I am about to start my fourth year as a literacy coach at my elementary school. This has been an exciting journey and I love my job. Like...
Hello! I hope everyone is surviving the final days before the holiday break! As many of you know I’m no longer a classroom teacher, I am a Literacy Coach. So I often get the question or look, “What do you do all day?” So today I am here to give you an answer of […]
Hello Friends!!! It's Jen from Out of This World Literacy! I hope everyone is having a fabulous summer relaxing and sleeping in. I know many of my friends are moving roles in this upcoming school year. Some are switching grades while others are stepping out of the classroom to fill specific leadership positions. As a Literacy Coach, I know what it's like to take that leap out of the classroom and into a specialist position. It. is. scary! Teachers who shift into a leadership role often leave the comfort and support of a grade-level team. They can sometimes feel like they are out there on their own island. Other teachers suddenly look at them differently...even though these teachers don't see themselves as a superior. They are not administrators, nor is their pay any different than when they were in the classroom. But, because of their new 'specialist' title, they are now looked at differently. I have some advice and tips for anyone who is stepping bravely out of the classroom and into a leadership role. Whether your new title is Reading Coach, Literacy Specialist, Interventionist, RTI Coordinator, or so on, I hope this list of advice can help you! TOP 10 TIPS FOR TEACHER SPECIALIST: 1. LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN! 2. Don't fall into the gossip traps 3. Think about the effects of your words before you speak 4. Ways to get on the teachers' good sides right away... a. Give stuff away at staff meetings! Don't hold on to all your classroom goodies! You don't have a classroom anymore! Make a FREE box and put it at the front door at the first staff meeting! b. Offer to come into classrooms, read a story, and introduce yourself to all the kids! Make a sign-up sheet for teachers so you can visit. It gives teachers a 20 minute break and it gets your foot in the door of all the classrooms! c. This last one is cheesy I know...but...SMILE! Be positive! A great attitude is contagious! And a smile can literally make someone's day. Whatever you're dealing with, smile, be positive, and that will go such a long way! 5. Be Patient! 6. Never trust teachers to read all their emails! If you have something important to share, chances are they will not read all their emails. You will likely need to send reminders. We all know how busy teachers are. Friendly reminders for meetings and so on are a must! :) 7. Always carry a calendar or ipad in the halls! Teachers will stop you and ask about things. They will ask you to come into the classroom, or send them something. It's hard to remember everything. Have something to write your quick hallway conversations down with! Otherwise, you will likely forget and unintentionally upset a teacher! 8.It's OK to say no! 9. Never act like you know everything! 10. Build yourself a layer of seriously thick skin! If you want to read more about what I have to say for each of these 10 tips, you can download this FREE resource! I wish everyone a fantastic start to a new year, whether it's back in your old classroom or taking on a new role! Jen Bengel Visit my TpT Store Follow me on Facebook Join me on Pinterest
Do you do all of these 6 essentials of reading intervention? Each is a must-have for effective intervention and will make it so much easier...
How do you plan for your small group instruction? Do you follow a program where all students receive the same strategies, or do you customize the interventions you teach to meet the needs of your students? As a Literacy Specialist, my students are placed into flexible, target-specific reading groups based on multiple assessments at the beginning of the year. Our pull-out program is very flexible, so targets and groups often change as students make progress and meet their goals. We do not have a formal reading program for every group, so it's up to each interventionist to determine targets, goals,
Have you heard the term Structured Literacy? What exactly is structured literacy? I’m so glad you asked! Let’s explore what it means and why it’s an important to know about it. *This post contains affiliate links. What is Structured Literacy? Structured literacy refers to a specific way or method in which literacy skills and strategies ... Read More about What is Structured Literacy?
If you're a new instructional coach, and you're reading this in real time, it's November. Even if you're not a new coach, but you're re...
This is another one in the series of Tell All's. OK...that's kinda funny. I will be honest, this turned into an Affirmation of Thoughts. Reading
A Harvard study was conducted to explain why 3% of their graduates from the MBA program made 10 times as much as the other 97% of graduates...
I became a Literacy Coach 5 years ago. When this happened, I felt like I was on my own. The school I was working in was also on an acc...
As coaches and facilitators of professional learning, our work revolves around providing teachers with constructive feedback that will help them improve their instruction. This process makes good sense to us and we likely feel pretty comfortable with it. I wonder though, how comfortable we feel with asking for and receiving feedback on our own practice? […]
Earlier this week, I broke out the cool new pens I got for Christmas and got to work on putting together my coaching cycle schedule for this next quarter. Creating new schedules throughout the year is a cool opportunity for us coaches. It’s kind of like having a mini beginning-of-school-year kick off more than just […]
Hello! How was your Thanksgiving Break?! Mine was pretty good overall. I was sick for a few days, but still managed to make time for some holiday decorating AND our long awaited home office project. Luke busted out his woodshop skills and built us the coolest desk ever! It’s L-shaped, so now we both have […]
Structured Literacy is an approach to reading instruction that is explicit and systematic, with a focus on the structure of the English language.
To any teacher out there reading this post, I think we can all give a big "Amen" to the statement, "Being a teacher is hard." On any given day, a teacher could be asked to do a million different thin
I had the opportunity during two weeks of summer school to teach middle school guided reading to students who were identified as reading below grade level. Because during the school year it sometime feels as if I'm being pulled in a million different directions, I so enjoyed the opportunity to focus in on JUST guided reading. It really gave me time to reflect on how I teach each of the different parts, how I plan for it, how I keep anecdotal notes and information on students, etc. Below are some pictures from my guided reading binder as well as some explanations of what I have learned upon continuous reflection of the best ways to provide guided reading instruction to middle school students. By nature, I have a mind that reflects upon what I do continuously. When it comes to my love life, it's awful. :) However, when it comes to teaching it rocks because I am constantly revamping things and asking myself how I can improve or how things could be better. The photos above are the most current guided reading planner that I am using. It is the fourth one that I have created and tried this school year. When I'm not sure what I'm doing with something I tend to start with something overly structured and time-consuming. My first guided reading lesson plans had information about every step and ideas for every step of the guided reading lesson listed with a ton of lines. Once I become more comfortable with something, I gradually release the structure and take on the "less is more" and "keep it simple" type of attitude. I really like my current guided reading lesson planner template because it gives me space to write a full lesson on one page. It works for my mind...for now ;). I have a space to write down ideas for a text introduction, three columns to plan out within, beyond, and about questions to discuss after the reading of the text, a place to write down a strategy that I'd like to model to reinforce a reading process, and a place to write down what I'd like to do for word work that day. One of the best ways that I've found so far to progress monitor student reading is to use reading records. The pictures above show the reading records of three different students in my guided reading group on the same day. The reason I find reading records so helpful is because I'm able to track students' oral reading behaviors during several different points in time if I am diligent about doing reading records with my guided reading students. Coding their reading and being able to look back to see what types of errors they are making really clues me in on what types of goals to set for each individual reader, what I should work with them on during guided reading, and what types of word work I should do with the different groups. Reading records can work with any genre of book. Steps to doing reading records: 1. Select a page from the guided reading book that the group will be reading that day and make a photo copy of that page for each student in your guided reading group. The student will be reading from the book while you put the photo copies on a clip board and code their reading directly onto the page that you copied from the book. (In a typical guided reading book for middle school having students read approximately one page is a perfect amount. However, if it is a lower level book, you may want students to read two pages.) 2. After you have completed the text introduction for the whole group and the group has begun to read the section out of the guided reading book that you have assigned for that day meet individually with each student to complete the reading record. As each student is reading, code their oral reading by writing down the errors and self-corrections that they make, when they repeat words or phrases in the text, if they take appropriate pauses at punctuation, etc. (If I am running short on time in a guided reading group, I will sometimes take a reading record for half of the group one day and the other half of the group the next.) 3. After a student has read the page out of the book and you have coded their oral reading behavior onto the reading record, jot down a few comments about that student's reading behavior onto the sheet to help you remember what you'd like this student to work on and what they're doing well. Some of the comments that I find myself using often are: makes self-corrections, errors affect meaning of the story, does/doesn't use punctuation to guide the author's meaning, repeats words, etc. (When I first started doing guided reading I hated taking the time to do this, but I soon realized that taking the time to jot a few anecdotal notes is so worth it in the long run because those notes help you remember what you wanted to work on with that student. You might think you'll remember, but I found that I often forgot what I was thinking if I didn't write it down right away-maybe I'm just getting old!) 4. Use the reading records over several days with a particular student to set goals with and for that particular student. Taking the time to analyze reading records and working specifically on skills that you notice readers specifically struggling with closes gaps so much faster than pulling magic ideas out of the dark on how a reader COULD get better. Having the data to KNOW a specific reader's behaviors and brainstorming what you could specifically do in your instruction to make that better makes a huge difference. For instance, after doing several reading records on one of my students that I had during Summer School, I realized she made an error each time she came to a word that ended in "tion" and "sion". To address this, I found words that ended this way in the section we were going to read for that day and put them into the text introduction. I also did a word work specifically dedicated to words that end this way where we brainstormed a list of as many words we could think of that ended in "tion" and "sion" and said them out loud and used them in sentences. So if you're in a guided reading funk, looking for a few new ideas for guided reading, and/or just thinking about starting guided reading for the first time, I hope that this blog post was helpful to you! Have a great night everyone! Kasey
Let’s explore morphology in structured literacy today. Be sure to follow along with our What is Structured Literacy? blog series! What is Morphology? Morphology refers to studying the morphemes {or units of meaning} in words. It’s clear as day now, right? Ha! Let’s make it a little clearer. A morpheme is the smallest unit of ... Read More about Morphology in Structured Literacy
Skilled readers need to be able to master both what the words they read are and what they mean.
Moving into a coaching role as a teacher can be daunting for anyone. You spent years in the classroom perfecting your craft and all of a sudden you are in a new role and feel like a first year teacher all over again. But, you don’t have to. This post serves as a guide for…
Simple and Straight-forward Tools for Teachers, Coaches, and Leaders.
It's been awhile since I have blogged...I think this is the longest blogging break I have ever taken, yikes! This is my first year as an I...
Earlier this week, I broke out the cool new pens I got for Christmas and got to work on putting together my coaching cycle schedule for this next quarter. Creating new schedules throughout the year is a cool opportunity for us coaches. It’s kind of like having a mini beginning-of-school-year kick off more than just […]
The K or CK rule in spelling. This is an incredibly useful and freeing spelling generalization that allows students to spell many words using standard
Last week I shared the instructional coaching data tracker I use to help organize and reflect on my work in coaching cycles throughout the year. In the post I mentioned that I use a variety of other coaching tools to document and organize work with individual teachers. Here are a two of my most important. Coaching Kick-Off Meeting […]
Learn more about what is the reading rope and the impact for kindergarten teachers Focused on the Science of Reading.
If you’re ready to dive into a science of reading (SoR) aligned curriculum and trying to figure out how to structure your literacy block, we have recommendations for a strong science of reading classroom schedule!
Recently the topic of Structured Literacy teaching has sparked considerable interest. Educators and parents often have questions about this approach:
Structured Literacy is an approach to reading instruction that is explicit and systematic, with a focus on the structure of the English language.
And for the complete Simplified Coaching Planning Kit… including 6 different sections with 5 different cover options and the following tools to help you get organized, plan and prepare to be an awesome coach: Get your Coaching Planning Kit Today!
WHAT DO WE TEACH IN STRUCTURED LITERACY? We know that phonics instruction is critical to supporting all students including those with dyslexia and other reading disabilities but the problem is R…
A how to deconstruct standards example and template model the process of unwrapping content and skills for you.
Discover my favorite activities that are aligned with the science of reading curriculum to help your young learns master reading fast.
Structured Literacy is an instructional approach to teaching students to read that encompasses all of the elements of language and...
Structured Literacy is an approach to reading instruction that is explicit and systematic, with a focus on the structure of the English language.
Orton-Gillingham is an approach to teaching reading that is highly effective for people with dyslexia. Find out why I believe in Orton-Gillingham.
In this masterclass, I show you my 5 step system to attracting high quality clients and creating a successful online coaching business.
I was able to make this new list sooner than I had thought I would. The sites listed in my previous list of The Best Websites To Help Beginning Readers have been enjoyed by both my students and the…
