4 Block Litercy

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2002 : January : 5

4 Block Litercy
By Samantha

Hello everyone! Here's the scoop on Cunninghams's 4 Block program. It was mandated by my district 4 years ago, and you know haw things are that are mandated. It reminds me of communism. It looks really well on paper,
but it real life it has some real short commings. What is really important to remember is the 4 Block model is designed for primary grades, and adjusted to work for intermediate grades. The LA portion of the day is broken into 4 Blocks: WORD, GUIDED READING, WRITING, AND SELF SELECTED READING. In this way it's no so different from GR&W, except Guided Reading and Self Selected are combined

into the Reading Workshop in the GR&W book, and the theories and practices are very different. Here's the HUGE differences: in the the Cunningham model for Guided Reading, you teach the entire class on grade level (in the intermediate grades you don't do three days at grade level and two days low). Of course, meeting the needs of below grade level students is nearly impossible. Their needs are addressed in thte Self Selected Reading Block. This is the bolck where students totally read what they want, during this time you conference with individual students. The Word Block is 30 minutes of word study. You do things like, Word Wall Activites, Making Words, What Looks Right, Brand Name Phonics, and Nifty Thrifty Fifty. The Writing Block is by far the weakest. It does have mini- lessons and teacher modeling everyday, but it relies heavily on graphic organizers, and all the writing I get is not "real writing". It seems very "fill in the boxes", and has a very choppy feeling.
I am part of a Reading gradute course offered by the state and district. This is where I learned about GR&W. It was not offord to everyone in the class because it is not Cunningham. I am (along with the State Reading Coach from the class) going to have to manipulate GR&W to please adminastrators who come in to observe Cunningham being used in the classrooms.
I think that there are some good things about Cunningham, but GR&W meets students' needs much better.
Did I just ramble here, or did I come close to answering the question? Hey, was there a question? :O)