Fostering Academic and Social Growth in a Primary Literacy Workshop Classroom

Abstract

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Holding Space for Literate Identity Co-Construction

“…Researchers have explored a variety of ways to disrupt these identities in school-based contexts. For instance, when teachers and researchers “purposefully disrupted [focal students’] negative stories and supported them in building positive learning and social identities” (Worthy, Consalvo, Bogard, & Russell, 2012, p. 586), they were able to facilitate a shift in how self-identified poor readers and writers saw themselves and how they engaged with literacy tasks (Goodman, Martens, & Flurkey, 2016; Worthy et al, 2012). Other methods used to support students’ literate identities include providing students access to the text through recordings or reading partners, supporting their contributions to discussions, and explicitly teaching focal students conversational norms (Maloch, 2005; Möller, 2004).…”

Minding the Gap: Mentor and Pre-service Teachers’ Ability Perceptions of Content Area Literacy Instruction

“…Similarly, highly effective literacy teachers demonstrate coherent instruction by reinforcing skills application and transfer across a range of instructional events. They integrate research-supported structures and routines such as read-alouds, process writing, curriculum integration, thematic instruction, and explicit teaching to move learning forward (Pressley et al, 2001;Worthy, Consalvo, Russell, & Bogard, 2011). By contrast, novice educators tend to focus on the execution of a single lesson, classroom routine, or procedure without consideration of how the learning will build over time or how their students will transfer the learning to new tasks.…”

“…For example, rather than relying on a single method or program (Allington & Johnson, 2001), highly effective literacy educators combine and coordinate instructional strategies, materials, and texts in consideration of students' needs and interests. In doing so, they facilitate meaningful contexts and purposes for skills application and development, including cross-disciplinary connections and transfer of that knowledge (Worthy et al, 2011). Novices, having less well-developed mental models of teaching, are unlikely to integrate these knowledge bases; they may focus mostly on the subject matter and on planning what they will do to get content across rather than what the students need to do to transfer content knowledge and skills to future learning (Westerman, 1991).…”

“…As a result, they are selective in attending to classroom events and interactions that reveal confusion, off-task behavior, misconceptions, and other challenges to students' learning. Thus, classroom situations cue experts' use of scaffolding strategies just in time (Bransford et al, 2000;Worthy et al, 2011). Novice teachers, however, do not readily perceive conditions that indicate where, when, and why students need additional support.…”

“…For example, highly effective literacy instructors prompt students to extend thinking and the application of strategies to problem tasks. In doing so, they provide a gradual release of responsibility that creates independent student use of strategies (Pearson, Roehler, Dole, & Duffy, 1990;Worthy et al, 2011). Although they may have a lesson plan, they deviate from procedures and improvise new actions to help students achieve mastery.…”