"Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers. -- Harry S. Truman"
ira standard 6
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Candidates recognize the importance of, demonstrate, and facilitate professional learning and leadership as a career-long effort and responsibility.
Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches are leaders in the field of education. They have an important role in effectively communicating the importance of literacy instruction to teachers, administrators, parents, community members, and policy makers. As leaders, we must be able to use literature and research to promote the value of reading and writing. We need to be able to collaborate with a wide variety of individuals and groups through verbal and written communications. The role also includes advocating for organizational and instructional changes by using research findings to promote effective literacy instruction.
Exemplary:
In order to meet this standard, I created a professional development opportunity that focused on the needs of my campus. In order to identify campus needs, I meet with the principal and several teachers. Through these conversations, I discovered that teachers struggle with finding ways to engage students in reading activities. It was important to the principal that the professional development contain hands-on activities that teachers could take back to the classroom and apply to a variety of lessons. With these goals in mind, I first made the teachers feel like their students. Teachers were given a difficult reading passage with explicit directions on how to approach the passage. This lead to a discussion about what strategies students need to use to tackle a passage that is difficult for them. I then introduced teachers to the Say Something activity from Kylene Beers' When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do (2001). This activity provided teachers with sentence stems to encourage discussion that focused on specific strategies like questioning, clarifying, connections, predicting, and responding. I then modeled how to explicitly introduce new reading strategies by incorporating a think aloud coupled with a hands-on activity. This lesson focused on building students' abilities in determining importance.
Application:
The new understanding I took away from this exemplar is that although the method of teaching students and adults is somewhat different, ultimately the material has to be engaging and purposeful. By communicating with the campus principal and staff, I was able to create a helpful professional development opportunity that promoted the value of reading and writing instruction. It also allowed me to communicate literature and research findings to staff members while supporting them in providing effective literacy instruction.
Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches are leaders in the field of education. They have an important role in effectively communicating the importance of literacy instruction to teachers, administrators, parents, community members, and policy makers. As leaders, we must be able to use literature and research to promote the value of reading and writing. We need to be able to collaborate with a wide variety of individuals and groups through verbal and written communications. The role also includes advocating for organizational and instructional changes by using research findings to promote effective literacy instruction.
Exemplary:
In order to meet this standard, I created a professional development opportunity that focused on the needs of my campus. In order to identify campus needs, I meet with the principal and several teachers. Through these conversations, I discovered that teachers struggle with finding ways to engage students in reading activities. It was important to the principal that the professional development contain hands-on activities that teachers could take back to the classroom and apply to a variety of lessons. With these goals in mind, I first made the teachers feel like their students. Teachers were given a difficult reading passage with explicit directions on how to approach the passage. This lead to a discussion about what strategies students need to use to tackle a passage that is difficult for them. I then introduced teachers to the Say Something activity from Kylene Beers' When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do (2001). This activity provided teachers with sentence stems to encourage discussion that focused on specific strategies like questioning, clarifying, connections, predicting, and responding. I then modeled how to explicitly introduce new reading strategies by incorporating a think aloud coupled with a hands-on activity. This lesson focused on building students' abilities in determining importance.
Application:
The new understanding I took away from this exemplar is that although the method of teaching students and adults is somewhat different, ultimately the material has to be engaging and purposeful. By communicating with the campus principal and staff, I was able to create a helpful professional development opportunity that promoted the value of reading and writing instruction. It also allowed me to communicate literature and research findings to staff members while supporting them in providing effective literacy instruction.
reviving_the_zombie_reader.pptx | |
File Size: | 558 kb |
File Type: | pptx |