VISION STATEMENT
With the support of the learning community, Van Wert City Schools will develop the joyful literate lives of our students through authentic, purposeful, and interconnected reading and writing.
Jen Arend, Early Childhood Literacy Coach
Sarah Holliday, Elementary Literacy Coach
Kim Werling, Elementary Literacy Coach
Literacy Collaborative is a nationally recognized, comprehensive school literacy model based on the award-winning work by reading experts Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell in collaboration with teachers and university teams at The Ohio State University and Lesley University.
This framework provides lessons with many opportunities to engage students in reading and writing across the curriculum. Teachers provide direct, research-based instruction to guide students in acquiring strategies for maintaining fluency, text comprehension, and vocabulary development. Phonics instruction is provided as students are reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Instruction moves from demonstration to guided practice and then to independent problem solving. We are excited to use these elements of effective schools to support and improve literacy instruction and students achievement here in Van Wert.
The framework consists of:
· Interactive Read Aloud
· Shared Reading
· Guided Reading
· Independent Reading
· Community Writing
· Writing Workshop
· Phonics, Spelling, and Word Study
Interactive Read Aloud: Teacher reads aloud and students share their thinking.
Shared Reading: Teacher engages students in reading together with large texts or big books.
Guided Reading: Teacher meets with small groups of students to read just right stories to build their reading skills.
Independent Reading: Students get to read books of their choice that they are interested in reading.
Community Writing: Teacher works with students to create a message and write it together.
Writing Workshop: Teacher provides mini-lessons and then supports students as they work on their own writing.
Phonics, Spelling and Word Study: Students look for patterns and categorize and sort words to develop spelling and word solving skills.
Literacy Leadership Team
Sitting (left to right): Kim Werling, Donna Clark, Jen Aren
Standing (left to right): Lori Bittner, Justin Krogman, Tracy Wehner, Katelyn Shindeldecker, Nellie Schmidt, Amy Covey, Chris Covey, Sarah Holliday, Nicole Adams