Students Take Quicker Steps To Literacy

Greenland said she has seen a lot of progress with her students since she started using Steps to Literacy three years ago.

During the lesson this month, Greenland wrote the word "there" on the board and then started to make a chain of words, asking her students to help. By altering one letter at a time, she demonstrated relationships between words, changing "there" to "where" to "here" to "were" to "wire" to "fire." Then she added a few new letters to spell "fireball." She said she likes to include some words that everyone in the class will know and some that will be a challenge.

The students read through the list aloud, clapping their hands with each word. At the end of the chain, following their teacher's cue, they shouted, "It's amazing." Then they uncapped their markers and wrote sentences on their personal white boards, using words from the list.

One student wrote "Fireballs are fast like comets and meteors." Another wrote, "I want a fireball from walmart."

Greenland walked around the room reminding students to use capital letters for proper nouns. She pointed out misspelled words and encouraged them to try again.

Later in the morning they wrote paragraphs on the subject of "Why I like my room." Greenland said her students' progress in writing has "truly amazed" her.

It used to be hard to get them to use capital letters and periods at the beginning and end of sentences, she said. "Now," she said, "that's easy for them."