INVITATIONS TO LITERACY
Philosophy Statement

Literacy learning begins in the home and community. It continues in school where literacy instruction should stimulate, teach, and extend the communication and thinking skills that will allow students to develop positive attitudes and to become effective readers, writers, communicators, and life-long learners.

INVITATIONS TO LITERACY believes that teachers play a critical role in the development of each student's literacy. The program provides instructional resources that:

• Build on the foundation that students bring to school and foster home/school cooperation that is vital to students' growing literacy.
• Hold all students to the same high standards for developing literacy and meet students' individual needs as they progress to the achievement of these standards.
• Respect and appreciate the diversity of all learners and encourage students to respect and appreciate the diversity of others.
• Introduce students to a wide variety of quality literature and “real world” resources that increase their knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of themselves, other people, and the world in which they live.
• Afford students opportunities for both discovery and systematic instruction and help students develop a variety of strategies and skills that will allow them to construct, critically examine, and apply meaning.
• Integrate the language arts of listening, speaking, reading, writing and viewing, and use language arts to explore content across the curriculum.
• Encourage a variety of formal and informal assessment procedures to support student learning, facilitate teacher instructional planning, document student progress, and promote student self-evaluation and self-reflection.