Language Arts Content Area Introduction

There are many different key teaching strategies for teaching language arts in the elementary school level. Reading development is a key aspect in elementary language arts. The stages of reading development are: emergent literacy, beginning reading, building fluency, reading to learn & reading for pleasure, mature reading. Focusing on reading there are several ways of teaching each reading development in order to accommodate each child’s specific learning needs. For example, there are many ways to teach comprehension. One includes literature study groups, which entails all group members selecting a book to read together and begin by reading the book independently then coming back together as a group to discuss what they had just read. A teacher is often present during this study group. Other comprehension strategies include, partner reading, independent reading, read alouds, and guided reading groups.

There are two essential milestones for children to reach to become readers: phonological and phonemic awareness. Strategies for teaching phonological awareness include syllable-matching games including pictures of several different objects on cards and finding the objects with the same amount of syllables. Another teaching approach for syllables is simply clapping out the syllables for children to hear. Similarly, a teaching tactic for identifying a rhyme includes a matching game with several pictures of objects that rhyme in pairs. A strategy for teaching phonemic awareness is using Elkonin boxes, where each box represents a sound and teaches children how to segment and hear individual sounds.

Concepts about print is another important factor for children to learn in order to begin reading. Teaching approaches for concepts about print include creating a sight word wall, sight word songs, and sight word bingo. Using name cards for children’s names is another good way to help children recognize words that are important to them, which also supports concepts about print. In addition to teaching concepts about print, there are five big components to teach children in language arts: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. There are several different teaching strategies for each and several different ways for children to learn each.