Using Coaches to Improve Adolescent Literacy Instruction: Seminar Descriptions
Literacy Coaching Seminar One:
Progress Monitoring and Matching Students to Text
On April 4, 2008 a group of SEA Literacy Leaders met to learn more about and to discuss how to monitor the progress of secondary students and match them to texts.
In a series of three workshops, tools for differentiating instruction based on student assessments were presented by Dr. Andrea Kotula.
- In the first workshop, participants learned how to create, administer, score, and graph the results of two curriculum-based measures to monitor ongoing progress for adolescents: one for reading comprehension and one for content area knowledge.
- In the second, participants practiced creating, administering, and scoring tests of oral reading accuracy and silent reading comprehension with a specific piece of text.
- The third workshop then identified free or inexpensive tools for estimating the readability of trade-books, textbooks, and electronic text such as primary sources obtained from the Internet; participants practiced using qualitative judgments to fine-tune readability estimates so teachers can match students to appropriate text.
Literacy Coaching Seminar Two:
Improving Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas
Ongoing literacy instruction and development needs to be a key part of the broader effort of improving secondary schools. This seminar, held on May 22, 2008, aimed to assist educators with this by:
- Examining the literacy demands of specific content areas and discussing what literacy skills are unique to each;
- Looking at what teachers need to know about the content areas and what commonalities exist among them; and
- Sharing the research and best practices in secondary literacy coaching being implemented in other states.
Literacy Coaching Seminar Three:
How to Assess the Impact of Interventions
Date: TBD
Location: TBD
This seminar will examine how to assess the impact of different intervention programs using scientifically based research published by the Regional Education Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands, the REL Southeast, the Center on Instruction (COI) and the Institute of Educational Science (IES).
The seminar will focus on the effectiveness of targeted intervention programs in improving student reading and will provide concrete guidance for participants who need information in making sound decisions to improve instruction and raise student achievement on state reading assessments.
In addition, this seminar will provide information about available tests and programs relevant to secondary school students, including those used in urban and rural districts.
Registration for this seminar will be available soon. Please check back in the next few days.