BBTeachers ask me all the time, how do I fit in time for language arts. The answer is, I set up a language arts block to ensure I cover all the needed skills for a complete literacy instruction program. Some teachers have 60 minutes for their language block, some have 45, and some have only 30 minutes. Today let’s take a look at how we can schedule a language arts schedule with a 60, 45, and 30-minute block.
First of all, if you have a 60-minute language arts block, you are one of the lucky ones. It’s what I would recommend but most people don’t have it. If you’re in this block this is what I would do: I would do 15 minutes of an interactive read aloud. I would spend 20 minutes on spelling, 20 minutes on vocabulary, and then this leaves you with a 5-minute buffer. Teachers know, we all need a buffer time for transitions and different things, and with the 60-minute block, we get that. So you can literally fit everything in.
If you have a 45-minute language block, I would still do an interactive read aloud during that time and I would spend 10 minutes, or up to 15, on that read aloud depending on the conversation you’re going to have. For spelling then, you would have a 15 or 20-minute window. In spelling, you really need 20 minutes on a Monday, but for the rest of the week you can get away with just 15. For vocabulary then, you would have 15 minutes a day to teach your vocabulary curriculum. So read aloud for 10-15 minutes, spelling for 10-15, and vocabulary for 15 minutes. That gives you a full 45-minute block.
If you have a 30-minute language block, then I would recommend doing an A/B schedule. You can either do an A day then B day, or you can do an A week followed by a B week. If you do A/B day what I would do for A days is to do a read aloud for 15 minutes and then do spelling for 15 minutes. Then on the B day you would still do an interactive read aloud for 15 minutes then you would do 15 minutes of vocabulary. Now if you don’t want to go back and forth from spelling to vocabulary, then I would decide to do A/B week instead of days. Then you could teach an entire week of spelling, and then an entire week of vocabulary.
I hope this chat helps you think about how you plan to set up your language arts block. If you are looking for ready to use, little prep, resources for your class check out my TPT store. You can find my interactive spelling program, interactive read aloud’s, and my vocabulary curriculum!
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*CLIPART FROM A SKETCHY GUY. VIEW HIS STORE AT HTTPS://WWW.TEACHERSPAYTEACHERS.COM/STORE/A-SKETCHY-GUY
Happy teaching!
Jen
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Hello, it’s Jen Bengel here from Out of this World Literacy! Today I’m going to go over 8 layers of understanding a word. Before we dive into these layers, or shades if you will, id like to explain why I’m going over this. Often times when I talk with educators about providing direct vocabulary instruction they say things like “Oh my students already know that word” or “how can I differentiate these words because they all seem so simple, or hard, for my kids” These are great points and I value the thinking behind these questions. Each word in our English language is so much more than just one definition. So if a student “knows” a word I would say do they really know and understand that word. Do they know that word for all 8 shades of meaning it holds? Let’s get into these layers of understanding words.
