Integrated and Balanced Approach to Literacy

Every child deserves a positive, safe, nurturing, and stimulating learning environment where they will grow academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. My role as an educator is to provide my students with this type of environment as well as an education that will help them succeed academically and become life long learners. It is the responsibility of a literacy educator to provide students with this type of environment, but also to provide instruction that will help students become successful readers and writers. There are numerous programs and philosophies about literacy and reading. Through years of experience and research, one begins to develop their own creative approach on teaching these skills. After looking at different programs and seeing the positive and negatives of each, an integrated and balanced approach of literacy seems to be the best way to teach the differing needs of each student.

As an educator, it is essential that goals include teaching students to be the best possible students that they can. With this, teachers need to pick and choose from differing literacy programs to suit the needs of all students. Providing a combination of approaches is the best from of teaching literacy. Providing students with the benefits from a basal reader and using children’s books is the best way to teach literacy in a classroom. According to Pressley, a balanced literacy program is one that integrates effective skills instruction and a high awareness of holistic reading and writing. By integrating skills instruction and a holistic approach, the students will be provided with the skills and background knowledge that they will need to learn to read. A balanced literacy program in the classroom should involve explicit ...

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...ating technology provides students with opportunities to succeed in reading and writing. As an educator, and possibly a future literacy educator it is vital to teach students that learning is not something that only happens in school. Learning will happen every day for as long as one lives. Learning happens at school, at home, at a sporting event, at the mall, or on the computer. Learning happens everywhere. It is also important to teach students reading is everywhere and it will follow them the rest of their life. As educators, we need to help students enjoy reading and develop a love for it that will last forever. It is our role to therefore provide the best instruction possible and use assessment that allows children to succeed. Most importantly, as life long learners ourselves, we need to strive to make sure that our students become and stay life long learners.