This document provides guidance for teaching literacy skills in 3 main areas: 1) Reading strategies to support fluency and understanding, including interactive literacy talks on familiar texts. 2) The importance of time for independent reading and using literacy centers to build various skills. 3) Supporting primary writers through playful language exploration, feedback rather than perfection, and collaboration.

1. TEACHING WITH BIG IDEAS
• Language and story can be a source of creativity and joy
• Playing with language helps us discover how language
works

2. WHAT’S IMPORTANT
• Focus on Meaning
• Time in the day to read books for the head and heart
• Choice
• Explicit lessons around reading strategies
• Skill practice happens within running text (don’t over do phonics)
• Eyes on Print- You get better at reading by reading
• Feedback- what is going well. A next step to move learning forward

3. READING STRATEGIES TO SUPPORT FLUENCY AND
UNDERSTANDING

4. • Highly interactive.
• A quick and focused time of the day (10 minutes).
• Instruction can be differentiated by calling on students to interact
with the text appropriate to their needs.
• Becomes a familiar text for children to reread.
LITERACY TALKS

5. Photo Taken from
Pink is for Blobfish

6. Photo taken from
Pink is for Blobfish

7. THE POWER OF FEEDBACK IN READING
INSTRUCTION
• Constantly scanning and noticing how the students are engaged in this lesson
• Noticing who knows the letters, the sight words, the new vocabulary
• These literacy talks can inform future teaching (small group, whole class and
individual)

8. • Directionality and space between words
• The difference between a letter and a word
• Fluency and Self-monitoring while reading
• Reading Strategies
• Letter Sounds
• Punctuation
• Sight words (high frequency words)
POSSIBLE POINTS OF FOCUS FOR LITERACY TALKS

9. What about more fluent readers who
are
Well on their reading journey?

12. TIME IN THE DAY TO READ BOOKS FOR THE HEAD
AND HEART
• Just right for the head (books to build fluency)
• Just right for the heart (books that suit our passions, not necessarily at our just
right reading level)

13. LITERACY CENTRES
WHAT ARE SOME OTHER WAYS TO GET EYES ON PRINT?
WHAT ARE THE REST OF THE STUDENTS DOING DURING SMALL GROUP READING
EXPRESSION?

14. READ LIKE A ROCK STAR

15. READ LIKE A TEACHER

16. TEENY TINY TINS

18. WHAT WORDS LIVE IN THESE LETTERS?
Centres to build on
skills

19. READ TO A STUFFIE

20. CAT’S CRADLE
“How To” Literacy Centres

21. WOULD YOU RATHER?

22. JOKE BOOKS

23. DID YOU KNOW?

24. If we don’t have gravity, we will fly up to the sky
Read Like a Scientist

26. READ LIKE AN AUTHOR

27. • Early readers: Just right books, repeated reading of
the same books, expert books.
• More developed readers: A variety of genres.
• Read to self, read to a friend, read to an adult.
• Reflection: I liked. I learned. I am wondering
about.
BROWSING BAGS

28. BROWSING BAGS

31. TIPS & TRICKS FOR LITERACY CENTRES
• Go slow. Be patient with you and your students
• Teach each centre explicitly
• Consider going from less choice to more choice as comfort increases
• Start with a few centres
• Keep it fresh
• Heterogeneous vs. homogeneous

32. DIFFERENT KINDS OF FEEDBACK DURING LITERACY
CENTRES
• Reading with individual students and noticing the books they are reading and
what strategies they are using.
• Modelling at different centres how to use the centre and all the possibilties
• Scanning

33. SUPPORTING OUR PRIMARY WRITERS

34. BIG IDEA: Playing with language helps
us discover how language works.
BIG IDEA: Language and story can be a
source of creativity and joy
English Language Arts
Curriculum

35. BIG IDEAS
• Create a community of writers
• Find joy in writing
• Strategies and feedback
• Content over perfect spelling
• Better together (collaboration counts)
• Think carefully about scribing

36. BIG IDEAS FOR LESSONS
• We write for a purpose
• Writers use interesting hooks to draw the reader
into our writing
• Writers add powerful words or details to help
the reader get a picture in their minds.

37. ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK
• To move writing forward, give students immediate feedback.
• Conference with students as they are writing.
• Set personal goals for students and record it on their
“Things I am working on sheet.”
• Determine whole class and small group mini lessons from
the conferences.

38. • Keep your target steady
• Set criteria for students and keep it simple
• Focus on content more than grammar and spelling (2/3
quality content and 1/3 mechanics)
CRITERIA

39. • An interesting hook
• Powerful words
SAMPLE CRITERIA

42. WRITING STRATEGY: GIVING A BANK OF
DESCRIPTIVE WORDS
Pre- Reading Strategy:
Pull words out of text that are powerful. Students
“word solve” in partners or small groups. Explain how
they “word solved.”
Connect the words together as a group to build
background knowledge and predictions about the
story.
Sort or group the words together through student
connections.

44. WRITING STRATEGY PART 2
During Reading:
Draw attention to the words as they are
being read in the story. Check our
predictions. Enjoy the story together.

45. WRITING STRATEGY PART 3
After Reading:
• Students write trying to incorporate the words from the
pre-reading strategy.
• Students may retell the story or go in a totally new
direction.
• Build criteria about their writing before they begin.