Instructional Toolkit

Instructional Toolkit

1. Teachers Must Work Together
In order for any collaboration to be successful, all teachers and staff must be willing to teach literacy, regardless of content area.

2. Use Students Prior Knowledge
Students enter the classroom with their own knowledge and in order to best teach them, we have to realize what the prior knowledge is and how best to go forward from that point.

3. Teachers Must Use Technology
Technology is already a very important instrument in our students’ lives. They must know and understand how to use technology or they risk being left behind once they leave our classrooms. Therefore, it is necessary to include technology in our literacy instruction.

4. Administrators and Teachers Professional Development
It is vital that professional development be used in a way that benefits both teachers and administrators in teaching literacy. If administrators don’t provide useful professional developments, how can teachers be expected to implement literacy into the content areas?

5. Using Literacy Appropriately In Your Content Area
Each content area is different, so not all literacy strategies and instruction will work the same. Each teacher must experiment with different ideas and strategies in order to find what works best for them.

6. Allow Students Discussion Sessions
Students need to be allowed to discuss their opinions and beliefs regarding a text so that they can better formulate their ideas, as well as understand and see that there are different points of view.