I started with an idea to write a post about literacy and the arts. Sometimes we feel disciplined to certain restrictions and principles of literacy and numeracy instruction. While we attempt to cater to visual and kinesthetic learning styles, sometimes it’s harder than it seems. Adding an art into literacy curriculum helps expand creativity for both you and your student. Images help students remember and learn high frequency words, so why not try to add them to a lesson?
One of the best resources I came across is Literacyhead . Literacyhead has lesson plans for teaching reading, writing vocabulary, basic words, technology and many more. The website itself has a year subscription for $99, but also gives several resources for free. You can download printable graphic organizers and Venn diagrams for your class that make writing in them more fun. When teaching vocabulary, make words fun as they come to life! Practice comprehension skills by having students draw a picture that goes along with the story, or have them write the script for additional dialog that they think would happen between the characters you’re reading about.
Brown University also developed the ArtLiteracy project to reach out to youth at a local high school. The base of the project is the belief that “literacy is more than an ability to do well on a standardized test; it is about finding the words to share our stories with the world and to listen and understand the stories the world has to share with us.” They developed a handbook that can help you create, edit, and interpret text with your student.
There are several ways you can bring the FUN in reading FUNdamentals and help your student increase knowledge in more than one area. Have fun and let us know what you choose to do!
