Using Discovery Education To Improve Literacy For elementary, middle and high librarians Session 2 – 9:10 – 10:10 Session 3 – 10: :20 Session 4 – 11:20 – 12:30 By April Wilson Sherwood Elementary

Objectives Know: Literacy is every educator’s obligation. Every librarian has the potential to impact literacy through instruction, resources and support. Shelby County Schools has developed a Comprehensive Literacy Improvement Plan (CLIP) to accelerate literacy learning. Understand: Learned strategies can be integrated across content areas to increase student literacy. Development and implementation of high-quality programs encourage student reading and enhance literacy instruction across all grades and subjects. Digital resources are additional tools that can be used to impact student literacy. Do: Analyze literacy assessments to determine the instructional needs of their students Design activities or lessons that support Common Core Standards in literacy Obtain grants to provide high quality resources to increase literacy Provide multiple opportunities to engage in authentic literacy activities

Norms Be present and engaged Be respectful of differences in perspective while challenging each other productively and respectively Monitor “air time” Make the most of the time we have Stay focused on students

Objectives Know: The DRAFT SCS Comprehensive Literacy Improvement Plan (CLIP) ensures a quality balanced literacy approach to instruction that results in high levels of learning for all students, across content areas Understand: All teachers can respond to the literacy needs of struggling readers and writers, including ELLs and students w/ disabilities, and support improved content-area learning so that students develop the literacy skills and strategies of skilled readers and writers Be able to Do: Implement research-based literacy strategies and practices that enable students to comprehend informational texts across all content areas Plan reading and writing tasks that are meaningful, analytical, and authentic to specific content areas Provide effective vocabulary instruction that not only includes discipline-specific words, but also high utility (or Tier 2) words that occur across other content areas

What is the Goal of Content Area Literacy Instruction? To teach the ideas, concepts, and principles of a specific subject in a manner that learners receive instruction in reading strategies that meet the unique requirements of the individual subject area

ACT, The Forgotten Middle, Chance of Later Success ScienceMathematics Unprepared In Reading 1%15% Prepared In Reading 32%67% Literacy and content area learning depend on each other What happens if students leave MS and enter HS unprepared for reading?

 Building knowledge through content-rich non-fiction and informational texts [Reading Standards #1-10 in ELA and Reading Standards for History/SS, Science, and Technology]  Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from the text [Reading Standard #1, Speaking and Listening Standard #1, and Writing Standards #1, #2, #9]  Regular practice with complex texts and their academic vocabulary [Reading Standards #10 and #4] Progress toward CCR Shifts in Literacy/ELA hold Promise for Content Area Learning

CCR Standards designed to Support Content Area Learning 8

What do we mean when we say, “Our students can’t read”? What do we do? “When faced with students’ resistance to reading or difficulty in comprehending course materials, teachers respond in a variety of ways. Feeling pressed to cover the curriculum, unprepared to assist students with reading, and eager to make sure students understand the content of a particular discipline, many find themselves teaching around reading. “They make adjustments that may seem sensible but that they know are compromises. ‘I’m doing backflips in the classroom to get the content across without expecting them to read the textbook,’ … I’ve stopped assigning reading; the text is almost supplementary for my … curriculum’” (Schoenbach, et al, 1999: 4)

Literacy in the Content Areas Models and reinforces metacognitive strategies, e.g., self-correction, questioning, visualization, annotation, connections/PK, summarization, graphic organizers Acknowledges each content area has its own literacy norms, text structures, and challenges (e.g., genres, vocabulary, concepts, and topics) Includes explicit instruction (including modeling) and practice in the literacies and content of each discipline Appreciates vocabulary is strongly related to general reading achievement; includes both direct, explicit instruction and indirect, learning from context (e.g., listening, other reading instruction, reading) to support vocabulary and comprehension Focuses explicit vocabulary instruction on words that fall between two tiers-- words that students already know and those that are so rare as to be of little utility—and are used across content areas (academic vocabulary) Leverages writing as a means to learn and develop—how students make sense of, synthesize, summarize, and evaluate their learning (not just to assess content learning) Uses discussion and writing prompts to reflect on current understandings, questions, and learning processes help improve content-area learning Includes explicit literacy (and ELD) learning objectives

It’s not about how students are arranged; it’s about the work in which they are engaged. Is instruction…? -Purposeful -Rigorous -Differentiated to meet student needs -Consistent with evidence-based practice -Aligned to TEM standards Beyond Appearances

The Gradual Release of Responsibility (to introduce or reinforce a new skill) Teacher Responsibility Student Responsibility I do it. We do it. They do it (together). You do it (independent of the teacher). Guided Collaborative Independent

Access Points to Build a Bridge Between Reader and Text (Frey & Fisher, 2013) 1.Establishing a purpose for reading a complex text, and modeling how an expert reader makes meaning 2.Providing scaffolded and close reading instruction to guide students through complex texts 3.Creating opportunities for collaborative conversations w/ peers to refine understanding 4.Moving them forward through independent reading of increasingly complex texts 5.Using formative assessment so teacher and reader know what is know and still needs to be 13

Reading and Writing in Social Studies Sequence and make connections between historical events Understand text structures and text features Evaluate sources Recognize issues and trends in context Engage in reflective inquiry through reading and writing Write about cause-and-effect relationships Distinguish between and write about fact and opinion

Reading and Writing in Language Arts Articulate thinking orally and in writing for various artists Employ context clues Interpret texts from different literary genres Understand mechanical standards and rhetorical techniques Develop fluency with the use of the writing process to generate different modes of writing Connect reading and writing to persuade, learn, inform, and evoke emotions

Literacy “Look-Fors”-Content Area Literacy Clearly identified/observed literacy and language objectives for each content area lesson Research-based literacy strategies and practices implemented in lessons Students read content-specific text and respond, with evidence, to text-based questions. Students respond to text in ways that are meaningful, analytical, and authentic to the content area

Objective: Librarians will learn how to use Discovery Education to accelerate professional development and formative assessment and to improve literacy and student achievement.

What can I get from Discovery Education? Student data on tested SPIs. Materials like videos, activities, and practice questions directly related to the SPIs you are going to teach.

Discovery Education

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