DEVELOPING, IMPLEMENTING, AND MONITORING A LITERACY ACTION PLAN

Judith Irvin

Objectives for the Day

Understand the Taking Action Literacy Leadership Model

Consider the needs of struggling readers in content area classes

Work through the five-stage Taking Action Literacy Leadership Process

Understand the use of the two books as a resource

Reflect on what is possible at your school

Definitions of Literacy1600 –1900 Ability to sign one’s name to a document

and own or borrow books

1930 Functional Literacy – moved to grade equivalents – 3+ years of schooling

WWII 4+ years of schooling

1952 6+ years of schooling

1960 8+ years of schooling

Late 1970s High school completion

Toto, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore!

Context has changed Media and technology New ways of communicating

New demands in the 21st Century New kinds of jobs demanding new kinds of

literacy High level of reading required in even

entry-level jobs

Literacy for the 21st CenturyAbilities required for student success:

Ability to seek information and make critical judgments about information

Ability to read and interpret many different kinds of text both in print and online

Ability to innovate and apply knowledge creatively

Where Literacy is Headed, Kent Williams, NCTE Executive Director, September, 2008

What is NLP?

• Non-profit dedicated to improving literacy among middle and

high school students• Started in 2000 and worked in numerous

schools and districts across the country• Have been working on a process for

working with schools on developing a literacy plan for almost a decade

• We are not a program.

Large, Urban District in Florida 4 high needs high schools; 2 high needs

middle schools 3 schools on “Differentiated

Accountability” which means we have the opportunity to coordinate our efforts with State of Florida personnel

One NLP Partner per school; two content specialists (math and science); one evaluator

District budget to support NLP: substitutes, some stipends, copywork, district personnel

Model Components

:

www.ascd.orgInternational Reading Associationwww.reading.org

Study guide for vignettes Tools are all online

Circle of Influence

Covey, Stephen (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Circle of Concern

You don’t have to be sick to get better!!

The teacher cannot do it alone – the school makes all the difference

“An excellent teacher without a well-coordinated program can do only so much. In these situations, even the best of teachers can offer students only isolated moments of engrossed learning and rich experience in an otherwise disconnected series of classes.”

Langer, J. (2002). Effective Literacy Instruction: Building Successful Reading and Writing Programs.

Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Think about all the things that your students read outside of school

email magazines blogs song lyrics instructions for

video games CD covers Twitter

movie titles text messages notes from friends comic books cereal boxes T-shirts the driver’s

manual Facebook

Student Motivation, Engagement and Achievement

What motivates you?

Provide instruction, modeling, and guided practice of literacy support strategies in context

Improve student confidence, competence, and efficacy

Engage students in literacy tasks that are meaningful and purposeful.

The Literacy Engagement and Instruction Cycle

Prior Knowledge

Prior knowledge is highly personal depending on our experience and culture.

Is Argentina as big as Tallahassee?

Learning Theory

Schema Prior knowledge

Metacognition

Instruction must reflect an understanding of

learning theory.

Integrating Literacy and Learning: Across the Content Areas

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION: Not “Everyone a reading teacher” but “How will students become better readers, writers, speakers and thinkers of this content (math, science, social studies, music, business) as a result of being in your class??”

Creating a Literacy-Rich Environment

What is in the physical environment that communicates that this school is a reading/writing/thinking community?

Literacy related school-wide activities Adult models of reading and writing Posted student work Classroom libraries Reading Time Read Aloud program Structures and policies that support literacy

Parents and Community Members

Parents must understand their role and ways to help their children and the school effort to improve literacy.

Community members can provide positive role models for literacy as well as provide other means of support.

School DistrictBeyond the managerial role – Instructional leadership professional

development Collect and analyze data; make

available to schools Support school-based coaching Curriculum alignmentHow do districts support schools?How do schools get what they need

from districts?

The goal of quality content literacy instruction……is to improve

students’ content learning and literacy development (progress as a reader, writer, listener/viewer, speaker/presenter, and critical and creative thinker) at the same time.

Five Modes of InstructionPage 81-82 from MtC Book

The Process

A Literacy Leadership Team hard at work

Sometimes you need to …

revitalize your team

shift membership show

administrative support

provide incentives

find time to meetIs your literacy leadership team representative of the entire school community?

Establish Ground Rules

If your school was “literacy-rich”…

What would students be doing? What would teachers be doing? What would the environment in

the classroom be like? What would the environment in

the school be like?

A Literacy-Rich School Read the vignette in Taking

Action on Adolescent Literacy (p. 222)

Underline the structures, policies, and processes in the school that have been put into place to create this literacy-rich environment.

Chat about your observations with a neighbor.

Data-based key messagesAlthough… We still need to work

on…We could do this by…

Reading scores are above the state average

• Providing interventions for students not meeting the standard• Raising the bar for boys •Working on improving nonfiction comprehension

•Using Soar to Success instead of study hall with students not meeting the standards•Improving student engagement through more choice in reading and writing assignments•Reading more nonfiction in all language arts classes•Using literacy support strategies in all science and social studies classes

The Process

Circle Map: The Strengths of Your School (individual maps)

School Name

[strengths]

What built or contributed to the strengths?

Establishing the Need for a Literacy Improvement Effort

Although ______________ (something good), we still need to work on __________.

Data Sentence Frame

Stage 2: Assess

The Rubrics

Student Motivation, Engagement, and Achievement

Literacy across the Content Areas (TtL Book p. 24+)

Literacy-Rich Environment Literacy Interventions Parents and Community District

Read and Clarify the rubrics

Literacy Across the Content Areas Rubric

Individually rank your perception of the literacy implementation of your school or department on each indicator. There are four levels of indicators:

Cite evidence for your rating – examples, stories, what you notice around the school

Using the Rubrics

Respond individually by placing a check mark in the box that best describes your perception of your school

Transfer individual checks to a group grid Discuss and try to reach consensus Place a dot on the grid to indicate

consensus Summarize ah-hahs

Identify School Needs

Re-examine the rubric charts Look for items that are important to the

team but have low implementation at your school (1 or 2)

Identify and chart 3-5 needs that you (individually) want to focus on

Needs ChartNeeds Rating

Stage 2: Assess

Goals

Revisit your identified needs Turn your needs into goals Construct clear goal statements Develop a plan for faculty feedback

Guidelines for Goals

• Choose goals you can meet and measure• Choose goals that will make a difference

for kids• Don’t choose too many goals• Revisit these goals during the year to determine progress and set future goals• Remember: You can’t do it all in one

year!

The Process

Create an Implementation Map for Each Goal

Components of the Implementation Map (TtL p. 72-3)

Action Step Timeline Lead Person(s) Resources Needed Specifics of Implementation Measure(s) of Success

Solicit Feedback from Total School Community

Department Meetings to get feedback on Goals The Action Plan Targeted Strategies

Revise based on faculty feedback

Publish the Literacy Action Plan Literacy is our focus – 21st century skills

and data of our school Literacy team members and process for

developing goals Literacy action goals Implementation maps Activities for the year Ta- dah – we love literacy!!

The Process

Categories of Strategies• Building and Activating Prior Knowledge

– PAS• Questioning

– QAR• Taking Notes

– Cornell (two column) Notes• Organizing Information

– Graphic Organizers– One Sentence Summary Frames– Quick Writes

• Vocabulary– Morphemic Analysis– Frayer Model– How Well Do I Know These Words?

Why These Strategies?

Research-based Applicable to any content area Student-centered, student-owned, and

student-controlled Versatile enough to be used for

introductory skills and high order thinking

Setting the Year’s Agenda

Calendar considerations Faculty professional development Team meetings Demonstration Classrooms Literacy Showcase

Involving the Total School Community

Potential Activities for Faculty Kickoff Involve faculty in vision activities

Present plan and gather feedback

Involve faculty and students in branding the initiativeGive lots of opportunity for involvement

Cross content literacy demands

Students need to strategically read, write, speak/listen, present, and think across content areas (however these may need to be applied in different ways to each discipline of study).

Examples: Activating prior knowledge, setting purpose for reading, clarifying, questioning, predicting, summarizing, visualizing, deductive and inductive thinking, brainstorming, responding

Within content literacy demandsSpecific ways of reading, writing,

speaking/listening, presenting, and thinking within each discipline of study or more applicable to some disciplines as opposed to others.

Examples: Rules of evidence, text types and structures, presentation formats, conceptual vocabulary, technical vocabulary

Monitor Progress toward Goals Walk-throughs to gather and report data Classroom observations Student focus groups to see if they know

and use the strategies Faculty surveys and feedback in small

groups such as departments and teams

The Process

Plus/Delta for the Literacy Project

Conditions for Success

A contact person who “owns” the project at each school

Strong administrative support Strong district support Commitment to meet and move the

agenda forward between NLP visits Time for literacy team to meet

I HAVE HEARD ONE OR TWO TEACHERS SAY…”IT IS NOT MY JOB TO TEACH READING.”

Here is my answer to them.

Literacy is not something to put on an already crowded plate…

Literacy IS the plate!

I HAVE HEARD ONE OR TWO TEACHERS SAY…”IT IS NOT MY JOB TO TEACH READING.”

Here is another answer to them.