What's the Word?

In this edition you'll find:

1. Literacy Consortium Overview
   

2. Statewide Updates

3. Professional Learning Offerings

4. Recommended Readings and Resources

5. For Your Information

6. Literacy and Technology




Happy New School Year!




We hope that your year is off to a fabulous start, and that you find many helpful tidbits of information in this newsletter. If you do learn some new things in this newsletter, chances are good that some of your colleagues might enjoy it as well. To that end, we are asking every recipient of this newsletter to forward it to at least five colleagues. Share the literacy love and knowledge throughout Oakland County!




As always, we are here to support your efforts in improving literacy around Oakland County. Please don’t hesitate to reach out!




--Your Oakland Schools Literacy Team

September Topics and Information facilitated by OS Literacy Consultants:

• State- and county-level updates on Read By Grade 3 law, MKEO, Birth to Grade 3 Essential Practices, Disciplinary Literacy, and Learning Ally/Newsela pricing discounts.

• Sharing of literacy work occurring in each district

• Shared reading and discussion around an article by Nell Duke on reading instruction

• Considering implications for student motivation and engagement with grade-level texts

• Action planning

Connect with your district representative for more information about the topics discussed. Also, check out the slideshow from the consortium's most recent meeting, or connect through the Oakland Schools Literacy miPLACE group.

All Literacy Consortium Meetings are held from 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. at Oakland Schools.

• Wednesday, September 18, 2019

• Tuesday, December 3, 2019

• Wednesday, February 5, 2020

• Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Please Note: Literacy Leaders that are supporting work around Disciplinary Literacy Essential Practices for Secondary Classrooms are encouraged to stay for the afternoon and attend Disciplinary Literacy Network meetings. More information can be found here.

In early August, the Oakland Schools Disciplinary Literacy Team facilitated a two-day workshop on disciplinary literacy. We will also host three more Disciplinary Literacy Network half-days throughout the year. Because we’ve received such positive responses, we will offer the two-day workshop again on March 17 and 18. Click here for a flyer explaining all of the disciplinary literacy offerings.

Click HERE for a list of all professional learning offerings!

Join educators from across Oakland County and across the country as we discuss, puzzle over, and laugh our way through the first five chapters of 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents by Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle. Why read it alone? Our no-pressure (totally free) book club is the perfect way to strengthen your practice and grow your professional learning community!

180 Days Book Club

This interactive Early Literacy series is for K-3 literacy coaches, interventionists, and classroom teachers. For Part 1, Dr. Laura Tortorelli from MSU will lead participants in gaining a deeper knowledge of phonemic & phonological awareness and phonics instruction. They will also obtain tools for practice that help students apply knowledge of letter-sound relationships taught by reading books or other connected texts that include those relationships. Participants will receive the book, Letter Lessons and First Words: Phonics Foundations That Work, by Heidi Anne Mesmer. Highlights from Dr. Tortorelli’s presentation will be linked to Practices #1, #4, and #5 of the Essential Instructional Practices in Early Literacy document. Register here.

Navigating the endless expanse of English Education can be a daunting experience for new teachers as well as veteran teachers alike, but when we travel together, we can ignite passions that fuel curiosity, which in turn gives us the courage to re-imagine our purpose through English Language Arts.

MCTE invites you to join our learning community on October 18, 2019 for our annual Fall Conference, Navigating the Joyful Journey: Igniting Passion and Curiosity to Re-Imagine ELA Together! Educators from across Michigan will engage in conversations about ELA and enjoy presentations from colleagues. Registration opens at 7:00am with sessions that run from 8:00 A.M. to 3:30 P.M.

Featuring Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer, Reading in the Wild & co-author of Game Changer.

MRA's 2020 Conference - Call for Proposals is now open! https://michiganreading.org

It’s September, which means thousands of children will be coming home and asking a parent or guardian to “sign their reading log” in order to prove that they have completed the assigned reading. Do we want our children to be reading at home? Of course! We want children to develop a robust in- and out-of-school literate life, which includes choice reading. However, some research suggests that required reading logs result in decreased motivation to read--definitely not a desired outcome. So if we no longer assign reading logs, how do we know kids are reading outside of the school day? Pernille Ripp offers some suggestions here. Additionally, we can build intentional ways of supporting students in recording their reading lives within the classroom, as a way to help them continue to expand the scope of genre they are exploring, track favorite books that are read more than once, and record books that were not a good fit. Exploring ways to do this within the classroom allows the practice of keeping track of reading to fit within classroom instruction and may have a less negative effect on student motivation. What are your thoughts about effective use of reading logs?

Oakland Schools Administration and legal team are in the process of reviewing final contract language. We will send a follow-up email once a final decision is reached!

High school literacy leaders, we need your input! Oakland Schools literacy consultants and district leaders are looking to collect information about the types of texts that are currently listed as required reading across Oakland County, as well as common approaches each school/district takes in order to communicate with families and students. We are hoping to create an informal network that can support each other in this area. Please fill out this SURVEY to let us know if you would be interested in taking part in further conversations about this issue!

From Felice Kaufmann, NCTE Publications Developer: We're looking for member stories for an article on teaching memoir at the secondary level for a future Council Chronicle. If you have ideas, experiences, or approaches to share, email chronicle@ncte.org right away. Please include the name of your school, your city, and your state. We look forward to learning from you!

Middle- and high-school educators, please consider this opportunity to involve kids in imagining (and working toward) a more positive future in their community. Read more here: Michigan Youth Forum

Learning.com has partnered with Sault Ste. Marie Public Schools to help prepare Michigan students to develop critical technology skills that provide the foundation for college and career readiness in the 21st century. Schools serving K-8 students throughout the State of Michigan can now register to participate at no cost. Find out more here: https://info.learning.com/michigan-digital-literacy-funding

Do you support students with IEPs? Are you looking for ways to use technology to support access to and use of text? Check out this year’s Assistive Technology sessions designed to support educators working with students with IEPs:

https://www.smore.com/tneh8-assistive-technology-cop?ref=email . Register here:

• Assistive Technology Community of Practice: October 31, 2019, December 12, 2019 & March 12, 2020

• Assistive Technology in the Classroom: Google Chrome, Inclusion and UDL: November 8, 2019

Calling past Literacy Academy learners and special education teachers of students with significant cognitive disabilities… Are you a subscriber to Boardmaker Online? If so, check out Boardmaker Online’s Reading Avenue https://goboardmaker.com/pages/reading-avenue, a resource designed in consultation with Dr. Karen Erickson that provides computer-driven, teacher-mediated instruction across the essential components of reading (reading comprehension, vocabulary, phonics, word identification, and writing). This tool is appropriate for both emergent and conventional readers and is accessible to AAC users and students with complex bodies.

September 22-28 is Banned Books Week

October 20 is the National Day on Writing

Ashelin Currie, Elementary Literacy Consultant

Dalyce DePauw, Special Education Consultant

Michele Farah, Elementary Literacy Consultant

Diane Katakowski, Speech and Language Consultant

Jill Maneice, Literacy and AARI Consultant

Jacqueline Mitchell, Early Literacy Consultant

Colleen Meszler, Special Education Consultant

Suzanne Toohey, ESL Consultant/Supervisor of Instruction and Pedagogy

Asha Williams, Early Literacy Consultant

Jenelle Williams, Secondary Literacy Consultant

Andrea Zellner, Secondary Literacy Consultant

Megan Kortlandt, Literacy Consultant

Christy Osborne, ESL Consultant

2111 Pontiac Lake Road

Waterford, MI 48328

(248) 209.2000