Admit and Exit SlipsAdmit Slips and Exit Slips are a literacy strategy where the students write on a piece of paper an important idea, a question they might have, a prediction of the next topic, an answer to an assigned question, or their thoughts about the topic. Admit Slips are assigned at the beginning of class with an allotted time to complete them, while exit slips are assigned at the end of class. They are usually ungraded and are used to see the level of understanding the students have on a topic, this can help the teacher gauge what materials need to be reinforced. Admit and Exit Slips are very beneficial for the students. Exit Slips help the students solidify their learning before running into their next class and Admit Slips helps connect the lessons to each other.
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Sketching My Way Through Text:Sketching My Way Through Text is a literacy strategy where the students draw a picture that contains the key aspects of a reading. The drawings are supposed to be very simple and the students don’t need to be artistic. The purpose of this strategy is to make the learning visual in order for it to be easier to retain not to display artistic talent. This strategy is important to use because all students don’t think the same way and this gives an opportunity for the visual learner to create a diagram that is way more manageable than words. In mathematics, word problems tend to be very intimidating but by sketching what the problem is describing the question becomes way more manageable.
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R.A.F.T.The literary strategy RAFT stands for role, audience, format and topic. The strategy is an writing assignment where the students are able to choose which their own role, audience, format and topic. It allows the student to be creative and have an ownership of their assignment. RAFT is very time consuming but the students love to have a say in the assignments they are doing. You can either write the list yourself, do it as a class or have the students individually pick based off the unit. Since this assignment is independent it is important to check in with their progress and allow class time for the students to work on it. Also since the students created their own assignments they have a sense of pride with it, therefore allowing them to share their work with their peers is important. If there is time they can all share with the class, if not they can share in small groups.
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Venn Diagram:The Venn Diagram is a part of the Mapping strategy and is meant to graphically display ideas or concept. The venn diagram is used to compare and contrast various topics. The teacher could either provide the template or have the students draw them in their notes. By having the students complete a venn diagram, the students are able to make connections at a larger level rather than learning the topic in isolation. By making these connections it makes the material easier to remember in the future. In order for this strategy to be effective, the teacher must model the activity.
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Vocabulary Trees:Vocabulary trees are a graphic tool to link key terms and relative ideas together. It allows the students to have flexibility on the placement and the amount of branches they add. The trunk of the tree is the key term that is assigned. This allows the students to break up the words into the roots and connect corresponding words. The students can be assigned a word or can choose a word from a corresponding reading. The drawing of the tree can be given as a template or can be hand drawn by the students. If hand drawn, it is key to make sure the students know that the activity is not to show artistic ability but to make connections, so they shouldn’t spend too much time focussing on the details of the tree.
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Frontloading Images:Frontloading images is literary strategy where before a reading or a unit the teacher shares a bunch of images that have a common theme of that lessons topic. Students are captivated by images in their daily lives in social media, gaming consoles, and television. Arguably, these images are most often not educational or thought provoking but they do captivate their audiences. Students love to figure things out what an image is portraying and love to engage in these types of activities. This strategy can be used easily for any topic since many images can be taken from Google. Teachers should choose six to twelve images to present to the students but make sure they do not say anything; the goal of this exercise is for the students to draw a conclusion about the topic.
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Word Wall:A word wall is a literary strategy that focuses on vocabulary development. A word wall is a set of words that are put on a wall or a bulletin board with the definition and examples of the word on the back. Words can be added to the wall at anytime by the teacher and students can suggest to add words as well. A word wall is great to remind students of key terms. If the student can’t recall what a word means the definition and examples are readily available. It also helps the student who never physically interacts with the wall because students have wandering eyes. When the student is not paying attention in class they are often looking around, so if the student is looking at the key terms of the course they are still recalling important information. It is important to constantly add to the word wall since the topics change and new words are introduced.
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Chalk Talk:Chalk talk is a literary strategy where the students are first assigned to read a text. Then the students will have to reflect on the reading and think of questions, comments, or concerns. This is a completely silent exercise. Discussion is solely on the board and is initiated by the teacher. The teacher can either write a question or a comment on the board. Then when the students are ready they will also write on the board, either another question, a response to a question or a comment to another student's response. Once everyone has had a chance to participate the silence is then broken and a verbal class discussion begins. The teacher then reads the responses off the board and facilitates the discussion. The teacher should also answer any pending questions. The discussion ends when all entries have been discussed.
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Post-It Note Responses:Post-it note responses is a literary strategy used while reading. When the students are assigned a text they are to use sticky notes to do the following: mark key points in the text, respond to the ideas presented in the text, ask questions about the text or relate the text to outside topics.The teacher can either tell the students to do each of these prompts or assign them to do a specific prompt based on the text. After the students have read the text and inserted sticky notes there is a class discussion based on the notes they took. This strategy helps the students keep track of what they read because students often read then forget what they just read.
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