Our First Grade Team
Access your teacher's FCPS 24-7 Learning course here
You may use either your Parent View login or your student's login.
Register for Parent View in the Front Office and set up your own Parent account.
The First Grade’s Balanced Literacy Program at WMES
The first grade team at WMES implements a balanced literacy program that encompasses reading to, with, and by children and writing to, with, and by children. Our language arts block allows students to participate in a wide range of activities, within our rich literacy environment. The reading and writing activities support the individual child’s needs. The main components of our language arts program are guided reading and writing workshop. Here is an outline describing these programs.
Guided Reading
Guided reading is an individualized approach to reading instruction that recognizes that children will learn to read at different rates of development. A small group setting enables the teacher to focus instruction on each student’s specific reading needs. The teacher guides students to think about reading strategies and the reading process that they need to use to make sense of the text. Reading skills are also supported during this direct instructional time with various literacy tasks. Assessments and observations by the teacher will guide their instruction of each child.
The underlying goal of guided reading is to enable children to use and develop reading strategies independently. The teacher continually provides support so the student will gain the confidence and skills needed to read new texts successfully.
Writing Workshop
Writing workshop is used to teach students the writing process. Children need to have many opportunities to write because they will learn to write by writing. This independent time will allow them to independently practice the skills they are learning. Students learn to plan, draft, confer, revise, edit, and finally publish pieces of writing on topics of their choice. Teachers use mini-lessons to model the skills that are needed to accomplish each step of the writing process.
Additional Language Arts Activities