English/Language Arts 7th - 12th Grades

Philosophy of Literacy Instruction

• Learning is fostered through assisted performance—the child does everything within his/her reach and the teacher scaffolds the next learning.

• The best cure for school failure is good first teaching. While programs, materials, and activities are supports for a teacher, they do not teach.

• Literacy is the ability to use reading, writing, talking, listening, and viewing to learn subject matter in a given discipline or content in order to become independent learners by using appropriate skills with each reading assignment and in each discipline.

• Explicit instruction in reading should occur in every content area every day.

• While decoding skills are foundational, it is not necessary that students master decoding before receiving instruction in reading strategies.

• Students should have the opportunity to read a wide variety of texts in various genres and receive instruction in how to read various text structures.

• Students need to self-evaluate and monitor literacy strengths and weaknesses in all content areas.

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