Feb. 2011 Lit Coach Notes

8/7/2019 Feb. 2011 Lit Coach Notes

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JEN MUNNERLYN ! FEBRUARY, 2011

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WHAT IS THE BESTWAY TO ORGANIZEALL THESE BOOKS?

There are many, many wayswe can organize both theclassroom library and thementor/teaching texts wevereceived from Booksource.However- they MUST beorganized in a way that is easy tounderstand by you, your TA (soshe can lead a sub in usingthem), and maybe mostimportantly the students.

Classroom libraries must beeasily accessible to students.Over the break, Laura, Ken, andNandita reorganized theirclassroom libraries to make themmore user friendly. It is worth

considering your own library andits usage. It is also worth goingby their rooms for a look. Theclassroom library should be theheart of the classroom. Quitesimply, your students will readmore if you provide anorganizational structure whichencourages and allows them toexplore and find books.

As far as the mentor texts go,have a look at how Laura andKen have done that too. Wevespent thousands of dollars onthese materials. Taking the timeto organize them is vital.

Room numbers? YES!

Other coding? SURE!

Please just remind your TAneverto cover up text or

important pictures.

As I mentioned to the ReadingTeam last week, the back orderedBooksource titles arrived. These havebeen processed with the labelsprovided by the company and ACSstamps.

PLEASE COME AND GETTHESE BOOKS!

GRADE 2- BackorderedComplete 4 Texts. (On the floor nearestthe leveled library.) TAs need to slotthese texts in according to the unitsheet they used last time.

GRADES 4/5- BackorderedComprehension Strategies texts. Theseare teaching texts and should not gointo the classroom library. You woulduse these to model strategies to a small

group and/or as a read aloud.KG2- Josie- I have texts for you

on top of the shelf near the door.These are Writers Workshop Texts.

Come GET yourBooksource Books!

Notes from the Lit Coach

Coaching in February!Some ideas for coaching include:

Small group work- I can help identify small groups;then model how to pull and work with them during

reading/writing workshop.Classroom environment Feng Shui Especially

analyzing the classroom library and the mentor textarrangement. Jen can work first with the teacher; then

with the TA.

Unit planning- Remember the planning documentfrom the last ERD? I can walk through and help yourteamplan for a whole month.

GOAL- Jen works a member from or each team this month!


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! PAGE 2

An Update onUpdating the Coaching RoleAs you know, Jane and I have been discussing the evolutionof the coaching role at ACS. The conversation has beenbased on recognizing where things have gone well, and how

those successes can be used to support teachers in otheracademic areas. Because elementary teachers teach everysubject, the responsibility to be an expert at all things, at alltimes, can be a heavy one to bear, especially when there areincreased expectations on teaching using best practice meth-ods.

Considering our journey over the past 2 years in literacy,Im reminded of how we started, not really knowing what weneeded or how to get there. However, over time, weve devel-oped teams, systems, and built a professional culture aroundexploration and improvement of practice. The same principlescan be applied to the other disciplines.

Therefore, Id like to share the initial plan we have for thiswork.

First of all, my role will be expanded to include coachingother subject areas. As you know, coaching can take manydifferent forms. From facilitating a meeting to modeling a les-son to helping teachers order and organize supplies. How and

where to start is what Im still working through.

What is clear, is that the emphasis on coaching will be dic-tated by the curriculum review cycle. That cycle has everysubject area either being analyzed, revised, adopted, imple-mented, or monitored/adjusted every year. Those descriptorswill help guide our level of work. However, initially, I see thisspring (March-May) as an opportunity for me to explore withyou, needs in science and math and to actively be part ofplanning forimplementing the new social studiescurricu-lum next year. To do this, I will again be asking for your par-

ticipation on a team: science, social studies, or math. We willmeet, discuss, and plan for future work. Specifically, we willconsider how I might best serve you.

Between now and March 1, please be thinking about yourideas/ questions/ concerns/ needs in math, science and socialstudies. In March, I hope to organize our first meetings onthese new teams. Please let me know if you want to be part ofa specific team.

Looking forward, and considering our literacy work, it is bestto sum it up with a phrase you can all appreciate: Whenyourre done, youve just begun! In many ways, literacy ISthe elementary curriculum. Our work over the past 3 years,has brought us closer to fully up-and-running workshops in

reading and writing. We are beginning to have clear expecta-tions aligned with grading and we have spent a lot of time andenergy on ordering and organizing the supplies necessary for

you to teach this way. (Think back to my old office in the staffroom and compare that to the plethora of books across theschool now! You will be hard pressed to find an institution withmore supplies than this one.) The coaching role at ACS willcontinue to be heavily invested in building teacher capacity inliteracy. In other words, you and I will continue our work onliteracy teams and continue getting better analyzing that data.I will always be available to coach into your rooms and to helpyou plan for teaching reading and writing.

Next year, we will have a school-wide push on setting up,documenting and teaching word study. It will be a huge learn-ing curve, for all of us. Some early release days will be de-voted to word study, with others being used for the other cur-riculum areas. There will be much more information aboutwhat those days will look like and what you can expect,probably in April.

Even with this expansion, the coaching role will always begeared toward helping new teachers enter and be successfulat ACS. Next year we will have several new teachers joining

our journey. I will be coming back a week early just to workwith them. Before the end of the year, I will be speaking withyour team/team leader to identify specifics I need to coverwith your new team member(s).

Finally, I would like to ask for your support as I take on thisnew learning. I believe Jane is moving to this model with theright intentions. She sees it as a way to provide you with moresupport, as a way to expand our successful vertical work, andas a way to ensure each curricu-lum area is given the appropriate

focus. In advocating this change, Iwas clear about seeing the role ofinstructional coach as being afacilitator/leader, but not necessar-ily an expert. I will be learning rightalong side you. My training as acoach was about coaching, notabout literacy. I think the methodsare the same, even if the content isdifferent.

The ultimate goal is to create systems that keep the schoolmoving forward regardless of who are in any of our positions.I am excited to see how this develops.

- Jen


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! PAGE 3

WORD STUDY WORK!!

January 27-29th the word study team willbe heading to Doha to study with Pete Bowersat the NESA Winter Institute. Pete hasdeveloped a teaching approach calledStructured Word Inquirywhich uses thematerials from Real Spelling. These kits, andPetes suggestions for implementation andinstructional practice will be our focus next

year as we launch new approaches in teaching

word study.Dont panic!The word studyteam is confident we can make a plan, provideclarity and offer PD for you both this springand next year. In fact, weve already bookedPete in for 3 visits at ACS next year. (2 virtualand 1 live.) Upon our return, the word study

team will be meeting in February todevelop our plan and to create usefulmaterials for every grade level to useduring this launch. If youre interested,

you can see Real Spelling in use in all ofthe WS reps classrooms as we play

around with it this spring. We will also beprovidingPD/Infoaround WSon theEarlyReleaseand

Teacher In-ServiceDays, May5th and 15.

Wish usluck!

REPORT CARD CORRELATIONS

On January 27th, reading and writing team reps will behard at work on Q3 report card correlations. This work willinvolve both grade specific and vertical analysis. Hopefully, bythe end of the day, teams and individuals will be feeling liketheir correlations represent a picture of student learningfor each descriptor and each of the numbers 3, 2, 1. Just areminder that these are due to Jen on Feb. 10th.

Assuming working this work is successful, Quarter 4

report card correlations and Quarters 1 and 2 revisions will beworked on during upcoming PD Days. (March 10/May 15)

Ive mentioned this at a couple of meetings, however it is worthnoting that our plan for me to cover new student DRAing from Oct. 1-

April 1st is clicking right along. So far, Ive DRAed a student in everylevel but KG2 (they just did their first DRAs). Similarly, most of thestudents were at or above where we would expect them to be at this time

of year. As you get new students, please remember to coordinate a timewith me to get this assessment completed.


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! PAGE 4

CALENDAR NOTES:

**Learning Lunches

During the month ofFebruary I thought wemight use the learninglunch time to hold anopen forum on the othercurriculum areas: science,social studies, math. This

will give me a chance tolisten and learn about

your current units/programs as well as theteaching strategies youemploy. This discussion is

open to everyone who hassomething to say.Similarly, you can alsoattend if you just want tohear what your colleagueshave to say. :-)

Feb. 9- Math

Feb. 16- Science

Feb. 23-

S. Studies* Learning Lunch- still 2 sessions

*ACS Writing Club

As I mentioned in mylast newsletter, we willbegin our ACS WritingClub on Wednesdays from3:30-4:30. The goal of thisclub is to give teachers a

chance to write, discusstheir writing, improvetheir own strategies andfinally to work throughsome suggested sessionsfromLiving and Teachingthe Writing Workshop byKristen Painter, Forwardby Carl Anderson.

Requirements:

1.A Willingness towrite

2.A Willingness toshare

3.A Willingness topartner/conference/teach a colleague.

4.A Writers Notebook

Calendar-Wed. February 2, 9,

16, 23 3:30-4:30 *ACS Writing Club

Sun. February 6, 13,20, 27 12:05-1:10 **

Learning Lunches- Math/Science/SS Forums

February 8th3:30-4:30

Grades 3-5 MAP Dataanalysis meeting (Goalwork)

February 10th 3:30-4:30

Report CardCorrelations Q3 DUE toJen

February22 3:30-4:30

K-5 Writing Celebration!(Goal work)

February 23-12-3:00

Word Study TeamMeeting

February 24-1:15-2:45/3:00-3:45

Early Release Day- RegieRoutman Session 11

Early Childhood Meeting


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K-2/3- Collaborative Goal M etings

Date/Time/Who Data Type Protocol to be usedTuesday, October 12

3:15-4:30

All K-5

DRA/MAP/Words Their Way

Data Analysis Meeting

Thursday, October 14

1:45-2:45

All K-5

On Demand Writing, Words

Their Way Spelling Inventory

Data Analysis Continued...

Tuesday, October 19

3:30-4:30All K-5

Writing Celebration!

Tuesday, January 24

3:30-4:30

K teachers

DRA Data Protocol

Tuesday, February 8

3:30-4:30

3-5 teachers

MAP Data Analysis

Tuesday, February 22

3:30-4:30

K-5


Tuesday, April 193:30-4:30

K-5


Tuesday, April 26

3:30-4:30

K-5

WTW 2nd Spelling Inventory

Analysis

Tuesday, May 5

3:30-4:30

K-5

FINAL Regie Routman ERD-

Staff Reading PD Celebration/

Reflection

Tuesday, May 24

3:30-4:30K-5

On Demand/Wrap/DRA/MAP/

WTW Spelling Inventory

Iwill

fillthisin...

Wonderingaboutourcolaboratvegoalwork?We have many upcoming dates when we will be actively working on collaborativegoals. Remember, our goal this year was for K-2 to practice using protocols toanalyze writing data and for 3-5 to do the same with student reading data. When

Fred sends out what to work on for ERD and PD days, he mentions K-5 TeamGoals. He is not referring to this, but rather to the other 4,000 things you areworking on as vertical teams (like report card correlations) and what you areworking on as grade level teams.

See the calendar below for dates we will be actively working on thesecollaborative goals. They are all also on the Google ES Calendar.

Feb. 2011 Lit Coach Notes

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