Can I use the Toolkit with a balanced literacy or guided reading program?
The Toolkit addresses comprehension instruction within the balanced literacy model. There are countless programs addressing phonics and phonemic awareness, fluency, and other important elements of literacy instruction. We’ve focused our curriculum on comprehension-to make sure that instruction in this all-important aspect of reading is explicit, robust, and thoughtful. Within a balanced literacy framework, the modeling and guided practice portions of Toolkit lessons are a good fit with instructional read-alouds and shared reading. Kids are up close, and we use large-format text such as big books and posters like the TFK posters as we read to and with the children. As we move into the guided practice portion of the lesson, kids often have clipboards so that after we talk and respond together, they write their own responses to leave tracks of their thinking. While they are still up close where we can carefully observe them, we check to see that they are ready to try the task in small gro
