LITERACY PLAN 682 RATIONALE

Background
The comprehensive literacy plan was a project where I evaluated data given by the instructor
and put together a literacy plan to help increase literacy in the school. In this project I
addressed the struggles students were having with reading by assessing different reading
inventories, running records, spelling tests, and comprehension questions. From the data I
compiled a comprehensive literacy plan to increase the literacy rate among the students. I
discussed the importance of engaging lesson planning, the use of phonological awareness
activities and skills to increase reading rate allowing students to focus on meaning of the
passage instead of decoding single words. My literacy plan incorporates reading and writing
workshops to give students ample opportunities to learn grow, and practice what is learned in
whole group instruction. The literacy plan uses whole group instructions and small group mini
lessons to help build phonological awareness and reading comprehension. The mini lessons
consists of working with small groups using explicit instructions to increase the children’s skills
where they might be struggling.
Rationale
I created this literacy plan to improve the literacy development of the students in the case
study. This project helped me address the needs of students based on data of results from
various work samples and tests. I gathered all the data and place a plan in place that addresses
all the students’ needs and will increase their literacy skills. This project gave me practice
assessing students work and determining what they need to be successful. I can now put
together a plan addressing student needs increasing literacy rate.
Teaching Standards
Standard #7: The teacher plans instruction based upon knowledge of subject matter, students,
the community, and curriculum goals. In this project I developed a plan that would increase
literacy amongst students by using scientifically prove teaching strategies. The strategies I used
was the mix of whole group instruction with small group mini lessons. The whole group
instructions is for me to instruct my lessons and model for the students what is expected. The
mini lessons gives me a chance to provide a more individualize lesson to students who are
struggling in certain areas, addressing their weaknesses. In this project the data showed
students struggled with phoneme substitution, phoneme segmentation, phoneme deletion, and
syllable segmentation. Increasing these score involves explicit instruction building phonological
awareness skills to increase ability to decode words, and increase comprehension.
Standard #8: The teacher understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to
evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the learner.
While I am implementing my literacy plan I will continue to evaluate their growth through
formally assessing the student’s work and informally observing their behavior and
understanding. In my plan I have designated goals for my students to reach. I will monitor my
student’s growth by observing their engagement and their ability to demonstrate their
 LITERACY PLAN 682 RATIONALE

understanding. In this plan I have formative and summative assessment in place to judge the
success of the literacy plan. My assessment strategies are done during the reading and writing
workshops, through the use of observations of their work and official rubrics to grade their
assignments.

CEC Standards
Standard 1: Foundations. In this project I have addresses the CEC Standards by creating a strong
foundation of reading and writing development in my literacy plan. I developed a literacy
program that addresses beginning reading skills, phonological awareness. I use activities and
games to help build phonological awareness, even songs or rhymes to help build the beginning
strategies. From there we work step by step increasing their phonological awareness skills by
recognizing letters and letter sounds, blending letter sounds, isolating letter sounds,
segmenting and substituting letter sounds. Learning directionality of a book, beginning writing
skills, being able to write letters, words, or names. These are all different building blocks to
develop strong foundations of reading. My literacy plan states if students cannot decode words
well they cannot focus on the meaning of the passage. I created a plan to help students decode
words better and develop a balanced literacy program for students.
Standard 7: Instructional Planning. I fulfilled this standard in my project by providing an in-
depth comprehensive literacy plan, proving I can plan lessons to build literacy and address
student needs. The time to put into my literacy plan was built explicitly to help students
develop literacy. My planning was research based and included scientifically proven strategies
to build students literacy. The instruction strategies in my plan included modeling for students
doing read aloud, think aloud, and group discussions. I have planned for these instructions to
model for the student what good readers do through metacognitive strategies, and reading
fluency. The instructional planning also incorporates projects such as book making, to mix
writing and reading strategies for a balanced literacy program.
Alverno Abilities
Coordination. In this project I coordinated the data from the students, assessed their
weaknesses and strengths then took the data and created a literacy plan that would address
the needs of all students and continually building their strengths. The whole group instructions
coordinates with the student’s developmental need by giving instructions/introductions to the
lesson that is being taught. The mini lesson coordinate with the students’ needs of addressing
their weaknesses to build into strengths. The activities with in the lesson are coordinated to
address the topics being taught and increase student awareness and engagement. The
instructional model I used for teaching was a gradual release model: I do, we do, and you do. I
coordinate with my students when I can start letting go of control based on their ability to
develop their literacy skills from the lesson being taught.
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Educational Framework
The educational framework that assisted me in my literacy plan is Albert Bandura’s Active
Learners, and Social Learning Theory. Both of these theories developed by Albert Bandura
focus on the students’ needs to be active in their learning and their ability to learn by watch
other actions. I applied Bandura’s Theories by modeling for my students exactly what I want to
see from them. I show my students how to engage with books, how to write, directionality,
reading, pronouncing words, and good reading skills. I also keep my lessons active for students
to actively engage in the materials to keep moving and building strong relationship to the work.
My literacy plan include projects and active learning opportunities to use the teacher as a
guide. The teacher is a coach for the child and allows them to direct their own learning but
guiding them in the right direction.