Chapter 1: Principles 5-9

Principle 5: Effective Teachers Address Standards

Common Core State Standards has identified the knowledge students are expected to learn at each grade level, K-12. The Common Core Standards show teachers what should be taught-but leave up to them how this can be accomplished. The standards are organized into five strands

• Reading
• Writing
• Speaking & listening 
• Language
• Media & technology

Principle 6: Effective Teachers Scaffold Students’ Reading and Writing

• Teachers scaffold students’ reading and writing as they demonstrate, guide, and teach, and they vary the amount of support they provide according to the instructional purpose and students’ needs. 

Five levels of support:

• Modeled
• Shared
• Interactive
• Guided
• Independent

Shared Reading & Writing

Shared reading: Teachers read big books with young children. The teacher does most of the reading, but children join in to read familiar and predictable words and phrases 

Language Experience Approach: when teachers write the children’s dictation on paintings and brainstorm lists of words on the white board, for example, and teachers of older students use shared writing when they make KWL charts. 

In shared reading, students follow along as the teacher reads, and in shared writing, they suggest the words and sentences that the teacher writes. Teacher use shared reading and writing for these purposes:

• Involve students in literacy activities they can’t do independently.
• Create opportunities for students to experience success in reading and writing.
• Provide practice before students read and write independently. 

Interactive Reading and Writing 

Examples of interactive reading: Choral reading and readers theatre

Choral Reading: Students take turns reading lines of a poem.

Readers Theatre: They assume the roles of characters and read lines in a script.

Interactive writing: Students and the teacher create a text and write a message. The text is composed by the group, and the teacher assists as students write the text on chart paper. 

Teachers use interactive reading and writing for these purposes:

• Practice reading and writing high-frequency words
• Apply phonics and spelling skills 
• Read and write texts that students can’t do independently 
• Have students share their literacy expertise with classmates

Guided Reading and Writing

Minilessons: Teachers teach lessons about strategies and skills, they provide practice activities and supervise as students apply what they’re learning. In guided writing, teacher supervises students as they complete writing activities. 

Principle 7: Effective Teachers Organize for Instruction

5 Most popular programs are: guided reading, basal reading programs, literature focus units, literature circles, and reading and writing workshop. 

Nurturing English Learners
English learners benefit from participating in the same instructional programs that mainstream students do, and teachers create classroom learning contexts that respect minority students and meet their needs. 

Principle 8: Effective Teachers Differentiate Instruction 

• Effective teachers adjust their instruction because students vary in their levels of development, academic achievement, and ability. 

 Differentiation is based on Vygotsky’s idea of a zone of proximal development. If instruction is either too difficult or too easy, it isn’t effective; instead teachers must provide instruction that meets students’ instructional needs. 

Principle 9: Effective Teachers Link Instruction and Assessment 

Assessment : is an integral and ongoing part of both learning and teaching. Teachers collect and analyze data from observations, conferences and classroom tests, and then use the results to make decision about students’ academic achievement and plan interventions.

Assessment Cycle: 4 Steps

Assessment is linked to instruction. Teachers link instruction and assessment in this four step cycle below:

Classroom Assessment Tools:

Running Records: of students’ oral reading to analyze their ability to solve reading problems. 

Rubrics: to assess students’ performances, written products, and multimedia projects. 

Application to the Classroom:

As teachers, it is important that we understand the Common Core Standards, so that we are teaching our students the right material. The common core helps teachers decide what they should teach. To have students be successful we also need to be effective. Within our classrooms, we will also have to scaffold our students. There are many different levels of scaffolding and we have to use the right level within our classroom, so we are being affective. For example, I could use shared reading with my younger elementary students. I would read the book to my students while they read familiar and predictable words and phrases. As educators, we need to know and understand all 9 principles. The goal for teachers and literacy instruction is to ensure that all students achieve their full literacy potential. We need to differentiate instruction and make sure that the content we are teaching is not too hard nor too easy, otherwise we are not being an effective educator. We also need to assess our students so that we can understand how they are learning and make sure they are getting the proper learning tools and help they need in order to be successful.