Student reading achievement is dependent on knowledgeable, skilled teachers and principals. Literacy First’s research-based seminars provide teachers with effective, easily implemented instructional strategies in reading. Each seminar is customized to meet the needs of your teachers. Your school or district may choose from any or all of Literacy First’s customized reading seminars to create your custom reading seminar. Choose one or more to build the seminar that best meets your specific needs.
- Phonological Awareness
Phonemic awareness is an essential prerequisite for learning the process of decoding. - Phonics & Word Study (Including Spelling)
Phonics and word study skills are necessary for students to comprehend text. - Fluency
Fluent readers are characterized by the ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. - Vocabulary Development
Vocabulary knowledge is critical for student success in comprehending text. To read on grade level students must learn approximately 3000 new words per year. - Comprehension Skills
Comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from text. Explicit instruction in comprehension skills is necessary for students to become independent readers (National Reading Panel). - Strategic Reading/Thinking Tools & Metacognitive Processes
Explicit instruction in strategic reading tools and metacognitive processes is essential if students are to... - Flexible Skill Groups & Literacy Centers
Flexible skill groups provide the opportunity to teach or reinforce any reading skill or process. - Systematic & Explicit Reading Instruction
Systematic, explicit reading instruction is essential for students to develop the skills and processes to become fluent comprehenders of text.
Phonological Awareness
Phonemic awareness is an essential prerequisite for learning the process of decoding. Without phonemic awareness (and related phonological skills), many children experience significant reading problems (Adams, 1990, 1998). When the explicit instructional strategies for phonological awareness are incorporated into daily lessons your students will be able to unlock difficult words as they begin to read.
Content of the Phonological Awareness professional development seminar includes:
- Explanation of the roles of phonemic awareness and phonological awareness and their importance to the reading process
- Emphasis of the importance of phonological awareness with English language learners and students with learning disabilities
- Criterion-referenced performance standards for phonological awareness
- Assessment procedures to diagnose students and provide the correct level of instruction for each of them in phonological awareness
- Systematic and explicit instructional strategies to enable students to hear and manipulate phonemes
- Resource materials that provide teaching strategies to actively engage students in all aspects of phonological awareness
Phonics & Word Study
(Including Spelling)
Phonics and word study skills are necessary for students to comprehend text. These skills must be taught in an explicit and systematic manner for students to gain automaticity with print (Chall and Popp, 1996). The Literacy First Phonics and Word Study seminar will better equip you teachers to assess and then systematically and explicitly help students to perform key encoding and decoding tasks as they read.
Content of the Phonics & Word Study professional development seminar includes:
- Assessment procedures to diagnose students and provide the correct level of instruction for each of them in phonics, spelling and advanced decoding
- Criterion-referenced performance standards for phonics and advanced decoding, plus benchmarks for spelling stages
- Systematic and explicit instructional strategies to enable students to decode with automaticity
- Advanced decoding strategies including the six syllable types, syllabication, and base words/affixes
- Resource materials filled with instructional activities to actively engage students in learning to apply phonics skills to the reading process
Fluency
Fluent readers are characterized by the ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. (National Reading Panel, 2000). Reading Fluency is a primary goal for readers. And Literacy First Fluency seminars focus on the “how to” skills to give your teachers the tools they need to increase your student’s reading fluency.
Content of the Fluency professional development seminar includes:
- Assessment tools to diagnose students’ fluency
- Norm-referenced performance standards for fluency
- Criterion-referenced performance standards for prosody (reading with expression)
- Effective strategies to improve student reading rate and accuracy
- Explicit strategies to develop students’ ability to read with expression
- Multiple strategies for teachers to provide students with wide reading practice
- Resource materials filled with instructional strategies to actively engage students in the process of becoming fluent readers
Vocabulary Development
Vocabulary knowledge is critical for student success in comprehending text. To read on grade level students must learn approximately 3000 new words per year. Teachers must create word conscious classrooms to ensure students build the vocabulary to understand increasingly more complex text.
Content of the Vocabulary Development professional development seminar includes:
- Strategies to cause students to learn over 3000 words per year
- The importance of monitored independent reading practice to increase vocabulary
- Effective use of teacher read-alouds to develop students’ vocabulary
- Strategies to develop word-conscious classrooms to increase students’ vocabulary
- Systematic and explicit strategies for teaching vocabulary in all subjects
- Resource materials filled with instructional activities to actively engage students in vocabulary development
Comprehension Skills
Comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from text (Rand, 2002). Explicit instruction in comprehension skills is necessary for students to become independent readers (National Reading Panel 2000). The Literacy First Comprehension Skills seminars provides teachers with strategies to teach comprehension in a systematic and explicit manner.
Content of the Comprehension Skills professional development seminar includes:
- Systematic, explicit instruction in essential comprehension skills such as retelling, summarizing, main idea, predicting, clarifying, questioning, and using basic signal words (who, what, when, where, why, and how)
- Systematic, explicit instruction in advanced comprehension skills such as advanced signal words, and text structures (compare/contrast, cause/effect, problem/solution, and time order/sequence)
- The importance of teaching students how to use multiple strategies to comprehend text
- The critical relationship between vocabulary and comprehension
- Resource materials filled with instructional activities to actively engage students in learning the complex processes necessary to comprehend text
Strategic Reading/Thinking Tools & Metacognitive Processes
The process of comprehending text is very complex (Pressley 2000). Explicit instruction in strategic reading tools and metacognitive processes is essential if students are to comprehend grade level text (National Reading Panel, 2000). This seminar gives each teacher the deep understanding of the skills and strategies to ensure students learn the effective use of Strategic Reading/Thinking Tools & Metacognitive Processes
Content of the Strategic Reading/Thinking Tools & Metacognitive Processes professional development seminar includes:
- How strategic reading/thinking tools and metacognitive processes increase comprehension
- Strategies to develop metacognitive processes in all your students
- Systematic, explicit instruction in strategic reading tools, such as: activating prior knowledge, self-monitoring, Question-Answer Relationships, Visual Reading Guide, graphic organizers, visualizing, and fix-up strategies
- Resource materials filled with instructional activities to actively engage students in how to use strategic reading/thinking tools and metacognitive processes to effectively comprehend text
Flexible Skill Groups & Literacy Centers
Students learn most effectively in small flexible groups (National Reading Panel 2000). Flexible skill groups provide the opportunity to teach or reinforce any reading skill or process. Marzano (2001) states a student needs at least 24 successful practice sessions to gain mastery of a skill. Literacy centers are designed to provide this much-needed practice.
Content of the Flexible Skill Groups & Literacy Centers professional development seminar includes:
- How to use assessment results to place students in the correct flexible skill group for-phonemic awareness, phonics/word study, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension
- Teacher resource materials that provide hundreds of activities for small flexible group lessons
- How to develop and set up literacy centers in your classrooms
- How to hold students accountable for the work they do in literacy centers
- Resource materials that describe literacy center activities, rotation schedules, organization, and management
Systematic & Explicit Reading Instruction
Systematic, explicit reading instruction is essential for students to develop the skills and processes to become fluent comprehenders of text (National Reading Panel, 2000). This seminar is designed to strengthen teachers’ knowledge and skills to teach reading in a systematic and explicit manner.
Content of the Systematic & Explicit Reading Instruction professional development seminar includes:
- How to accelerate student reading achievement using systematic and explicit instruction
- What systematic, explicit instruction looks like during a reading lesson
- Using systematic and explicit instruction to maximize academic learning time
- Using assessment data to drive systematic and explicit instruction
- Systematic and explicit lesson progressions to guide teacher lessons for phonological awareness, phonics/word study, comprehension skills
- Questioning and discussion strategies that engage