K-8, one day session, as a kick-off to establishing effective, inclusive, literacy practices. With 'Every Child, Every Day' as a framework, examples are provided to put this in action.

1. Setting Up a Fun, Manageable
and Effective Literacy Program,
K-8
Coquitlam Summer Boot Camp
Monday, August 26, 2019
Faye Brownlie
www.slideshare.net/fayebrownlie/coquitlambootcamp.literacy

2. Learning Intentions
• I have a better understanding of ‘what counts’ in effective literacy
instruction.
• I have a plan for an opening reading--thinking sequence
• I have a plan for beginning my writers’ workshop
• I have ready to have fun in teaching ALL my leaners how to become
readers and writers and thinkers

3. What?
Literacy is the ability and willingness to make meaning from
text and express oneself in a variety of modes and for a
variety of purposes.
Literacy includes making connections, analyzing critically,
comprehending, creating, and communicating.
B.C. Ministry of Education, 2017
3

4. The goal of teaching reading is to
create kids who can read and who
choose to read.

5. Story is at the heart of reading and
writing.
Reading and writing grow through
interaction with others.
We are all readers, writers,
thinkers.

6. Beliefs
• Everyone is included, in the classroom, in rich literacy experiences.
• Access and engagment
• We believe – and our language and actions reflect this – that all our
learners will become readers and writers.
• Strengths-based language
• Growth mindset
• Community counts – for our students and for ourselves.
• Teachers, NOT scripted programmes, teach students.

7. • We need large chunks of time for effective literacy learning.
• Choice counts – for everyone, especially our most at-promise
students.
• Every day we listen to EACH learner read.
• Daily meaning-based, individual, strengths-based reading and writing
conferences.
• Feedback – individual and group – is the heart of our instruction.
• This is possible, manageable, and fun!!

8. Gradual Release of Responsibility
• Model
• Guided practice
• Independent practice
• Independent application

10. To begin the year…
• Whole group instruction
• Whole group feedback
• Who are my learners?
• What are their strengths and stretches?
• Individual practice
• Individual conferences for individual feedback
• Something you are doing well – what works?
• Something you can continue to develop – a question or comment to lead learning
forward

11. Moving toward…
• A blend of whole class, small group and individual learning
opportunities in the class
• Small groups – guided reading, word work, skills work – are built as
we gain knowledge of our students, their strengths and stretches,
who will work well together, and what is possible
• Watch for support from your resource team in implementing EPRA, a
performance-based reading assessment to help you learn about your
learnersJ

12. Where do my learners need explicit
instruction?
• Reading and writing float on a sea of talk James Britton
• Meaning and thinking first – comprehension and response
• Words
• Sight (automaticity)
• Decoding (sound/symbol, word parts, word families)
• Strategies for decoding unknown words in context
• Concepts of print
• How print works – letters, words, sentences, left to right
• Letter knowledge – names and sounds

13. Big Ideas – Gr 3 (and Gr 8)
• Language and story can be a source of creativity and joy. (same)
• Stories and other texts help us learn about ourselves, our families and
our communities. (and make connections to others and the world)
• Stories can be understood from different perspectives. (worldviews)
• Using language in creative and playful ways helps us understand how
language works. (Texts are socially, culturally, and historically
constructed.)
• Curiosity and wonder lead us to new discoveries about ourselves and
the world around us. (Questioning…contributes to our ability to be
educated and engaged citizens.)

14. Curricular Competencies
• Comprehend and connect (reading, listening, viewing)
• Create and communicate (writing, speaking, representing)

15. “Every Child, Every Day”
– Richard Allington and Rachael Gabriel
6 elements of instruction for ALL students!
Educational Leadership, March 2012

16. 1. Every child reads something he or she chooses.

17. 2. Every child reads accurately.
-intensity and volume count!
-98% accuracy
-less than 90% accuracy, doesn’t improve reading at all

18. Strategy Cards –
Catching Readers Before They Fall
– Johnson & Keier)

19. Building Accuracy: Whole Class Lessons
Using Big Books
• Work with one or two pages (5-10 Minutes).
• Cover up one or two words.
• Read the sentence together leaving out the missing
word.
• Ask for all of the possibilities for the missing word.
• Record the suggestions.
• Try each word suggested crossing out words that don’t
make sense.
• Notice and name the strategies that were used to
determine the author’s words.

20. • Polar bears have ______ coats of fur to keep them warm in the
_________ winters. They have an ________ layer of long hair over a
_________ layer of underfur.

21. • Polar bears have ______ coats of fur to keep them warm in the
(size)
_________ winters. They have an ________ layer of long hair over a
(place name) (where?)
_________ layer of underfur.
(number)

22. • Polar bears have th______ coats of fur to keep them warm in the
A_________ winters. They have an o________ layer of long hair over
a s_________ layer of underfur.

23. • thick
• Arctic
• outer
• second

24. Strong Readers – Northern Series,
Strong Nations Publishing

25. What strategies did you use?
• Thinking about meaning.
• Thinking about parts of speech.
• Thinking if the word would sound right.
• With the ‘initial’ you now had visual information to add in.
• Meaning
• Syntax and sound
• Visual
• Children who are struggling with reading, often have trouble using all
sources of information and tend to rely on just one…their easiest one!

26. When reading together, coach in THIS ORDER!
M – meaning
Does this make sense?
S – language structure
Does this sound right?
V – visual information
Does this look right?
How did you figure that out?

27. 3. Every child reads something he or she understands.
-at least 2/3 of time spent reading and rereading NOT doing
isolated skill practice or worksheets
-build background knowledge before entering the text
-read with questions in mind

28. Teach for understanding with purposeful strategies.
• Connecting
• With background knowledge and with others, building personal questions
• Processing
• New information by interacting with it, making new connections, revising
former understandings
• Transforming and personalizing
• New information so it is stored in long-term memory
Student Diversity, 3rd ed, p. 21

29. An Opening Strategic Sequence
• Connecting
• With background knowledge and with others, building personal questions
• Think-Aloud
• Processing
• New information by interacting with it, making new connections, revising former
understandings
• Visual Thinking
• Transforming and personalizing
• New information so it is stored in long-term memory
• Found Poem
Student Diversity, 3rd ed, p. 22-24

30. Think Aloud
• Connecting strategy
• Whole class, guided practice with partners, independent practice
• Read the text aloud.
• Model what your learners need to access the text – strategies for decoding
and meaning-making.
• Have the learners describe what you have done.
• List these strategies.
• Add a new piece of text, repeat the process with learners in pairs, one
reading, the other noticing and coaching.
• Collect the strategies and add on to the list.
• Repeat again with roles reversed.

31. How I Learned Geography – Uri Shulevitz
One day, Father went to the bazaar to buy bread.
As evening approached, he hadn’t returned.

32. Mother and I were worried and hungry.
It was nearly dark when he came home.
He carried a long roll of paper under his arm.

33. “I bought a map,” he announced triumphantly.
“Where is the bread?” Mother asked.
“I bought a map,” he said again.

34. Mother and I said nothing.
“I had enough money to buy only a tiny piece of bread, and we would
still be hungry,” he explained apologetically.
“No supper tonight,” Mother said bitterly. “We’ll have the map
instead.”

35. Visual Thinking
• Processing strategy
• Learners draw a thinking bubble.
• Continue to read the text as learners draw their thinking in the
bubble.
• Share some learner samples.
• Continue to read and share, whole group, then in table groups or in
partners.
• Add language from the text to the images.

36. Found Poem
• Transforming and personalizing strategy
• A poem of words and phrases, collected from the text and significant to the
learners
• Reread the text, in chunks.
• Learners listen for language that stays ringing in their ears as you
read.
• After reading the first chunk, choose a group of learners to stand and
repeat their phrase. Reorganize this in several ways.
• Continue reading and chunking, ensuring all students participate in
creating the poem.

38. 4. Every child writes about something personally meaningful.
-connected to text
-connected to themselves
-real purpose, real audience

39. Writers’ Workshop – Student Diversity 3rd ed
• The foundation of your literacy programming
• Establish this first!!!!
• K/1 – begin with interactive writing, writing/drawing/creating text in
front of your learners, representing thinking with drawing, adding
letters and sounds
• 2-7 – write in front of your students, at least 2 whole class writing in
response to experiences, read alouds, classroom inquiries each week

40. Beliefs about Writing
• Writing is thinking
• Write daily
• Precede writing with talk, reflection, time
• Focus on meaning
• Explicitly teach writing and provide time for practice and feedback
• Feedback and co-developed criteria support the development of
writing
• Writing is cross-curricular

47. The Story behind the Picture- primary
• Look closely at the picture
• What do you think is happening? What happened before? What
might happen next?
• Turn knee-to-knee (A/B partners) and tell your partner your thinking.
• Did your thinking grow when you heard from your partner? Whose
ideas were different from their partner’s?
• Hear some different stories.
• Add on with information of your own.
• Label the picture or write a sentence (model yours) about the story
behind the picture.

49. The Story behind the Picture-
intermediate/middle
• Look closely at the pictures, silently, thinking about:
• What do you think is happening?
• What happened before?
• What might happen next?
• How are they connected?
• In partners, share your thinking.
• Did your thinking grow when you heard from your partner?
• What do you think is the story behind these pictures?
• Quick write: 2/3 minutes. Begin the story.
• Choose a word or a phrase that you particularly like from your quick write. If you can’t decide,
read your first 3 words
• Whip around, listening to each.
• What do you notice about these words and phrases? (This is the first step in building criteria.)
• Add on background information about the picture sequence.
• With this new information, add on to your writing or begin again – 5 minutes. Feel free to use
anything you heard that sparked your thinking!

56. When students write, they generate
deeper thinking in any content area.
Gallagher, EL, Feb 2017
Improvement in writing is grounded in
practice, in getting words on the page –
lots of them. There are no shortcuts.
…a “four big essays approach” stifles
young writers. Worse, it ensures they
will never become excellent writers.”
Gallagher & Kittle, EL, April 2018
Focus on ideas, not on transcription –
punctuation, capitalization, spacing,
spelling, handwriting, high-frequency
words…they are mastered, long before
transcription skills”
Auguste, EL, April 2018
…if you want to revolutionize your
reading instruction, invite writing back
into the fold. Give your students time to
write during class, and give them
feedback that responds to their craft and
their composition.
Bambrick-Santoyo & Chiger, EL, Feb 17

57. 5. Every child talks with peers about reading and writing.

58. 6. Every child listens to a fluent adult read aloud.
-different kinds of text
-with some commentary

59. 1. Every child reads something he or she chooses.
2. Every child reads accurately.
3. Every child reads something he or she understands.
4. Every child writes about something personally meaningful.
5. Every child talks with peers about reading and writing.
6. Every child listens to a fluent adult read aloud.

60. Some NOT best practices in literacy
-no research support for decades!
-over-used, under-supportedL
• Teaching grammar in isolation
• Friday spelling lists
• Assigning topics in writing, with no 1:1 no conferencing,
just collecting the work
• Too much teacher-talk
• Fill in the blanks, MC, closed thinking exercises
• Children identifying themselves by their reading level
• Round robin reading – even in guided reading groups!!!
• Lack of consistency in the programming for vulnerable
learners

61. Avoid, avoid, avoid!
• Children identifying themselves by their
reading level.
• Levels are for books, not students.