1. Reading Specialists in a
Professional Learning Community
Campbell County Teachers
May 26, 2011
Susan Cargill and Judy Walker
Reading Specialists
2. Agenda/Topics to Be Covered
Introduction, group norms, and a story
Professional Learning Communities: What are they?
Reading Specialists’ roles in a Professional Learning
Community
Team meetings
Struggles we’ve had/Things we’ve learned
Wrapping up
5/25/2011
3. Group Norms
Begin and end on time
12:30-4:00
Cell phones
Limit sidebar conversations
Active listening and participation
Signal to bring group back
Other…
5/25/2011
4. The Important Thing
The important thing about
_________ is
_________________________
But the important thing about
__________________ is
____________________________.
5. Professional Learning Communities:
What are they?
―…A Professional Learning
Community is a collaboration of
teachers, administrators, parents,
and students who work together to
seek out best practices, test them
in the classroom, continuously
improve processes, and focus on
results.‖
Rick DuFour 2002
5/25/2011
6. Professional Learning Communities: What are they?
Fundamental Assumptions
We can make a difference: Our
schools can be more effective.
Improving our people is the key to
improving our schools.
Significant school improvement will
impact teaching and learning.
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7. Professional Learning Communities: What are they?
Three Big Ideas
Ensuring that students learn
A culture of collaboration
A focus on results
5/25/2011
8. Ensuring that students learn
―Learning‖ rather than ―teaching‖ is the
fundamental purpose of your school.
Whatever it takes…
9. Collaboration
―Teacher collaboration in strong
professional learning communities
improves the quality and equity of
student learning, promotes
discussions that are grounded in
evidence and analysis rather than
opinion, and fosters collective
responsibility for student success.‖
--McLaughlin and Talbert, 2006
10. Collaboration
The most powerful strategy for improving
student learning—
Teachers work together in teams to
Clarify what students must learn
Gather evidence of student learning
Analyze that evidence
Identify the most powerful teaching
strategies Hattie, 2009
12. Focus on results
―School systems must create a culture
that places value on managing by
results, rather than on managing by
programs. It is essential that leaders
work to establish a culture where
results are carefully assessed and
actions are taken based on these
assessments.‖
Schlechty, 2005
13. To recap the three big ideas…
Focus on learning,
Collaboration, and
Focus on results
will result in …
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16. The Role of the Reading Specialist in the
Professional Learning Community
What is your Role in your school?
Think Pair What has worked? Why?
Share
What hasn’t worked? Why?
5/25/2011
17. The Role of the Reading Specialist in the
Professional Learning Community
International Reading Association’s Position Statement:
―Teaching all children to read in today’s diverse classrooms requires a reading
specialist in every school. Reading specialists provide expert instruction,
assessment, and leadership for the reading program. With their advanced
preparation and experience in reading, they are responsible for the literacy
performance of all readers, in particular those who struggle.‖
Major Roles of Reading Specialist:
Instruction
Assessment
Leadership
19. Role#1 ~ Instruction
What did the role of the Reading
Specialist used to look like?
― An educator who worked with struggling readers supplementing
or supplanting the classroom teacher.‖
What should the role of the Reading
Specialist look like?
Specialist and Classroom teacher work collaboratively to
implement a research based program that meets the needs
of all students.
5/25/2011
20. Collaboration and Communication with the
classroom teacher are necessary for inside
and outside classroom instruction.
Instruction
~ Goal- ―To extend excellent classroom teaching, meeting the
needs for the literacy performance of readers in
general and struggling readers in particular.‖
~ Develop a good professional relationship ~ Team Work
~Correlation forms
~Planning: supporting, suggesting new ideas, offering expertise
~Always focus on how to maximize time for instruction---more
time in instruction leads to greater learning.
Example of Collaboration with Fourth Grade
Teacher
5/25/2011
21. Classroom Instruction
Instruction
~Small group
~Whole class- Reading Specialist is
modeling good classroom instruction.
(Especially good for new teachers)
Specialized and Individualized
Instruction
~ Intervention
~ Reading Recovery, PALS, etc.
22. Role #2 Assessment
―The Reading Specialist should have specialized knowledge of assessment and
diagnosis that helps develop, implement, and evaluate the school program and
design individual instruction.‖
Assessment should be:
valid
comprehensive-measures all critical aspects of reading
authentic-should involve real reading as much as possible
quick and easy to administer and interpret- don’t take too much time
away from instruction
Assisting Teacher
Discussing assessment results
Developing rubrics and criteria for reading instruction
Helping teachers learn how to administer and interpret results
Collaborating on how to use the results found
Assessments
Observation of a child documented by checklists or anecdotal records
IRI’s
Tim Rasinski’s Quick Assessment
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23. Role # 3 Leadership is
Multidimensional
A Reading Specialist is a resource
• Educators- especially new teachers
• Provides guidance to instructional aides, tutors, or volunteers
• Parents- good home/school connections, assisting teachers with parents &
developing good relationships with parents.
• Community
Staff Development
• Know the needs of your staff by observation or take a survey. Seek your principal’s
opinion.
• Examples of Staff Development, Fluency, Book Studies
Literacy Program Development and Coordination
• Has extensive Knowledge of SOL’s, curriculum framework and county’s pacing
guides
• Takes initiative
• Works hand in hand with principal to incorporate best practices in your school.
• Helps with selection of materials in school. Often works with librarian.
• Assists parents with literacy. Parent resource room
• May be called to be a member of a county literacy committee.
A Reading Specialist is a change agent.
5/25/2011
29. Team Meetings
What should students know and be able to
do?
How will we know that the students are
not learning?
How do we respond when students do not
learn?
How do we respond when students learn
more?
32. Struggles We’ve Had
Things We’ve Learned
Takes a while to gel and figure out.
Having group norms for meetings helps
us focus.
Having a time-keeper helps keep things
moving along.
Whoever takes notes has a harder time
engaging in conversation…Might rotate.
Include a venting/debriefing time if
necessary. Limit it!
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33. Struggles We’ve Had
Things We’ve Learned
Instructional planning wasn’t seamless.
Working with our unit plan template felt
disconnected to what we knew about literacy
development. The process of working
through it was valuable, though.
Goals for the year help us reflect on how to
more effectively map out pacing guide.
Principal support critical!
5/25/2011
34. Struggles We’ve Had
Things We’ve Learned
Initially the challenge of coordinating interests
and efforts and building a shared vision rather
than administering a set of directives
emerged.
Teachers are developing professional
transparency – a willingness to be vulnerable
and to learn from successes and setbacks.
5/25/2011
35. Struggles We’ve Had
Things We’ve Learned
The conversations are the essence of our
work towards excellence for all students.
Learning theory teaches us that we learn best
when we are able to dialogue with peers.
The forms developed and used to analyze
data, for example, give us information about
our children’s progress; however, it is the
conversations we have about the implications
of that data--the things we need to do
differently--that will lead to systemic change.
5/25/2011
36. Struggles We’ve Had
Things We’ve Learned
―Rigor‖ is the one word that captures the shifts
created by this process.
Reflective practice has increased as teachers
examine their classroom instruction in
comparison with research – and examine their
results.
We seek more effective use of time… improved
targeted instruction for individual children…
more intentional decision-making in unit and
lesson design…greater support in a collegial
environment…more joy in learning for both
staff and students.
5/25/2011
37. The important thing about a
Professional Learning Community
is…
Discuss how you would
complete this sentence.
Susan This book will help reinforce main idea of what we are doing.
Judy- Read to self and underline key words. Mention the work of Rick and Becky DuFour
These are things we need to understand that and are fundamental to PLC. Historically, teachers haven’t felt empowered……share leadership.
1. Learning rather than teaching….
Do the actions of ALL of the teachers in your school show that they embrace the first apple? What does that mean..”Whatever it takes?” Talk about that with your elbow partner.Whatever it takes—leads us to the next big idea of a professional learning community: NEXT SLIDE
Reade first…Tradition of teachers not collaborating…Departmentalization creates isolation. Fourth grade example…
--Rowers have to work together as a team. Runners in a marathon have a common goal, but they don’t have to work together. Which are schools more like? Sports Analogy …Susan…soccer example
Penguin videoConsider the effects of collaboration—of working together.
What is the important thing? Groups
Talk about the difference…PLC “light” or PLC “if you want to”
Takenotew
Look at diagram with partner and identify the 3 roles of a Reading Specialist. What is the purpose of these roles? Student achievement
1. We are looking at the population of readers for the whole school. Reading list for whole school How it started was from assessing the benchmark test & looking at how to correlate instruction. Unit planning 1 teacher
Whole class….Intervention
Jennifer Bryant
Principals can’t be the only leaders in schools. School improvement team
Talk about the difference…PLC “light” or PLC “if you want to”
Talk about the difference…PLC “light” or PLC “if you want to”
--Various types or organizational structures in schools—May have vertical teams (representatives from all grade levels), content teams, most schools have grade level teams. Reading specialists are usually on School Improvement Teams or Literacy Teams. Regardless of the type of team, a team in a professional learning community will have a focus on student achievement. These are the four questions that focus the work of school teams.--We’ll talk mostly about grade level team meetings. --
--So how is a grade level team meeting different in a professional learning community than what most of us are used to? Less time is spent planning field trips and materials orders and more time is spent looking at data—especially at the end of a grading period—and on collaborative unit planning and designing assessments. Fifth grade mystery unit.
Video of team meeting.
Group norms—example of people coming in late, bringing other stuff to do, etc.
Example of Kathy being pro-literacy, purchase books, open (comprehension caveat discussion with grade 2 as illustration for disagreeing with principal)
Example of Kathy being pro-literacy, purchase books, open (comprehension caveat discussion with grade 2 as illustration for disagreeing with principal)
Make sure that “improves student achievement” is mentioned
