Reading & Writing Curriculum
Reader's Workshop-
The reader’s workshop model is a literacy structure that teaches students to apply targeted skills to their own reading and allows time to practice those strategies independently.
It consists of a brief mini-lesson taught by the teacher that models a strategy or reading skill. Immediately after, students practice using the skill while independently reading. Students also have the opportunity to read with a partner, write about reading, and confer with the teacher either one-on-one or with a small group.
Guided Reading-
During Daily 5, I pull a small focused reading group and teach skills specific to the students' needs. During this time we work on phonics, fluency, reading comprehension, and practicing key reading strategies. Groups are differentiated and flexible. This is where the majority of reading instruction occurs for students.
Writer's Workshop-
The second grade writing program is based on the Writer's Workshop model. It includes whole group mini-lessons, time for children to write individually, and a time for writers to share their writing with each other. The core writing resources of the Ann Arbor Public Schools are Units of Study by Lucy Calkins and the Ann Arbor-created Genre Studies. Our units in second grade are:
- narrative writing
- editing/revising
- informative writing
- persuasive/opinion writing
- realistic fiction writing
Spelling-
Words Their Way is a differentiated spelling program that focuses on the phonetic structures and patterns of words. Rather than memorizing words, we will learn their unique structures for spelling. Students will practice building and sorting words from a differentiated list each week.