Overview and Guiding Principles

Our literacy philosophy is to cultivate and deepen the purpose of reading and writing by creating a community of lifelong readers and writers.

Guiding Principles of Boerne ISD Literacy Instruction

Literacy instruction is developed around the following guiding principles to ensure a balanced and structured approach: 

• Follows the Science of Teaching reading in that all children benefit from explicit, systematic reading instruction using the five essential components of effective reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension
• Emphasizes the stages of the writing process
• Creates a comprehensive and collaborative approach to support all students including those needing greater support 
• Delivers whole class instruction and small group instruction (guided reading/flexible groups) with systematic attention to individuals through modeling and authentic rich text examples
• Incorporates instructional best practices and provides explicit skills instruction in purposeful and meaningful learning to include the use of technology
• Uses systematic assessment, including ways to examine individual student progress within the group and to determine their level of need (e.g., benchmarking and running records).

As students become critical readers and writers, metacognitive strategies (process fluency standards) are embedded and taught to allow for comprehension at increasing complex levels. Students will have opportunities to: formulate the purpose of reading, ask and respond to questions, monitor and adjust comprehension, make inferences, summarize information, and to make connections to personal experiences.

The expectation for students to acquire a repertoire of fluent literacy strategies will integrate the development of background knowledge, vocabulary, oral language skills, and the connections made between reading and writing.

Time to Read  💡  Time to Write  💡  Time to Talk