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Monday, March 2, 2015

Day 2

Today I had a wonderful opportunity to spend time with kindergarten teachers in our district looking at the triangulation of listening, speaking, reading, and writing.  We studied an article written by Nancy Anderson and Connie Briggs on the reciprocity between reading and writing and I was convicted of something I have known for year, but may not be practicing.  We cannot put more emphasis in one of these areas over another as our students need a balanced literacy diet.  We discussed the fact that struggling readers who do not have the opportunity to write may struggle even more with literacy.  We must be explicit in our teaching so that students understand the reciprocal nature of reading and writing.  We need to name how reading is like writing and how writing is like reading.  I would love feedback from teachers on how they are explicitly teaching this concept to their students.  As the article concludes, "When you teach reading and writing together, it is a two-for-one deal - a deal we simply cannot pass up."

5 comments:

  1. I believe in this with my whole heart! Readers are writers and writers are readers! The two work together flawlessly!

    I am so thankful for your leadership and for being willing to always be a learner!!!

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  2. It wasn't until I began to read like a writer that I truly understood the reciprocal nature of these two inextricably connected skills. I love the "two-for-one" deal, and the analogy of a balanced diet makes perfect sense. Your blog made me think about a Tweet I saw this summer that said we interrupt our struggling readers far too often. How do we give them time to read and write daily when they haven't developed independence? Such a quandary . . .

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  3. I used to get frustrated when my students would ask, "Do we do this in your reading or writing journal". Now I kinda like that they can't tell the different between reading and writing work.

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  4. I used to get frustrated when my students would ask, "Do we do this in your reading or writing journal". Now I kinda like that they can't tell the different between reading and writing work.

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  5. Late comment I know, but my kids love when they can hear something from our read aloud or read something in their Good Fit book and borrow it add to their own writing. They become inspired! Thanks for the reminder, Sandy!

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