READING ALOUD:

• Teacher reads selection aloud to students
• Provides adult model of fluent reading
• Develops sense of story/text
• Develops vocabulary
• Encourages prediction
• Builds a community of readers
• Develops active listening and encourages rich conversation/questioning 
• Builds background knowledge
• Allows teacher to integrate content areas

SHARED READING:

• Teacher and students read text together
• Demonstrates awareness of text
• Develops sense of story or content
• Promotes reading strategies
• Develops fluency and phrasing
• Increases comprehension
• Encourages politeness and respect

GUIDED READING:

• Teacher introduces a selection at student’s instructional level
• Promotes reading strategies
• Increases comprehension
• Encourages independent reading
• Expands belief in own ability

INDEPENDENT READING:

• Students read independently
• Encourages strategic reading
• Increases comprehension
• Supports writing development
• Extends experiences with a variety of written texts
• Promotes reading for enjoyment and information
• Develops fluency
• Fosters self-confidence by reading familiar and new text
• Provides opportunities to use mistakes as learning opportunities

Phonics:

• Demonstrates how words work
• Increases letter/sound relationship
• Increases vocabulary
• Develops letter formation
• Promoates blending
• Promotes fluency
• Develops active listening
• Increases phonemic awareness
• Improves encoding and decoding words
• Supports flexibility in reading
• Encourages students to attack unknown words with confidence 

MODELED/SHARED WRITING:

• Teacher and students collaborate to write text; the teacher acts as a scribe
• Develops concepts of print
• Develops writing strategies
• Supports reading development
• Provides models for a variety of writing styles
• Models the connection between sounds, letters, and words
• Produces text that students can read independently
• Necessitates communicating in a clear and specific manner

INTERACTIVE WRITING:

• Teachers and students compose together using a “shared pen” technique in which students do some of the writing
• Provides opportunities to plan and construct texts
• Increases spelling knowledge
• Produces written language resources in the classroom
• Creates opportunities to apply what has been learned

INDEPENDENT WRITING: STUDENTS WRITE INDEPENDENTLY:

• Strengthen text sequence
• Develops an understanding of multiple uses of writing
• Support their reading development
• Develops writing strategies
• Develops active independence