Teaching
- Scaffolded Instruction - This concept is based on the idea that at the beginning of learning, students need a great deal of support; gradually, this support is taken away to allow students to try their independence.
- Modeling – This approach has been shown to be a vital part of helping students learn the process of constructing meaning and of helping them learn the various strategies and skills involved in this process. This approach incorporates cooperative learning and literature-based learning.
- Cooperative Learning - This is a very effective instructional strategy that works well in literature-based instruction. Students learn to read, write, and think by having meaningful engagements with more experienced individuals. Many times these individuals may be their peers. One-on-one instruction works effectively, but one on three can work well in certain contexts. Some examples of such a learning model are: Think-Pair-Share and Echo Talk.
- Having Choices/Diversification - Having choices in learning to read and write helps students meet their own individual needs. By giving students options to choose from in what they read, how they read, and how they respond to a piece of literature, we allow them to actively construct their own meanings.
- Independent Reading and Writing - Self-initiated or independent reading and writing are also important instructional strategies to use in literature-based instruction.
- Modes of Reading - The term modes of reading refers to the different ways literature may be read -- aloud by the teacher, shared, open-ended questions, guided by the teacher, cooperatively, or independently. By changing the modes of reading used for different students, we are able to scaffold instruction and provide different levels of support for students in order to make them successful in reading a piece of literature.
- Prior Knowledge Activation - Many different strategies can be used in activating prior knowledge; most of these strategies help students become independent in activating their own prior knowledge in interacting with the text.
- Structured Lesson Plans - With structured lesson plans with non-negotiable core components, teachers will push themselves to meet standards. Innovation comes into play through content.