Academy of Hope Excursion

Students went to Alligator Adventure earlier this year to gather info about these water animals.  And then to write stories about them.  They first had conversations about their experiences to gather ideas for writing.

Students who are learning to be successful writers (and readers) of text, whether it is their own composition or not, have and use the behaviors described on these Anchor Charts.
 

These are just some of the many students who received outstanding academic awards for the 2nd nine weeks grading period.  All of the students here are writers and readers of text (First grade!)

Carolina Indian Summer Days in October

                                                                           
                                                                                 
                                                                           The Reading Coach
  Part of my training is to dissect the process by which students learn to read and write, explaining away the process that leads to the product.  This has to be accomplished by very carefully observing student behaviors as they immerse and engage themselves in this process as a direct result of the classroom teacher facilitating and then teaching for strategic use of reading/writing behaviors to be employed by students at the point of difficulty.  My observations include the teacher also (especially!)  My supporting the teacher eventually enables her/him to scaffold the reading process through lots and lots of reading and rereading familiar stories that students love to read (interest-driven material is key) in using the class library (which is interest-driven also).  This rereading by students on a daily basis for sustained periods of time leads to more efficient and fluent reading, which leads to more internalization of strategies--students begin to use them with automaticity--and higher reading levels, because they aren't having to work on the words that have tripped them up before so much now.  Teachers also learn more about what students show them they need next in the reading/writing process by this careful observation, note-taking, conferencing with and using results from many different kinds of formative assessments given to measure student growth over time.  With this occurring automatically in the classroom, my job here is done for a while and I just need to move on to another classroom that I can help the teacher support her students' reading efforts to make change/lift reading and writing in.
Research scientist Louisa Moats, Ph,D. has said that "Teaching reading IS rocket science!"  I'm beginning to be more inclined to agree with her at this juncture....