February 1, 2018
From Teaching Literacy in Tennessee
Which instructional strategies will I use? How will I sequence them within my literacy block and units I am teaching?
Teachers should use instructional strategies to help students make meaning of text and to provide instruction in reading and writing. Instructional strategies should be interwoven throughout the day to allow opportunities for students to gain knowledge through reading, speaking, and listening, and to use that knowledge to produce authentic writing.
All instructional strategies should provide opportunities for student ownership of learning and responsibility for thinking. Teachers should consider how they are engaging students in varying levels of responsibility throughout the day as they build stamina and independence. This process "emphasizes instruction that mentors students into becoming capable thinkers and learners when handling the tasks with which they have not yet developed expertise." (Buehl, 2005) Teachers should support students in developing their expertise as readers and writers by flexibly utilizing a variety of instructional strategies throughout the literacy block. Teachers then make decisions about how much support students will need during each instructional strategy (i.e., what students will do independently, what will need guided support, and what might need to be modeled).
The chart below lists the instructional strategies teachers might use and describes their purpose within the literacy block.
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January 3, 2018
Framework for Teaching Literacy in Tennessee
Consider the framework for Teaching Literacy in Tennessee below. This framework helps teachers think about a flexible way of constructing units of study that build enduring understandings of concepts that are anchored in the Tennessee Academic Standards and in the needs of students.
The Tennessee ELA standards offer multiple strands, including reading, language, writing, speaking and listening and foundational skills. Standards from all of the strands are integrated within a sequence of lessons to support students in developing both skills-based and knowledge-based competencies (See Coaches Corner) that are based on the demands of texts and student needs.
Teachers carefully select texts and design a series of lessons with daily activities that lead up to an end-of-unit task. Daily tasks provide teachers with evidence of student learning that informs their instruction. Rich, authentic end-of-unit tasks allow students to display the skills and knowledge they have gained around the enduring understandings.
Teachers must determine the level of support students will need within lessons and across units in order to deepen their understandings of the content and expand their ability to transfer their knowledge and skills to independent work.
The framework highlights the ways in which teachers create the types of daily opportunities outlined in the theory of action by utilizing:
- literacy-based instructional strategies
- multiple sources of data, and
- differentiation
to provide effective Tier 1 instruction to all students
December 1, 2017
Read to be Ready Unit Starters
Read to be Ready has released draft unit starters for K, 1, 2, and 3. These three-week unit starters are literacy units based on science standards. There are detailed daily lesson plans, daily writing tasks and end of unit culminating tasks (complete with student exemplars) listed within each starter. Texts needed for each starter are listed in the documents
April 4, 20015
What does it take to transform reading practices across a district?
There is no single answer. But within the variety of efforts across Tennessee districts, we see a common set of ingredients among districts at the forefront of the movement.
- A district wide commitment to the work that includes wholehearted support from district leadership, resources and funding to ensure long-term support, and the development of a unified vision of success.
- A focus on specific elements of instruction in order to continuously improve teachers' ability to make the complex, day to day classroom decisions that lead directly to student learning.
- The infusion of new and additional expertise into the district by way of strategic partnerships and alliances with the growing menu of state-level initiatives that bring research based techniques and methods in the classroom.
- Alignment and integration across multiple efforts so that the work becomes an element of the district's long-term strategy with ownership and capability developing within the district in order to carry on the work over time.
Anderson County Schools have embraced the Read to Be Ready state reading initiative and are striving to implement the framework with fidelity to ensure that our students are excelling in reading and writing!
February 24, 2017
Shared Reading is Here!
On February 22, Anderson County Schools rolled out the next component in the Read to be Ready Initiative.
Shared reading lessons focus on the explicit teaching of Foundational Literacy and Reading standards, while incorporating additional Writing and Speaking & Listening standards through questioning, discussion, and tasks.
Shared reading looks different at different grade levels, given variations in students’ developmental readiness, the expectations of grade level standards, and students’ independent reading abilities . At the same time, many features of effective shared reading instruction are consistent across grade levels.
Here is an abridged video of a first grade lesson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1gBauKkbJs&feature=youtu.be
Here is a video of a teacher planning her think-alouds for a second grade shared reading lesson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz_CZe0Y0gI&feature=youtu.be
November 30, 2016
From Teaching Literacy in Tennessee
Which instructional strategies will I use? How will I sequence them within my literacy block and units I am teaching?
All instructional strategies should provide opportunities for student ownership of learning and responsibility for thinking. Teachers should consider how they are engaging students in varying levels of responsibility throughout the day as they build stamina and independence. This process "emphasizes instruction that mentors students into becoming capable thinkers and learners when handling the tasks with which they have not yet developed expertise." (Buehl, 2005) Teachers should support students in developing their expertise as readers and writers by flexibly utilizing a variety of instructional strategies throughout the literacy block. Teachers then make decisions about how much support students will need during each instructional strategy (i.e., what students will do independently, what will need guided support, and what might need to be modeled).
The chart below lists the instructional strategies teachers might use and describes their purpose within the literacy block.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
January 3, 2018
Framework for Teaching Literacy in Tennessee
Consider the framework for Teaching Literacy in Tennessee below. This framework helps teachers think about a flexible way of constructing units of study that build enduring understandings of concepts that are anchored in the Tennessee Academic Standards and in the needs of students.
The Tennessee ELA standards offer multiple strands, including reading, language, writing, speaking and listening and foundational skills. Standards from all of the strands are integrated within a sequence of lessons to support students in developing both skills-based and knowledge-based competencies (See Coaches Corner) that are based on the demands of texts and student needs.
Teachers carefully select texts and design a series of lessons with daily activities that lead up to an end-of-unit task. Daily tasks provide teachers with evidence of student learning that informs their instruction. Rich, authentic end-of-unit tasks allow students to display the skills and knowledge they have gained around the enduring understandings.
Teachers must determine the level of support students will need within lessons and across units in order to deepen their understandings of the content and expand their ability to transfer their knowledge and skills to independent work.
The framework highlights the ways in which teachers create the types of daily opportunities outlined in the theory of action by utilizing:
- literacy-based instructional strategies
- multiple sources of data, and
- differentiation
December 1, 2017
- A district wide commitment to the work that includes wholehearted support from district leadership, resources and funding to ensure long-term support, and the development of a unified vision of success.
- A focus on specific elements of instruction in order to continuously improve teachers' ability to make the complex, day to day classroom decisions that lead directly to student learning.
- The infusion of new and additional expertise into the district by way of strategic partnerships and alliances with the growing menu of state-level initiatives that bring research based techniques and methods in the classroom.
- Alignment and integration across multiple efforts so that the work becomes an element of the district's long-term strategy with ownership and capability developing within the district in order to carry on the work over time.
Anderson County Schools have embraced the Read to Be Ready state reading initiative and are striving to implement the framework with fidelity to ensure that our students are excelling in reading and writing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1gBauKkbJs&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz_CZe0Y0gI&feature=youtu.be
The Read to be Ready Summer Grant
In conjunction with the launch of the statewide Read to
be Ready Campaign in February 2016, the Dollar General Literacy
Foundation gave a $1 million gift to the department to
fund summer reading programs for three years. The first grant period
took place last summer and will reoccur for the following two summers.
The purpose of the Read to be Ready Summer Grant is to
fund programs that target low-income students who we know experience the
greatest summer learning loss. The grants are intended to fund summer
instructional programs that provide rich reading and writing opportunities for
rising first, second, and third grade students. The goal is to develop a
student’s love for reading over the summer months by providing them with access
to a multitude of high-quality books at different levels and for different
interests.
- See more at: https://www.tn.gov/readtobeready/topic/read-to-be-ready-summer-grant#sthash.gFJxeSND.dpuf
Below is the timeline for 2017 Read to be
Ready Summer Grant application. Please check back regularly for
additional information, including an FAQ section.
January 30, 2017: Application
period opens
October 31, 2016
Anderson County's Repeated Interactive Read Aloud Roll-out
- Wednesday, November 2 - Roll-out of Repeated Interactive Read Aloud Training during PLC via Ready Talk at schools.
- Wednesday, November 16 - Kindergarten through 3rd grade teachers will meet together by grade level to learn about and discuss the Repeated Interactive Read Aloud protocol and framework. K-3 teachers will meet at Claxton Elementary from 2pm-4pm. Link to Presentation
Elementary teachers completed a survey that covered questions about the use of read aloud books in the classroom. Data from the Repeated Interactive Read Aloud Survey:
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September 30,2016
All learning rests on the shoulders of literacy.
The Read to be Ready Campaign unites stakeholders across Tennessee in the pursuit of one common, critical goal - by 2025, 75% of Tennessee third graders will read on grade level. Anderson County Schools is joining in this campaign by having eight K-5 academic coaches participate in the three year support and training for a statewide literacy coach initiative starting in fall 2016. During this training academic coaches not only learn key components to literacy instruction, but they also have extensive training on how to roll out these best practices to classroom teachers. Coaches will support classroom teachers by modeling lessons, engaging in high quality professional development and follow up with coaching conversations.
The Read to be Ready Campaign is driven by five key beliefs:
1. Early Literacy Matters - a good start in language and literacy development is a strong predictor of successful literacy achievement
2. But, It’s Never too Late - Instruction that is research-based and provided by expert educators can reduce students' reading difficulties
3. Reading is More than Sounding Out Words - Students also require explicit comprehension instruction
4. Teachers are Critical - Educators must have a deep understanding of the art and science of literacy instruction
5. It Takes a Community - Everyone plays a key role in helping students grow into successful readers and writers
Anderson County Schools’ K-5 academic coaches will commit 60% of their coaching time to emphasizing these reading strategies to all our K-3 classroom teachers. Their scope of work will include one-on-one coaching with individual teachers, presenting after school professionally developed interactive presentations, building high-quality text sets for all nine of our elementary schools and analyzing data to determine how close Anderson County is to achieving the state’s goal. Anderson County has set a goal of achieving 75% of third graders reading on a proficient level by 2020.
- Wednesday, November 2 - Roll-out of Repeated Interactive Read Aloud Training during PLC via Ready Talk at schools.
- Wednesday, November 16 - Kindergarten through 3rd grade teachers will meet together by grade level to learn about and discuss the Repeated Interactive Read Aloud protocol and framework. K-3 teachers will meet at Claxton Elementary from 2pm-4pm. Link to Presentation
Anderson County Schools’ K-5 academic coaches will commit 60% of their coaching time to emphasizing these reading strategies to all our K-3 classroom teachers. Their scope of work will include one-on-one coaching with individual teachers, presenting after school professionally developed interactive presentations, building high-quality text sets for all nine of our elementary schools and analyzing data to determine how close Anderson County is to achieving the state’s goal. Anderson County has set a goal of achieving 75% of third graders reading on a proficient level by 2020.
