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Anchor Charts

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Anchor charts are an important part of teaching literacy along with other visual teaching tools. I admit that I struggle with the creation of these tools. There are two reasons:
I don’t feel creative or artistic enough to make an acceptable one.
I tend to put too many ideas or strategies on one chart and it looks cluttered and ineffective.
DIY Literacy: Teaching Tools for Differentiation, Rigor, and Independence, breaks the process into bite-size pieces, guiding any teacher through the steps of making effective visual teaching tools.
Four key teaching tools developed in the book include.
Teaching Charts: Teaching into Repertoire and Process
Demonstration Notebooks: Showing Students the How
Micro-progression Notebook: Supporting and Clarifying …show more content…

The authors break down the design elements into what matters most for an effective visual. Suggestions are specific and clearly spelled out.
Be sure to make use of white space and leave wide margins.
Write big and separate sections to draw attention to chunks of text.
Color is one of the easiest ways to make teaching tools attractive, possibly “branding” certain types of teaching with specific colors.
The authors end the chapter with a reminder to teachers; “But in the end, it is far, far more important that teaching tools be helpful to kids, not attractive”.

DIY Literacy is not only a “how-to” book on designing visual tools but includes advice on implementation in the classroom. Students’ learning will be positively impacted by the concrete ideas A quote from Kate and Maggie’s blog, Indent, “It’s about the personalized touch; it’s about being playful in our teaching while reaching toward academic excellence; it’s about being imperfect in the most perfect

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