Students begin by writing a sentence or two each week and progress to daily reflections and records of their school activity. Families respond to these student reflections, which become the basis for discussion among family, teacher, and students.
Involving Students and Families in Ongoing Reflection and Assessment
Grades
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Living the Dream: 100 Acts of Kindness
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Recurring Lesson
This lesson provides the "action piece" for any study of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In this project, students participate in Dr. King's dream by doing 100 acts of kindness.
Grades
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Persuasive Writing: What Can Writing in Family Message Journals Do for Students?
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
This lesson engages children in using writing to their families as a persuasive tool to get what they want and need.
Grades
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Family Message Journals Teach Many Purposes for Writing
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
This lesson encourages children to explore authentic reasons for writing by writing messages to their family in a family message journal.
Grades
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Launching Family Message Journals
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
This lesson introduces Family Message Journalsa teacher-tested tool for encouraging family involvement and supporting writing to reflect and to learn.
Grades
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Have Journal...Will Travel: Promoting Family Involvement in Literacy
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Recurring Lesson
Students build positive memories of literacy activities when they take turns taking home a book bag stuffed with items to encourage literacy interactions with their families.
Grades
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Read Across America Day: Celebrate a Nation of Diverse Readers
K - 12
Calendar Activity
| Literacy-Related Event
Bring the celebration of reading and literacy into your classroom, library, school, and home all year long.
Grades
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Teaching Audience Through Interactive Writing
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Through interactive writing, students work together and then independently to create invitation letters for a group of their peers and their families.
Grades
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Telling a Story About Me: Young Children Write Autobiographies
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Students tell their life stories in this lesson about autobiographies based on family photographs.
Grades
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Family Ties: Making Connections to Improve Reading Comprehension
K - 2
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Families are all about connections between people. In this lesson, students read three books about different families and make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections to those texts.
Grades
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Take part in the African American Read-In!
K - 12
Calendar Activity
| Literacy-Related Event
Students come together with family and friends to take part in a read-in of books by African American authors and report their results.
Grades
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Celebrate National Family Literacy Day!
K - 12
Calendar Activity
| Literacy-Related Event
Parents, grandparents, and other family members are invited to the classroom for a family-school reading day.
Grades
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Today is D.E.A.R. Day!
K - 12
Calendar Activity
| Holiday & School Celebration
April 12 is known as D.E.A.R Day! D.E.A.R. stands for "Drop Everything and Read," a national month-long celebration of reading designed to remind folks of all ages to make reading a priority activity in their lives.
Grades
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Celebrate International Literacy Day!
K - 12
Calendar Activity
| Literacy-Related Event
Celebrate International Literacy Day by starting a literacy movement in your community.
Grades
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Gary Soto, poet and children's writer, was born on this date in 1952.
K - 6
Calendar Activity
| Author & Text
Using one of Soto's stories, students take part in share stories about their families, describe their street/neighborhood, or compose an acrostic poem using the Acrostic Poems interactive tool.