Despite the investment in literacy and the rise of the science of reading, we still have districts where 30% or fewer of students are reading at grade level or above.
Districts are rapidly retooling their literacy programs for early grades.
But what about our older students?
To make good on our promise of equity, we have to address the current literacy challenge for older students in grades 5-9. Without strong reading skills, students won’t be able to learn independently and will be dependent on the teacher to provide excessive scaffolds to provide access to high quality, grade-level materials.
While feeling confident in their subject knowledge and pedagogy, upper elementary and secondary teachers say they struggle with getting their most vulnerable students reading at grade level when they come to them more than six months behind.
Older students typically come into the upper grades with the following issues:
- Weak decoding skills that result in slow reading comprehension.
- Lack of advanced decoding skills to tackle big, multisyllabic words found in academic texts.
- Shallow word knowledge, which leads to shallow background knowledge and anemic writing.
- Learning to read English while trying to learn new content.
This can lead to over-scaffolding by well intentioned teachers. We are currently over-scaffolding access to grade level materials rather than helping students strengthen their skills and close their reading gaps incrementally. Our task is to ensure that all students develop robust literacy skills so they can access high quality, grade-level materials.
With every crisis comes opportunity. With the growing body of evidence-based practices from cognitive neuroscience and research centering translanguaging, we have a unique opportunity to help students beyond the early grades where providing foundational reading skills are typically developed.
How? By integrating the science of learning with the science of reading. Join me for this masterclass series to learn to integrate the two. In addition, learn how to review your existing program for the key skills students need to become proficient and how to provide opportunities for deliberate practice so students become skilled at applying their literacy knowledge to become a code breaker, meaning-maker, text user, and, ultimately, a text critic.
Three Sessions via Zoom
October 11th, 2024 1pm CST - 3pm CST
October 18th, 2024 1pm CST - 3pm CST
October 25th, 2024 1pm CST - 3pm CST
