Happy FIRST Day of 2024!
For those of you who are new to Blackbird & Company, and those who are seasoned users, pull up a log, and gather round the campfire!
We humans possess an enormous capacity to enjoy and enact language.
During the month of January we will offer tips to help YOU, the teacher, guide your students on the path to becoming exceptional readers and writers. Becoming literate is a lifelong journey—we must inspire children to delight in this important endeavor.
Tip Number 1.
Track the journey!
Take a moment to look back on the academic milestones your students achieved in 2023. You will likely be amazed! We’ve created checklists of benchmark skills to help you create a record of progress.
The following are BIG picture checklists to help you assess annual student growth as a reader, writer, thinker, and creator. Over time, following our methodology, your student will become confident in the following ELA (English Language Arts) benchmarks. As you assess your student’s work, you will be pleased to discover mastery in these areas. Keep in mind, mastery does not ever mean these benchmarks are a thing of the past, but rather, part of the active heart and mind of the student. There will be considerable overlap year after year, and you will observe maturity within a given skill over time. Use check marks to indicate the skill is being utilized by the student.