February

MINI PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SESSIONS ONLINE!

You may have already heard a great deal about Anita Archer, or maybe even had the opportunity to attend one of her sessions. Either way, you will enjoy these videos of her explicit teaching of:

• vocabulary,
  
• background knowledge strategies,
  
• active participation,
  
• read alouds,
  
• word and sentence dictation
• summary writing,
• and retelling.

Each video includes a description, feedback on her teaching, and suggestions to improve.

This site is relevant for all subject areas and all grade levels. This is truly a collection of mini professional development session on the web!


http://explicitinstruction.org/


RESEARCH SAYS

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) from the What Works Clearninghouse and the U.S. Department of Education produces practice guides for K-12 teachers based on the "best available evidence and expertise to bear on current challenges in education. " Recommendations are made, and the strength of the research is rated based on evidence to support these recommendations.

For K-3: Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade
Students who read with understanding at an early age gain access to a broader range of texts, knowledge, and educational opportunities, making early reading comprehension instruction particularly critical. This guide recommends five specific steps that teachers, reading coaches, and principals can take to successfully improve reading comprehension for young readers.

For upper elementary, middle school and high school: Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices
This guide presents strategies that classroom teachers and specialists can use to increase the reading ability of adolescent students. The recommendations aim to help students gain more from their reading tasks, improve their motivation for and engagement in the learning process, and assist struggling readers who may need intensive and individualized attention.

From: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides/#&&Filter=6,7,8,9,10,11,12,1,2,3,4,5,13,14,15,16,17,18,19&SortDir=Descending&AvSEx=yes&PGIDEx=no&Label=All&Search=&SortExp=Release_Date&PGIDRq=8



WRITING LETTERS

The Letter Generator tool is designed to help students learn to identify all the essential parts of a business or friendly letter, and then generate letters by typing information into letter templates. A sample letter is included, and students can learn about the parts of a letter by reading descriptions of each part.

Once students have become familiar with letter formats, they are prompted to write their own letter. Students follow the steps and fill in specific fields in the template (for example, heading, salutation, closing, signature, and so on). They may even add a decorative border and postscript to the friendly letter. The finished letter can saved, e-mailed, or printed.

This useful tool provides step-by-step instructions for familiarizing users with the necessary elements of written correspondence, and can serve as an excellent practice method for composing and proofreading both formal and informal letters.


There are options for K-12 teachers and various subject areas!


From: ReadWriteThink- an NCTE site.

January

Professional Development

The Ingham ISD offers many literacy centered professional development opportunities, and many are added throughout the school year. If you don’t check often, you may not know about them! Below is a list of the literacy topics coming up. You can register right on the site. These are appropriate for all subject areas, but specified grade levels.
• Active Engagement and Vocabulary– Grades 4-12
• Comprehension– Grades 2-8
• Early Literacy– Grades K-2
• Explicit Instruction– Grades K-8
GO TO: http://pd.inghamisd.org


What Research Says
A recent literature review published in Fall 2010 edition of The Language Arts Journal of Michigan outlines what teachers can do to help struggling adolescent readers:

Current policy documents from the Alliance for Excellent Education give declarations of what should be done to help struggling adolescent readers. The Alliance for Excellent Education outlined its suggestions in a report entitled Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006) that make suggestions for middle and high school educators. Biancarosa and Snow came up with fifteen key elements for effective adolescent literacy instruction that fall under the categories of instructional and school infrastructure improvements. Some of these elements that fell under instructional improvements were:

Direct, explicit comprehension instruction: Direct instruction should be linked to goals students wish to achieve as readers, not just the ones that fits the teachers visions (Hall, 2009).This can be achieved by involving students in the instruction by asking questions like “what does it mean to be a reader? what does reading look like? or what type of reader to you want to be-come?” (p. 354).

Strategic tutoring-- According to Biancarosa and Snow (2006), this method is important because it provides focused individualized attention for the struggling reading. Specifically, thistype of tutoring is referred to as strategic because it “emphasize[s] that while students may need tutorial help to acquire critical curriculum knowledge, they also need to be taught ‘how tolearn’ curriculum information” (p. 18). Within this model, tutors are taught learning strategies to
help students complete subject-area assignments. The goal of the tutoring is to empower thestruggling readers to read independently using the learning strategies (Biancarosa & Snow,2006).

Diverse Texts -- These texts of various topics and difficulty levels, make reading more accessible to struggling adolescent readers who may otherwise get frustrated with the difficulty level of texts.

Intensive Writing- "Writing instruction also improves reading comprehension" (Biancarosa and Snow, 2006). When students read and write together, they enhance their critical thinking skills.

* From "Taking Another Look at Struggling Adolescent Readers." Brooks-Yip & Koonce, 2010

Parental Involvement
Teachers Involving Parents
You’ll find interactive homework for science, language arts, and math. This site gives you suggestions, formats and templates for involving parents in schoolwork, along with research, resources, and training on involving parents.



The ELAN

Members of this English Language Arts Network (ELAN) will share information about literacy and serve as liaisons between Ingham ISD and their own districts. The ELAN will provide an opportunity for teachers to collaborate with colleagues. Participants are provided with updates on current issues and resources to teach English language arts. Topics for discussion are often chosen by participants. The network is facilitated by Amy Kilbridge, Ingham ISD English language arts consultant.

Audience: Middle and high school English language arts and special education teachers
Date(s): October 6 and December 8, 2010; February 2, March 9, and April 27, 2011
Time(s): 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Location: Ingham ISD, TEC, Room 302
Cost: No charge for Ingham County educators; $75 for out-county educators
Credit: 0.8 SB-CEU, pending MDE approval
Contact: Debbie Kirchen at 517.244.1251 or dkirchen@inghamisd.org
*You can STILL join even if you did not attend in October or December.