LITERACY CLASS

Oral Communication

Hello, my readers! I am so excited to share with you 2 resources for Oral Communication. This week I started my teaching placement, and I am glad to be working with my associate teacher. She showed me a few excellent resources for teaching literacy, and I wanted to show you one. 

The resource that she showed me that I was most intrigued by is called "A Guide to Effective Literacy Instruction, Grades 4 to 6," which is an Ontario document. The resource helps with the implementation of the Ontario curriculum and gives you more in-depth information of the strands in Language.

Online Image. Sourced from: http://content.wisestep.com/top-ways-to-improve-oral-communication-skills-in-english/

I thought this was a great resource to show you because I understand the struggle of how to implement and follow the curriculum. There is so much more to teaching. This resource makes it easier for you as it makes you understand what the curriculum is asking of you. In a sense, things just seem easier when you know them. 

For example, the resource even gives you a list of how to implement oral communication into your lessons. It is that easy! All throughout the resource, they provide tips and tricks on how to model strategies in the classroom. They always make sure to write a paragraph about how the strategy creates a deeper understanding. Now isn't that helpful?

Another resource that I found is quite simple, and it is from the website, Virtual Learning Commons (click here to view the website). The website is broken down into grades and is a database offering students, teachers, and principals with resources for literacy. The page that I found is on oral communication and offers tips and tricks for students. 

I choose this page because it presents the information through an engaging video about how to give a strong oral communication. You could easily implement this video into a lesson on giving presentation that way students know what is expected of them before giving a final presentation. 

I hope you enjoyed the resources I shared today and use them towards your lesson planning.

Until next time readers!

Read, WRITE, think!

I am back again, here to introduce you to my research! While exploring the web to find helpful resources on the writing strand in literacy, I came across two interesting educational tools to show you!

The first is, Teaching for Deeper Understanding - An ETFO Curriculum Learning Resource Compilation [Click here to check it out]. This resource is a PDF file which gives you learning resources for Science, Social Studies, Literacy, Math, Art, and Technology. Each chapter in the book has content to cover a three-hour workshop, so you learn all there is to know. 

Now you're probably wondering what exactly is included in the PDF besides the subjects. Well more specifically, each chapter is covering a topic and within that they discuss assessment, differentiated learning, learning objectives, resources, curriculum connections, impact analysis, and so much more... you're going to have to take a look at it for yourself! 

I thought I would present this learning resource to you because I love how in depth it is with all the subjects and background information. It connects to the curriculum and gives you options for assessment and differentiated learning. In all, it combines the knowledge to make a deeper connection to student learning. (There is a section on the literacy writing strand too). 

NOW, the second resource that I found is going to be more specific to writing and intertwining it with art! Isn't that interesting? 

My resource is a lesson plan that I found from a website called www.readwritethink.org. The lesson is called, "Artistic Elements: Exploring Art through Descriptive Writing," for grades 3-5. It is an integrated lesson intended to improve descriptive writing skills. I love how this lesson is going beyond creating artwork and extending students learning into something deeper. My undergrad was in fine arts, and I can relate to this lesson plan. During my years I not only created artwork, but I wrote essays and tied it to deeper connections to strengthen the meaning of the piece. 

This lesson is a fun way to integrate the two subjects into one lesson. Now a word of caution, the lesson plan is not from Ontario and therefore you would have to adapt it to meet the needs of the curriculum. 

I hope you enjoyed the resources that I have presented to you and find them useful when working on the writing strand. Enjoy!

Until next time readers! 

Let's start reading!

For this blog post, I will present you with yet another helpful resource! Our topic for today.... reading. While searching the web for some useful resources for my fellow readers (like you), I came across the website, The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario for Occasional Teachers. On their website, they have a ton of resources specifically for the subject language. Now through some further investigation, it led me to another resource page called Reaching Rockets (click here to check it out!)

Image sourced from The Reading Corner web page

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The article that stuck out to me was, 103 Things to Do Before/During/After Reading. There they posted a collection of interactive activities to engage students and become more involved during the process of reading. 

The activities listed in the article may also be used to help students retain the information that they are learning. By using an activity in the article, the student is using the information that they learned through reading, therefore, processing the information from their short-term memory to their long-term memory by rehearsing or processing the information further. 

Image sourced from BrotherofTheBook.com

Another useful way to incorporate the article into your classroom is to combine it into your assessment as learning. Some of the activities listed may be used as a form of reflection or can be included into the students' weekly journal. Give your students options when it comes to their reflections that way it can cater to differentiated learning. Students of different learning abilities can choose what suits them to display their knowledge. 

Here are some examples of the activities in the article:

Screen shot from the website Reading Rockets.org

I hope the 103 Things to Do Before/During/After Reading will come in handy and that you take the time to go through the resource. 

Until next time readers! 

On today's hot topic, Media Studies!

Image sourced from www.frankwbaker.com

Why hello there! 

Reflecting on my time here at teacher's college, I have come to see a reoccurring theme...engaging the students and the importance of technology in the classroom. In our literacy class, we are focusing on the four strands of teaching literacy, Media Studies, Reading, Writing and Oral Communication. 

This week I will be focusing on Media Studies and introduce you to an excellent resource for educators to teach the strand. The resource I encountered is called MediaSmarts, Canada's Centre for Digital and Media Literacy (click here to visit the page). 

Photo courtesy of MediaSmarts

MediaSmarts provides both parents and educators resources for digital and media literacy. You can find everything from lesson plans, educational games, resources for specific topics of discussion, worksheets, and everything is all FREE! In addition to that, MediaSmarts offers licensed professional development workshops for educators and modules for students. Best of all... it is all Canadian based! 

One page that I wanted to highlight to you is the Educational Games (click here to view) section of MediaSmarts. By incorporating the games element into the classroom, you, my fellow reader, are enhancing your student's media literacy. Using these games exposes students to important issues that arise with media. Some games teach students about internet privacy, cyber-bullying,  scamming, online relationship and so much more!

Screenshot of MediaSmart Educational Games page. Images sourced from MediaSmart website.

Through learning games, students are demonstrating their understanding of various media texts, creating meanings, and critically interpreting media text. By the way...all of those points that I listed are expectations from the Ontario Literacy Curriculum, so you know that your students are learning what they need to learn! Isn't that great! 

Well, readers, I hope that you go out and explore the MediaSmart website and use all the resources to your advantage. 

Until next time readers!