Reading and Writing

Children develop literacy skills more efficiently when they learn about reading and writing together. Strategic activities can help students create connections between oral and written language (Reading Rockets, 2022b). Some examples of such activities include:

• playing word and letter games, such as Bingo, Boggle, Pictionary, and Scrabble.
• playing with cookie cutters or rubber stamps that feature alphabet letters.
• discussing the daily classroom schedule.
• using magnetic letters to form words.
• creating collages of photos featuring people in school (students, teachers, staff, etc.) and labeling them.
• exploring a variety of reading materials, including paper books or magazines, as well as books on tape or on the computer.
• writing in notebooks or journals for daily communication.

By integrating phone books, menus, and other written materials into student play, children are able to see the connections between written word and spoken language, as well as to understand how written language is used in real world situations.”
(The Access Center, Office of Special Education, USDOE, n.d.)

Lesson Plans

It is important to create lesson plans that combine reading and writing instruction and activities as part of your literacy teaching strategy.

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) publishes a site known as “Read Write Think” (www.readwritethink.org) with various features and resources, such as lesson plans and activities developed by educators. One such example is a lesson plan to acquire new vocabulary through book discussion groups: https://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/acquiring-vocabulary-through-book#ResourceTabs4.

This lesson plan encompasses grades 3 to 5 and uses the strategy of students learning new vocabulary in book discussion groups. The author chose a grade-appropriate book, designed her lesson plan and activities, and aligned the lesson plan with her state’s standards, the Common Core State Standards, and the standards for English Language Arts as defined by the NCTE and the International Reading Association (IRA) (Harper, 2022).

The learning objectives for students primarily addressed developing new strategies to enhance reading comprehension by:

• acquiring new vocabulary.
• locating unfamiliar words in a selected text and determining their meaning using various strategies.
• making connections between the new vocabulary and related words.
• using new vocabulary in both speaking and writing.

Prior to beginning this type of literacy activity, the teacher should read the selected text aloud to the students, uninterrupted. Following that, the recommended sequence of steps for carrying out the literacy activity are:

1. Choose a potentially unfamiliar or difficult word in the text to introduce to the students and model the strategy to discern its meaning, which they will follow for their group work:
   1. Provide time for students to discuss what they think the word means.
   2. Then provide the actual definition from online sources, along with synonym/s for the word.
   3. Replace the original word with the synonym/s and ask students if the sentence containing the word/s makes sense.
2. Divide the class into small groups, provide a copy of the book to each group, and assign roles to the group members. Provide instructions to follow the modeling example provided by the teacher after reading the text and explain each role’s tasks:
   1. “Vocabulary Enricher” –This student will identify any intriguing or unfamiliar words in the text and lead his or her group members in a discussion about the meaning of the new words.
   2. “Literary Luminary” –This student will associate the new words to their context within the text and then provide their meaning from various sources.
   3. “Connector” –This student will connect the new words with their meanings as used in context within the text, along with any student’s prior knowledge or comprehension.
   4. “Discussion Director” –This student will lead and encourage the discussion among group members.
   5. “Summarizer” –This student will record or take notes of the overall group activity and then report to the entire class upon completion of the activity.
3. During group work, the teacher observes and takes notes on group interactions, including each member’s participation and behavior within their respective role(s). Following completion of the group activity, the teacher gathers the class to hear reports from the “summarizer” from each group while the teacher fills out a chart of the findings.
4. Assist the students in connecting the new words with their context within the text, to reinforce the students’ understanding of the new vocabulary.
5. Wrap up the activity by asking students to choose one word that they learned during this session. Have them write their understanding of the word’s definition, copy the sentence from the text highlighting the specified word, rewrite the sentence substituting a synonym for the word that makes sense within the context of the sentence, and then provide an illustration of the word. The illustration does not have to be related to the story.

This lesson plan combines reading and writing to facilitate the development of these skills in each student.

Assignment:

Using the resources provided and your own research, complete the assignment as directed. Be sure to include proper citations for the resources you use, including those provided.

For this assignment, you will create a lesson plan that incorporates reading and writing. Based on the content provided in this section of the course, your own creativity, and/or your own experience in the classroom, complete these steps for your lesson plan and document them in a table or chart:

• Choose and identify a grade range for your lesson plan.
• Describe the literacy activity your lesson plan encompasses (e.g., the “Book Discussion Group” idea in this topic’s content).
• List the standards your activity covers (e.g., your state’s standards, NCTE and IRA standards, etc.).
• Define your lesson’s learning objectives.
• Delineate the steps for students and teachers to take to complete the literacy activity.

Once you have completed this work, save a copy in a document in MS Word format (.doc or .docx) and use the tool below to upload a copy of your completed assignment.