Developing Literacy Skills Through GSuite
This is an exciting time to be a student! GSuite offers teachers and students many different ways to develop their literacy skills. One of the first things we need to remember when planning teaching and learning opportunities for our students in the area of literacy development is the fact that reading and writing develop from oral language. This means that we need to provide our students with a myriad of ways and opportunities to talk, sing, chant and rhyme.
The tools available on GSuite not only help students develop their literacy but also contributes to the beginning of their digital legacy. When students create they are able to share their creations to others through social media, such as the teachers’ class Twitter account, their class blog and so much more.
GSuite provides us with a number of ways to do that. Below please find just a few examples:
Have the student create a picture on Google Draw and then use Screencastify (Chrome web store) to record the student telling a story about their drawing.
- A twist to the simple activity above would be rather than having the child tell a story about their drawing have them retell how they created the drawing.
- A great additional asset to these demonstrations of learning is that they can be easily shared with the child’s parent.
- As well, They are saved on the Drive for future curation by the student into their portfolio.
- They provide evidence of language development when compared to the activity being done at a later date.
Develop Reading Fluency
Students can work independently to develop their reading fluency. Text can be created on a Google Doc; either by the student or by the teacher at the child’s reading level.
The student then records themselves using Screencastify reading the text. They are encouraged to play it back, dump and redo depending on their fluency. This also helps students become self aware. They develop independence in reading fluency.