is “Ask 3 before you ask me”. Often times, their peers are able to help solve their problems or clarify. This also encourages meaningful conversations to take place with one another.

10. Talk
This is one example of how we use “talk” in my classroom. This picture is from a pumpkin investigation we did in October. The students lead conversations about the shape, texture, and color of different pumpkins. They worked together to form predictions about what they thought was inside of the pumpkin. Students shared with each other what they already knew about pumpkins and questions they had. The student to student conversations sparked curiosity and led to meaningful conversations with each other.

11. Talk- Areas of Improvement
One area of “talk” I would like to improve is to create more meaningful questions. Our reading curriculum provides comprehension questions for each story read in class, but the questions often only include “right or wrong” answers. I will carefully read these stories to create my own questions that are open-ended where multiple responses can be given.
I will implement discussions that pose different problems and allow for problem solving conversations to occur. I often forget the importance of allowing students in K4 to converse about problem solving methods because they are so young. I need to remember the importance of problem solving at this age for their growth and development. I will add problem posing questions into my daily lessons.
Students will be given more student talk opportunities. Sometimes I find myself talking too much during instruction and not allowing students to take part in the conversation. My goal is to build in more opportunities for students to share their thinking with the whole class and each other. I will use the turn and talk technique as well.

12. Tasks
Best practice for tasks is to have students complete longer assignments instead of multiple short assignments. Longer assignments could include reading whole books instead of sections, conducting research on different topics, and projects to enhance learning.
Student choice should be used in the classroom instead of having all students working on the same task. “Choice of this sort has been documented to lead to greater student ownership of the work and greater engagement with the work”. (Turner, 1995)
Tasks are more meaningful for students when they are integrated into different content areas. This ties the different subjects together instead of teaching them individually where they aren’t connected.

13. Tasks- Things I Do Well Now
I look for meaningful tasks for students to complete in their small groups that are engaging and differentiated. I have been getting away from using worksheets for my students and replacing worksheets with more hands-on learning opportunities.
I have been using more integration of other content areas in my teaching after taking this course and reading Allington’s article. I have been carefully looking at our literacy curriculum and using other resources to tie in other subjects to the theme we are working on. One way I have done this is by having guests come into my classroom for presentations relevant to our area of study. I had a police officer bring in a K-9 dog and a crossing guard come in when we were studying community helpers. During our construction unit, a construction worker came into our classroom to discuss his job and show the students different tools he uses.
Students are being given more complex tasks than I was using previously. They start these tasks on a given day and continue work on them as the week progresses. I have found that students tend to be more engaged in these tasks and it increases their understanding of the content.

14. Task
During our construction unit, one of the stories in the curriculum was The Three Little Pigs. I wanted to use integration of other subject areas for this story because that is best practice. We read other versions of the story and compared/contrasted the stories. I then used this STEM activity (shown on right) with my students. Each student received 12 Dot candies and as many toothpicks as they needed. They then constructed a house to protect their pig. The “big bad wolf” tried to blow their houses down after they were finished with their constructions. For the big bad wolf, I put a wolf mask on a hairdryer. The students and I acted out this part of the story while the wolf tried blowing the houses down.

15. Tasks- Areas of Improvement
One area I would like to improve is assigning more tasks based on student choice. I will provide students with managed choices to improve this area. This is something I would like to improvement because I usually make the choices for my students. I will allow students more choices in the tasks they complete by providing similar but different tasks during our reading and writing blocks.
Another area I would like to improve is having longer assignments or projects in my classroom. This article discussed the importance of having longer assignments and less focus on shorter assignments.
I would like to improve integrating several different content areas into my tasks. Since K4 doesn’t have a set curriculum for science, social studies, and health; I would be able to find meaningful ways to integrate these different subjects into my literacy tasks/lessons.

16. Reflection
My commitment to balanced literacy represents the steps I will take to improve my literacy instruction by using best practices. The 6 T’s (time, texts, teach, talk, tasks, and test) from Richard L. Allington’s article What I’ve Learned about Effective Reading Instruction from a Decade of Studying Exemplary Elementary Classroom Teachers, are all important aspects of balanced literacy. These are features that I will be using when planning instruction. I have learned upon reflection from this article the areas I am able to improve on in order to continue my growth as a professional. It is important for teachers to constantly reflect on their practices to learn from things that went well or didn’t work well to further improve teaching practices. I am committed to reach my goals to best meet the needs of my students in literacy instruction.

17. Sources
Allington, R. L. (2002). What I’ve Learned About Effective Reading Instruction from a Decade of Studying Exemplary Elementary Classroom Teachers. Phi Delta Kappan,