Balanced Literacy Balanced literacy is a proactive approach by which the teacher makes thoughtful choices every day for the best way to help each child become a better reader and writer. It is an approach that requires the teacher to be a reflective decision-makerand to modify what he or she is doing in order to meet the needs of each child. A balanced approach recognizes the contributions of many different approaches and perspectives. Balanced Literacy is often called as a philosophy, not a methodology and it was developed as an antidote to look-say’s mindless workbooks and boring Dick and Jane readers. It kept the principle of shared reading & writing, playing the importance of the alphabet but also abandoned the idea of controlling the number of new words introduced. The theory now is to immerse students in an inviting literary environment, try to interest them in print and wait for them to discover how to read.
This approach developed after shared reading model was developed by Holdaway (1979).
Thus the Balanced Literacy approach includes the shared reading model principles. It is proved from the research that storybook reading is a critically important factor in young children’s reading development (Wells, 1986).
The storybook reading done by parents in a home setting is particularly effective (Strickland & Taylor, 1989).
The Term Paper on Balanced Literacy 2
... explicit teaching skills as needed to develop fluency associated with proficient readers.” Balanced literacy is an approach for teaching literacy that is widely used in ... balanced literacy program is guided reading. Guided reading is an instructional reading strategy during which a teacher works with small groups of children who have similar reading ...
Children give more attentions while hearing the old tale or stories from the grandmother or grandfather. However, in school, a teacher teaches a group of children rather a single child.
This model allows a group of children to experience many of the benefits that are part of storybook reading done for one or two children at home (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982; Schickendanz, 1978).
This model sometimes uses oversized books with enlarged print and illustrations. As the teacher reads the book aloud, all of the children who are being read to can see and appreciate the print and illustrations. No matter, we take the Balanced Literacy as a philosophy or methodology. But there are certain components or principle on which the balanced Literacy approach survives. I am mentioning some of them as under: 1.
Reading Aloud: Teacher reads selection aloud to students. It provides the adult model of fluent reading & develops sense of story or text. It increases the vocabulary, encourages prediction & builds a community of readers. It also develops active listening in listeners. 2. Shared Reading: Teacher and students read text together. It demonstrates awareness of text & develops sense of story or content.
Promotes reading strategies, fluency and phrasing. It increases comprehension & encourages politeness and respect. 3. Guided Reading: Teacher introduces a selection at student’s instructional level. It promotes reading strategies. This is helpful in increasing comprehension & encouraging the independent reading, expands belief in own ability.
4. Independent Reading: Students read independently. It encourages the strategic reading & comprehension and supports writing development. It also extends experiences with a variety of written texts with promotion of reading for enjoyment and information. It develops fluency & self-confidence by reading familiar and new text and provides opportunities to use mistakes as learning opportunities. 5. Modeled Writing: Teacher and students collaborate to write text; teacher acts as scribe.
It develops concepts of print. It develops writing strategies & supports reading development. It also provides model for a variety of writing styles and the connection between sounds, letters, and words. It necessitates communicating in a clear and specific manner. 6. Interactive Writing: Teacher and students compose together using a “shared pen” technique in which students do some of the writing.
The Essay on Reading And Children- How Teachers Make Students Hate Reading
In many instances, students cringe when the words “reading” and “school” are said concurrently. Fear immediately arises in most children at the sound of their teacher’s announcement that they will be reading a book in class. There are two main reasons why children dread a reading assignment: knowing that they must answer tedious questions and knowing it might be a ...
It provides opportunities to plan and construct texts Increases spelling knowledge. It Produces written language resources in the classroom and creates opportunities to apply what has been learned. 7. Independent Writing: Students write independently. It helps to learn text sequence & develops understanding of multiple uses of writing. It supports reading development, writing strategies development and active independence Benefits of Balanced Literacy: 1. Rich, interesting, authentic literature can be used, even in the earliest phases of a reading program, with children whose word-identification skills would not otherwise allow them access to this quality literature.
2. Each reading of a selection provides opportunities for the teacher to model reading for the children. 3. Opportunities for concept and language expansion exist that would not be possible if instruction relied only on selections that students could read independently. 4. Awareness of the functions of print, familiarity with language patterns, and word-recognition skills grow as children interact several times with the same selection. 5. Individual needs of students can be more adequately met.
Accelerated readers are challenged by the interesting, natural language of selections. Because of the support offered by the teacher, students who are more slowly acquiring reading skills experience success. Balanced Literacy Limitations: 1. This program improves the comprehensive & pronunciation skills of the student but it involves the students who actively take part in program. The students who are not interesting in this type of method may not learn because the learning style of every personality is different. 2.
This approach lack of personal contact, so less effective in case of small children. 3. This approach is less helpful for physically disabled students because they might feel inferior to normal students during shared reading or writing. 4. The approach requires a handsome investment on part of class arrangement, technology etc. 5.
The Term Paper on A Journal on Observing a Reading Teacher
I was deployed at the Elementary Department of the New Era University under the mentorship of my cooperating teacher, Prof. Samuel Bayang, Reading coordinator of the division and the adviser of Grade 6 Simon, the department’s upper hetero section which is composed of 33 scholarly pupils. Given the chance by our supervisor, Dr. Corazon Liwayway, Principal of the Elementary Department, to observe ...
If teacher is not a good decision maker and looses control on classroom than the class will turn in fish market because every student who is taking part in shared reading will go out the track or flow. This will cause disturbance to other neighbouring classrooms.. 6. The approach lack the focus on each student as it works on shared model. Independent reading & writing is there but there is more chance of copy of reading & writing style among students. In overall conclusion, we can say that Balanced literacy is good approach but like any other approach it has some limitations. For undeveloped countries this approach may not be so effective where the environmental, social & economic factors are not in favour of this approach.
This approach demands a rich environmental setup and assumes that students are from a good social background. But every country is not rich like American or European countries. There are still such schools exist where the infrastructural facilities are not available. There is one teacher for 150 or above number of students. On other side, this approach demands a highly skilled teacher. The success of this approach also depends on the personal characteristics of a teacher. The teacher should has deep knowledge of language, grammar etc. He/she should be peaceful & inspiration for students.
It helps him/her to better interact with students. No doubt, Balanced literacy is a good approach but to make it very balanced at all levels, there is need of flexibility in its components and principles because how much student can learn from this approach is not important, what is the net content each student absorbes is important.
Bibliography:
1. Balanced Literacy: Reading and Writing in the First and Second Grade Classroom created by Cathy Root 2. .
