Connecting Reading and Writing: English Language Arts and Literacy

              Taking Advantage of Common Core approaches for improving student understanding in reading and writing has shown to greatly improve student achievement. The methods discussed within this template are very well displayed and all play a purpose. The template overview is very well designed to cover all areas: prereading, reading, postreading, and then connecting all of this to writing.

              I found the template to be very productive and informational for new teaching techniques in reading and writing. In a essence this piece is a "how to" guide for new teachers to apply proactive activities and questions for reflection while teaching. Getting ready to read is just as important as reading. When you set up your kids for success they will have a better chance at discovering their individual voice through reading. 

              I found that this template not only connects the physical demands to reading, but also the emotional and personal side to reading as well. By exploring all aspects to reading students can then form a more concrete idea or opinion about the text. From all of the key ideas this template discusses I find that the most intriguing and important for me would be, " Set a purpose for reading". If the students or reader does not start off with a real purpose for reading then the motivation for understanding also decreases. 

              Setting purpose and goals for readers is a essential  component to productive learning. I find this to be very true in my classroom. While observing my 10th grade language arts class on Thursday the teacher was reading a story of "Little Red Riding Hood" aloud to the students as they followed along and then use as a writing task. The classroom of twenty five young teens seemed to only have a handful actually listening, while the majority laid their heads on their desk. I found that most students did not seem at all intrigued with the reading and did not complete the writing task. 

              As  teachers we must always ask ourselves what are purpose is for reading, or what we are trying to achieve, and sometimes this might take you back to the drawing board. "Little Red Riding Hood" might be a easy read, but then you suffer the risk of boredom to a over age crowd. If the purpose was set for a classroom getting ready to mentor small learners in a reading group, this approach to teaching might have established some clear objectives, but because this was not relatable and to easy for young teens the value to the text decreased. 

            This module is definitely a keep sake for my new teacher binder! It has so much to offer that I could ever fit into this one blog post and enjoyed how easy it is to follow and apply. This module connects every approach directly to Common Core State Standards which makes it easy to connect to objectives.