Leading Initiatives to Improve Literacy

Skills and Achievement in Elementary

Grades

Pinellas County Schools Leadership Week

July 17-18, 2017

Jill Potts

jill.potts@sreb.org

Download materials: http://tinyurl.com/pinellas7-17

• How to incorporate literacy in social studies and

science: Standards-based instruction

• Powerful Literacy Practices: Deep-dive into learning

intentions

• How to access hundreds of literacy strategies and

protocols

• Ways school leaders can support literacy throughout

the curriculum

What you will learn:

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Find the index card in your folder.

Please write a brief description of what you

want to take away from this session.

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Topic: Disciplinary literacy in elementary grades

Learning Focus: Our learning for this block will focus

on the rationale for disciplinary literacy in elementary as

well as what disciplinary literacy looks like in elementary

classrooms.

Task: After reading and summarizing excerpts from

Shanahan’s article on disciplinary literacy in elementary

grades, you will explore resources to locate disciplinary

texts for elementary social studies and science.

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Topic: Disciplinary literacy in elementary grades

Why this is important: Evidence that reading informational texts

increases reading achievement can be found in data from the

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP). From 1990

to the present, the trends on the NAEP indicate that fourth graders'

reading achievement increases as the diversity of their reading

experiences increases. Fourth graders who reported reading a wide

variety of text (e.g., narrative, informational) had higher reading

achievement than students who reported reading only one type of

text. Therefore, it seems reasonable that exposing young children

to informational text will help them to handle the literacy demands

of their later schooling (Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2003).

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Read the vignettes of two fourth-grade social studies

teachers.

Reflection questions:

How are the two teachers different?

What will Elisabeth’s students learn that Vivian’s students

will not?

What are some challenges for planning instruction like

Elisabeth?

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1. Number paragraphs 1-16.

2. Circle paragraphs 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8

3. Read the five paragraphs and identify information you find

significant.

4. Complete the Shanahan reflection page in your folder.

5. Discuss at your tables.

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Around-the-clock partners

12:00

_____________

3:00

_____________

9:00

_____________

6:00

_____________

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You have 10 minutes to explore the resources. Bookmark

two to share with your clock partners.

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Powerful Literacy Practices

What are some literacy

practices you look for

when you visit

classrooms?

Brainstorm a list at your

table and chart.

Powerful Literacy

Practices

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Excerpt from Visible Learning for Literacy: Implementing the Practices that Work

Best to Accelerate Student Learning

by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin,

www.corwin.com.

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“Our focus in Visible Learning for Literacy is

on actions that fall inside the zone of desired

effects, which is 0.40 and above. When

actions are in the range of 0.40 and above,

the data suggest that the learning extends

beyond that which was expected from

attending school for a year.”

Hattie, p. 10

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Powerful Literacy Practices 1

The literacy-based assignment includes an

authentic written product citing evidence from

reading complex texts that are aligned to the

depth of knowledge of the standards.

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Powerful Literacy Practices 2

The lesson sequence supports and scaffolds the

learning of literacy and content standards through

explicit instruction.

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Powerful Literacy Practices 3

Clear and measurable learning targets are

established and communicated to the students

and assessed by the teacher.

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Powerful Literacy Practices 4

Literacy strategies/mini-tasks (reading, writing,

speaking and/or listening) are embedded into

lessons to support the learning of skills and

content.

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Powerful Literacy Practices 5

Student discourse is integrated to support student

ownership of learning.

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Powerful Literacy Practices 6

Formative and summative assessments are used

in all aspects of the learning process.

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Number off 1-6.

Each group focus on the corresponding Powerful Literacy Practice.

Prepare to answer the following questions:

• What are examples of this practice that you have observed in

classrooms at your school?

• On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate classrooms overall on this

practice? (1=lowest, 5=highest)

• What support do teachers need to improve on this practice?

Prepare to share out with the group.

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Powerful Literacy Practices 3

Clear and measurable learning targets are

established and communicated to the students

and assessed by the teacher.

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Topic: Learning intentions with success criteria

Learning Focus: Our learning for this session will focus

on the importance of being explicit about the nature of

learning that students are expected to do and the level of

success expected from each lesson.

Task: After completing the “before” column of an

anticipation guide and watching a short video about

learning intentions and success criteria, you will

participate in a jigsaw activity in which you will analyze

part of a text about learning intentions and teach it to

others (“jigsaw”).

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Why this is important: Clearly stated learning intentions are an

essential component of formative assessment strategy. They help

teachers to be mindful of what their goals are to effectively plan and

deliver lessons and they facilitate student learning by communicating

expectations about the desired outcomes for each lesson. As a result,

experts assert, “research on instructional techniques in all core

content areas has found that explicitly linking classroom activities to

learning goals helps students understand the purpose of the

instruction and feel motivated to engage with the ideas.” Reed, D.

“Clearly Communicating the Learning Objective Matters!” Middle

School Journal, 43:5, May 2012. p. 17.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9df744b4‐73d5‐47b9‐8993‐07f9fd8adca0%40sessionmgr4001&vid=5&hid=4214

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Excerpt from Visible Learning for Literacy: Implementing the Practices that Work

Best to Accelerate Student Learning

by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin,

www.corwin.com.

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https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/criteria-for-success

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Number paragraphs 1-9

Group 1: paragraphs 1-3

Group 2: paragraphs 2-6

Group 3: paragraphs 7-9

Letter off in your groups: A, B, C, etc. Assemble in your letter trios:

Each member of the trio will have one minute to give a summary of their

section. After each member has summarized, complete the “After

Reading” section of your Anticipation Guide.

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Reflection

What insights did you gain?

What information will you take back to your

school?

Was the jigsaw an effective strategy for learning

this content?

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Topic: Standards-based instructional planning

Learning Focus: Our learning for this session will focus on

strategies teachers can use to plan instruction that embeds

content and literacy standards.

Task: After watching a presentation about standards-based

instructional planning and examining sample lessons, you

will use an instructional planning sheet to plan a lesson that

embeds both literacy and content standards.

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Why this is important: The practice of aligning learning to

standards also helps ensure that a higher level of learning is

attained, guides teachers in the process of assessment and

helps keep them on track. Standards based instruction helps guide

the planning, implementation, and assessment of student learning.

The use of standards to streamline instruction ensures that teaching

practices deliberately focus on agreed upon learning targets.

Expectations for student learning are mapped out with each

prescribed standard. Teachers follow standards based instruction to

ensure that their students meet the demands targeted. Following a

standards-based model for classroom assessment and instruction

is an approach teachers use to track student performance and plan

focused instruction to meet the specific needs of students. Source:

https://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/importance-of-a-

standards-based-instruction

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One way to think about a focus

cluster is to figure out how the

standards make each other

better. For example, content

standards, especially in the

elementary grades, often lend

themselves to DOK 1 type

questions. Since LDC Tasks

are not intended for DOK 1-

type thinking, you can use the

literacy standard to raise the

rigor of the content standard if

you want to include that

content in your LDC Task.

Source: LDC.org

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Example: Using Focus Standards to Raise Rigor in a Task

In one state, there is a social studies standard for 4th grade:

“Identify the challenges (people in our state) faced during the

Great Depression.”

This standard doesn’t lend itself well to an LDC assignment,

because it essentially asks students to read a text and restate

the information found in that text. A task to students for this

standard directly might be:

“Read ______ text and identify the described challenges

(people in our state) faced during the Great Depression.”

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So, I’m going to turn it into a cluster to see if I can raise

the level of rigor of the thinking students will need to do to

respond to my task. Then it might be worth spending the

time teaching students the reading and writing skills

needed.

I’m going to try to add a reading standard first—RI6 for

4th grade.

“Compare and contrast a firsthand and secondhand

account of the same event or topic; describe the

differences in focus and the information provided.”

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Resources for Literacy Strategies

http://tinyurl.com/pinellas7-17