Teaching Literacy

We offer a variety of courses in Literacy, for teachers in Colorado and other states, looking to earn recertification credits and learn more about important topics. This semester choose from courses such as Rigorous Reading - Making Complex Texts Accessible, Text Complexity and the Common Core, Close Reading - Supporting Readers with the Common Core State Standards, Incorporating the Daily Five, and Teaching Writing for Results.

Call it close reading, call it deep reading, call it analytic reading—call it what you like. The point is, Rigorous Reading is a level of understanding that students of any age can achieve with the right kind of instruction.

1. Purpose & Modeling: Teachers think aloud to demonstrate critical thinking and how good readers always know why they are reading.
2. Close & Scaffolded Reading Instruction: Teachers engage students in repeated readings and discussions, with text-dependent questions, prompts, and cues to help students delve into an author’s ideas.
3. Collaborative Conversations: Teachers orchestrate collaborative learning to get students in the habit of exercising their analytical thinking in the presence of their peers.
4. An Independent Reading Staircase: Teachers artfully steer students to more challenging books, with strategic bursts of instruction and peer conferences to foster metacognitive awareness.
5. Performance: Teachers offer feedback and assessments that help students demonstrate understanding of the text in authentic ways and plan instruction based on student understanding.         

When basic writing skills become relatively effortless for students, they can focus less on these basic writing skills and more on developing and communicating their ideas. However, younger writers must typically devote considerable attention to acquiring and polishing these skills before they become proficient. Spelling skills can affect the words students choose because they may be less likely to use words they cannot spell. Students also need to be able to generate strong, interesting sentences that vary in length and complexity in order to convey their intended meaning and engage readers. Using good techniques and strategies will assist you in Writing for results in all students.Literacy professional development courses can help Colorado teachers with recertification, while also imparting important instruction strategies.

Daily 5 is a literacy framework that instills behaviors of independence, creates a classroom of highly engaged readers, writers, and learners, and provides teachers with time and structure to meet diverse student needs. Because it holds no curricular content, it can be used to meet any school, district, state, or national standards. Daily 5 classrooms produce productive, highly engaged students who develop a true love of literacy.

During Daily 5, students select from five authentic reading and writing choices, working independently toward personalized goals, while the teacher meets individual needs through whole-group and small-group instruction, as well as one-on-one conferring.