Full Description
This book offers pre-service and practicing teachers the tools, materials, teaching strategies, and theoretical understandings to implement an organic reading program for beginning readers.
Utilizing the work of Sylvia Ashton-Warner and field research carried out in nine multi-age early childhood classrooms, the book advocates for organic teaching methods to promote children's love of reading and life-long literacy. Written in a narrative style, each chapter describes teaching strategies that are easily accessible and includes real-life classroom examples to make the implementation of an organic primary literacy program clear. With this approach, the book seeks to instill the desire and appreciation for reading; validates how books nurture and inform our lives; provides the tools and the skills to decode unknown words (word analysis skills); confirms how language is integral not only to reading but also to other language arts, such as spelling, word definitions, comprehension, reading aloud, and speaking; and provides the means for readers to make intelligent interpretations of text, from what is on the surface to those underlying meanings.
This is a key resource for pre-service teachers and teacher educators in early literacy and early childhood curriculum courses, as well as reading specialists and students seeking teaching certification.
Contents
Preface Introduction Chapter 1. Scenes from the Organic Primary Classroom Chapter 2. Literacy Goals of the Organic Classroom Chapter 3. The Primary Years Chapter 4. Core Conditions of the Organic Classroom Chapter 5. Preparing Children for the Organic Classroom Chapter 6. Finding a Comfortable "Way In" Chapter 7. Developing Literacy in the Organic Classroom: The Art of Teaching Chapter 8. Breathing In: Intake Chapter 9. Making Meaning from the Written Word Chapter 10. No Child Left Behind Chapter 11. Teacher Talk Chapter 12. A Message to Parents Chapter 13. Cri de Cœur Chapter 14. Author's Note
