When I was little, one of my favorite places to visit was the public library. I would carry my Paddington Bear yellow tote and fill it full of books. At home, I would crawl onto my mom's lap and listen to nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and poetry. As I got older, I would read walking from room to room and from the car to the house. We didn't have a lot of money but my parents would always order from the Scholastic catalog. They would buy all of the Caldecott and Newbery winners. In what some girls would deem a travesty, I never was allowed to read any of the Sweet Valley Twins books because my mom thought they were "rubbish!"
When Carys was reading chapter books before Kindergarten, people asked me what we did. Did we do flash cards? Force reading time? No, I would respond. We simply read to her a lot. Allowed her to see us read, surrounded our house with books, and talked to her all of the time. As we had more children, they all caught the reading bug too; developing into children who loved to read.
A few weeks ago, I attended a conference with some other Livonia principals entitled "Closing the Literacy Gap." It was predominantly focused on PK-3. However, there was still a lot of information to help us grow readers and writers at the upper elementary level. Some of the information was quite shocking. According to the 2015 Michigan Third Grade Reading Workgroup report, Michigan is one of only five states to lose ground in reading proficiency from 2003-2013. Additionally, Michigan ranks 40th in the nation in literacy according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Professor Nell Duke worked with other literary researchers to compile the document, Essential Literacy Practices for K-3. The following practices have the most research to support them.
- Foster motivation and engagement
- Read alouds of age appropriate books and other materials, print or digital
- Small group and individual instruction, using a variety of grouping strategies, most often with flexible groups formed and instruction targeted to children’s observed and assessed needs in specific aspects of literacy development
- Activities that build phonological awareness-conscious attention to the sounds within words, all oral (segmentation and blending are the most important) (K-1)
- Explicit instruction in letter-sound relationships (oa, ai)
- Research and standards aligned writing instruction
- Intentional and ambitious efforts to build vocabulary and content knowledge
- Abundant reading material and reading opportunities in the classroom
- Ongoing observation and assessment of children’s language
- Collaboration with families
Emilie Buchwald once said, "Children learn to read on the laps of their parents." Unfortunately, we know many of our children don't have that luxury. As we enter Reading Month, we need to remember what a prominent role we play in shaping our students' literary mindsets. Teaching reading really is rocket science. We need to stay current on reading practices. Nell Duke made a powerful analogy at the conference. She said, "We wouldn't expect a doctor to treat cancer the same way we treated cancer ten years ago so why do we let teachers teach the same way they always have."
Big Rocks:
We will be pulling classes to take them to the computer lab to take the Student Perception Survey starting on Tuesday morning in Lab 3. It should just take 10-15 minutes.
Family Game Night is this Tuesday from 6:30-7:30. Training for staff runs from 5:30-6:30. A light dinner will be served. We had lots of laughs last year!
We are looking to make some changes to Leadership Day this year. Robin sent an email regarding the ideas that have come out of the planning meeting last Monday and Lighthouse team last Tuesday. There is another planning meeting tomorrow, Monday, March 7 at 8:00.
We keep receiving M-Step updates at Principals' Meetings. Central Office is encouraging teachers to have students practice like last year. This year the test is computer adaptive (CAT). There are videos on how to navigate the CAT features for both the ELA and math tests on the MDE website. These are designed for teacher use, not for students, and are 6 minutes long. The expectation from the District is that teachers will watch the videos, become familiar with the CAT features, and then model the features for the students. The videos can be found at www.michigan.gov/mstep under the heading "What's New" and are listed as "Navigating the 2016 ELA CAT video" and "Navigating the 2016 Math CAT video.
Calendar for the Week of March 7:
Monday: 8:00 Leadership Day Planning
8:50, 10:00-Anti Bullying Assembly with Rodney Page
12:00-3:00 Curriculum Advisory Meeting (Sarah)
Tuesday: Voting Day-Voting will be taking place in the building.
3:30-Chess Club Meeting
3:45-5:00 Lighthouse Team
6:30-7:30 Family Game Night
Wednesday:
Thursday: 3:45-4:45 Extended Staff Meeting
Friday: 8:45 LEAD time with Accountability Partners
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