1. Growing Literacy: A Differentiated Approach to Comprehensive Literacy
Stacy Drum
K-6 Literacy Coordinator, WCSD

2. Words With Friends
Write your first and last initials on two sticky notes
In your groups you will make as many words as possible with your stickies according to our topic
You may add 2 stickies with additional vowels
As you come up with words, write them down
You will have 90 seconds per topic
Topic #1 – Words about Nevada
Topic #2 – Words about Literacy Instruction

3. Learning Outcome
Participants will understand the intents and definition of Comprehensive Literacy Instruction and leave this session with resources for implementation.

4. Read and annotate

5. Article: Perspectives on Comprehensive Literacy
As you are reading the article, pause and write a one word “summary” at the end of every section.
In groups of three, share your section summaries. 
In your groups of three, write a one sentence summary of the entire brief. 
Share sentences with the whole group.
My notes:

6. The WCSD Framework and Planning Guides
Look through Framework and Planning Guides. How could the Planning Guides work for them when planning comprehensive literacy instruction?

7. Comprehensive Literacy Teachers…

8. Strengthen Oral Language Skills
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Set the stage for strong reading and writing skills later in life.
Invite children into extended discourse that promotes understandings beyond the here and now.
Promote basic vocabulary and grammar, which are essential to comprehension.
Value emerging bilinguals’ native language, recognizing that a strong foundation in that language promotes school achievement in English.
And. . .

9. Promote Independent Writing
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Encourage writing for multiple purposes and audiences, across genres and modes – narrative, informational, and argumentative (opinion).
Help students control the traits of writing: ideas, voice, organization, sentence fluency, word choice, conventions, and presentation.
Help students use writing as a thinking tool to organize, consolidate, and integrate ideas.
Help students tap their creativity and strengthen their ability to compose.

10. Example of Strengthening Oral Language Skills in Social Studies
The Zoom In Lesson
Zoom Ins can be found at

11. Describe what you see in this image. List as many details as possible.
What words would you use to describe this place?
What words would you use to describe the sky?

12. What new details do you see in this picture?
What more do we know about the place?
What activities are the people engaged in?
Does this represent a modern or historical time period?

13. What do you notice about the new people introduced?
What activity do they seem to be involved in?

14. How has new evidence in this image changed or enlarged your perspective of what is happening?
What does the position of the man in the green vest make you think?

15. What details do you notice in this image?
How does this new piece of the image differ from the previous pieces? (Setting? People?)

16. What details do you now notice?
What do you think is happening?
How does the kneeling man in red differ from the kneeling man in the green vest?

17. In silence, take one minute to read this image closely.

18. Now that the whole image has been revealed, write a strong claim about what it represents. Back up your claim with at least four details (evidence) from the image and explain how each piece of evidence helps you make your claim (reasoning).

19. PENN'S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS BY BENJAMIN WEST (1771-72)
Commissioned (paid for) by Thomas Penn, son of Pennsylvania’s founder, this painting depicts a legendary meeting between William Penn and members of the Lenni Lanape tribe at Shackamaxon on the Delaware River.  Honoring Quaker heritage, West conveyed visual and political harmony.  By depicting the three factions that shaped Pennsylvania for most of the eighteenth century—Indians, Quakers, and merchants—united in the act of settlement, West invented a powerful image of peace.  Although the scene is allegorical (symbolic/metaphorical) rather than historical, the image has become an icon of American history.

20. Build Foundational Language Skills and Conventions
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Help children learn the alphabetic principle and develop phonological awareness.
Strengthen students’ abilities to apply written conventions such as spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Expand students’ vocabulary and conceptual knowledge
Foster word study, recognizing that 90 percent of the words in a text are drown from 4,000 simple word families.

21. Language Skills Resources
Houghton Mifflin provides phonological awareness and phonics activities and a scope and sequence.
We recently went through a supplemental Vendor Product Review for phonological awareness and phonics resources. They are on the VPR list on the Washoe Schools website.
Words Their Way lessons can revolve around SS terms.
For phonological awareness – poems and songs

22. Share Interactive Read-Alouds
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Increase students’ attention spans and listening skills, bolster vocabulary and conceptual knowledge, and develop comprehension strategies and story schema.
Enable all students to access and enjoy the rich language of complex texts.
Refine students’ understanding of text – genre, format, literary elements, and text structures and features.
Develop a literate classroom culture and shared language around books; fosters a lifelong love of reading.
This can be paired with. . .

23. Optimize Learning Supports
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Maximize learning supports by fully integrating them into instruction and school management.
Provide physical, social, emotional, and academic assistance that enables students to succeed at school.
Provide responsive, personalized instruction that meets the needs of all learners.
Promote strong leadership that works to build a full continuum of essential school-community learning supports.

24. Interactive Read-Aloud/Learning Supports Example
Anansi the Spider
If the Shoe Fits
Pretty Salma: A Little Red Riding Hood Story From Africa

25. Practice Guided Reading
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Place students on an accelerated course o reading with accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.
Offer a “just right” challenge that helps each student advance as an independent reader.
Ensure that, every day, students read texts that are within their control, given the strategies and knowledge they have.
Help students stretch their skills as readers, with increasingly challenging, conceptually rich, complex texts.

26. Guided Reading Steps Introduce the Text
Support Students’ Reading of the Text
Guide Discussion of the Text
Engage in Specific Teaching
Support Students’ Work with Letters and Words
Extend Understanding Through Writing About Reading (Optional)
Schools have leveled readers that revolve around SS topics
Show GR book, F&P

27. Promote Independent Reading
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Help students discover their identities as readers and expand their understanding of the world.
Build strategic problem-solving skills that promote high level comprehension.
Build a robust vocabulary and deepen analytical prowess and an ability to talk and write about text.
Offer innumerable academic and social-emotional benefits.

28. Independent Reading -- Accountability
The Text Set Project promotes knowledge and vocabulary through independent reading.
lessons?filter_cat=1112
NewsELA has a Text Set feature.
Sets-Resources

29. Integrate Reading and Writing
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Reinforce reading and writing as reciprocal acts, with each informing the other.
Help students read to learn, write to learn, and make meaning in the process – the primary goal of instruction.
Realize the benefits of writing about text – and mirror the deep thinking students should do when they read.
Enable students to be explicit about text evidence – writing information from their reading.

30. Encourage Purposeful Reading and Writing
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Help students engage in ambitious questioning and hands-on inquiry.
Foster critical thinking and problem solving.
Encourage students to write clearly and convincingly, revising and editing their work to share it with a real audience.
Help students embrace their identities as purposeful and powerful readers and writers.

31. For Example, the K-W-L Traditional K-W-L in Literacy A-C-I in History
It traditionally asks students to:
Reflect on what they already know (What I know).
Set a purpose for reading (What I want to know).
Review what they have learned (What I have learned).
We can change it to: Analyze Compare/Evaluate Infer
Example of purposeful reading and writing. Hand out a KWL chart and go to next slide.

32. Fill out KWL chart, could pair a reading and fill out the infer column after. Can pair with a reading to add more information before filling out the Infer column. This could lead into a purposeful writing.

33. Engage Families and the Community
Comprehensive literacy teachers work to. . .
Embrace the Dual Capacity Framework, establishing effective family- school partnerships and support children from cradle to career.
Build the collective partnership capacity between families and schools through the four C’s: capabilities, connections, confidence, and cognition.
Help families understand the importance of immersing children in rich, ongoing conversation about daily home activities and read-aloud books.
Honor each family’s cultural “funds of knowledge” – while providing school-based scaffolds.

34. Anchor Standard Hunt Count off by 3’s
1’s will look at the reading SS literacies
2’s will look at the writing SS literacies
3’s will look at the thinking SS literacies
Together, go through and highlight Anchor Standards in ELA that apply to the SS literacies.
Put slides on tables. Have them look through anchor standards and highlight or mark. Be ready to share.

35. The WCSD Framework and Planning Guides
Look through Framework and Planning Guides. How could the Planning Guides work for them when planning comprehensive literacy instruction?

36. Learning Intentions Thank you! Stacy Drum, sdrum@washoeschools.net
Participants will understand the intents and definition of Comprehensive Literacy Instruction and leave this session with resources for implementation.
Thank you!
Stacy Drum,