“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”
— Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places You’ll Go!)

That first week of school is usually both daunting and exciting. It lays the foundation for a constructive year ahead. But where do you begin?

For me, Literacy is at the core of all subjects and that’s one of the reasons why I always use an integrated and inclusive approach to my long term planning goals.

In Ontario, the dreaded CASI assessments come out soon after the new school year gets underway. CASI is used to assess reading comprehension skills and is often met with a less than enthusiastic audience. This negative bias then trickles down to other reading activities making it a challenging, rather than an enjoyable experience.

What is important to understand about these tests is that they are like a doctor’s prescription to share with the teacher. The results from CASI should inform a teacher’s goals for the needs of the students and then helps form the remedies for student success.

Through relevant mini-lessons connected to the different reading strategies, reading skills can improve, especially for marginalized students. If, for example, the question related to summarizing an article, leads the student to literally retell the entire article, that student does not understand how to find the main idea in a text. Your mini-lesson would then focus on this specific skill. Picture books are great mentor texts to integrate with these sometimes overwhelming lessons.

To make your time as efficient as possible and for those with even the weakest stomachs when it comes to tackling something away from the traditional, BEHOLD one of the latest literacy gems to advance your goals – Literacyhead.com!

Do you remember that candy that used to fizzle and pop in your mouth? Well, when I first came across this site, I was like a child in a candy store – mesmerized by the content and diversity of titles; my mind was literally popping. The more I read, the more I know. The more I learn, the more places I go on this site.

When you think of BLOOMS and higher order thinking skills, think Literacyhead.com. The site offers an abundance of tools and direction to include a wide variety of reading comprehension strategies. You could probably find an idea for every mini-lesson you need. The best thing is that the ideas are visually engaging and so they will appeal to a differentiated group. Believe me, you will LOVE this site and it’s well worth the investment in an annual membership (think the price of just one or two resource books from the Teacher’s store except everything will be right at your fingertips including graphic organizers and, you can never lose it).

I am in awe of this site and of the talented people within the pages of this never-ending literacy resource. Get prepared for Back-to-School with this free Visual Literacy lesson featuring the story “In My Dreams I Can Fly”.

Here are Five Happy Ideas for Back-to-school.

A Sick Day for Amos McGee helps children learn about caring for others

Could the start of school be any more perfect for children with big dreams just waiting to take flight? For even more, learn Seven Crazy Realities you should know about Literacyhead.com and keep those dreams flying high.

Tags: art and literacy, back-to-school teaching ideas, Critical Literacy, inclusive curriculum, Literacy Block, Literacyhead.com, Reader's Workshop, reading comprehension strategies, visual literacy

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at 2:24 am and is filed under Literacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.