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Students learn to read and write best when their teachers balance literacy instruction. But how do you strike the right balance of skills and knowledge, reading and writing, small and whole group instruction, and direct and dialogic instruction, so that all students can learn to their maximum potential? Watch this video with Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nancy Akhavan, authors of This Is Balanced Literacy, Grades K-6, as they answer the question: What is balanced literacy? 

Tiffanee Brown, co-author of Concept-Based Literacy Lessons, writes in this blog how, in a Concept-Based Literacy classroom, teaching skills is not the end goal in and of itself. Rather, the skills are taught to exemplify a bigger idea or Understanding about important literacy processes.

What factors come to mind when you hear the term “Balanced Literacy?” It is a term that has been used (and misused) for so long that it has lost meaning. Join the authors of This Is Balanced Literacy, Grades K-6, for as they outline the essential evidence-based approaches that define the balance for your students, lighting the path for you to implement true balanced literacy in your classroom.

Douglas Fisher, co-author of This Is Balanced Literacy, explains how the term "balanced literacy" today is used to describe instructional arrangements. A simple Internet search for “balanced literacy” will result in a wide range of graphics that indicate that whole class and small group instruction must be in balance. But that’s not where the term originally comes from.

"Balanced literacy is more than grouping students. But grouping for instruction is important and, sadly, neglected." Read more from Nancy Frey, co-author of This Is Balanced Literacy, on Corwin Connect. 

Use these strategies from Visible Learning for Literacy, Grades K-12, to inform how you provide feedback to students in various situations.

Molly Ness, author of Every Minute Matters, has devised ways to make her literacy rich activities doable at home, so families, teachers, and kids can still have fun with literacy, even at a distance.

Read how you can enact a gradual release of responsibilty within your Balanced Literacy groups in this blog post from Nancy Akhavan, co-author of This Is Balanced Literacy. 

"The question of whether to include phonics instruction has been resolved. The answer is yes." Read the full article by A Fresh Look at Phonics author Wiley Blevins, published by the International Literacy Association.

In this letter from This Is Balanced Literacy, Grades K-6, by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nancy Akhavan, the authors briefly discuss their view of what balanced literacy is and the impact it can have on teaching and learning.

Use these ideas for indpendent disciplinary reading from Disciplinary Literacy in Action to inspire a schoolwide culture of independent reading.

Use this checklist from Teaching Literacy in the Visible Learning Classroom, Grades K-5, to assess your young students’ early understanding of the concepts of print.