Literacy Lookout

Can you believe we're almost to the end of the 3rd grading period and spring is almost here? Time is flying by and as we continue to implement the "new" that this year brought, we are thankful for all of your grace and understanding. Between new curriculum, new interventions, new staff, and new laws, as a district we have been able to rally together, making these changes and transitions as seamless as possible, and ultimately see growth and improvement in our students!

In the past, comparing Fall and Winter benchmarking data was a very daunting endeavor. It was always assumed that winter data would be lower and quite honestly, it was expected and accepted that winter data would be lower. That was flawed thinking and a shift in mindset (and assessment) was needed. Just look at these scores! Our students are GROWING! This growth would not be possible without the village of teachers we have supporting our striving readers.

Before we can expect our students to read quickly, we need to work on ensuring that our students can read accurately. Look at those scores! Our students are working so hard to improve their accuracy and it's showing! Remember, 80%+ is our goal and not only do we have multiple grade levels so close, but we also have some exceeding! This is PROGRESS!

Our 1st graders hit Mapleton's first ever 100% on track in Phonemic Awareness! This is a HUGE accomplishment as we know that PA is a vital foundational skill and is the strongest predictor of reading success!

Our annual Mapleton Elementary School Read-A-Thon took place during the week of January 21-27. A total of 61 students logged 5,839 minutes of reading and raised over $2,800! This was the highest number of participants AND money raised that we've seen! This money will be used to help fund our summer program and continue updating our elementary library with new books.

After a 16+ year hiatus, the Scholastic Book Fair returned to Mapleton Middle School January 29-February 1. Being set-up in the MS/HS Literacy Lounge, the middle school students (and quite a few high school students) enjoyed browsing the book selections, especially the bargain book table. Not knowing how successful a middle school fair would be, our expectations were low. To our surprise, sales were great and the middle school was able to acquire $900 in Scholastic Dollars which will help purchase novels and books to correlate with our middle school Amplify ELA units as well as contribute to our PBIS store!

Mapleton Middle School is piloting i-Ready for the second semester in all ELA classes. Being very similar to IXL as it's a K-12 adaptive assessment, i-Ready offers enhanced ELA and Mathematics data, personalized instruction, with a goal of standards mastery in a fun, interactive, and very user friendly dashboard. With this being Mapleton's last year in our IXL contract, we are wanting to find the best fit for our district that offers the most valuable data and resources for our teachers.

The second round of Explicit Vocabulary Instruction Walkthroughs are underway! Be on the lookout for an email to schedule your walkthrough and remember, EVI routines can cover as few as 2-3 words in a 5-10 minute period keeping that PERKY PACE! Don't hesitate to reach out to us if you want help planning! Also, don't forget to utilize that EVI Bookmark!! If you need one (or need another one) let us know and we can get you a new one...and make sure to bookmark the Padlets that are linked below!

Now that our new ELA curriculum, Amplify CKLA, is being used throughout the Elementary School, we've officially started coaching cycles! Special thanks to our ELA teachers for allowing us to visit, see the curriculum in action, and for taking the time to discuss your Amplify Routines afterwards.

We are always learning in our role as Literacy Coaches through multiple networking opportunities with other districts and ESCs. Jim Knight's book, Better Conversations, has been one helpful resource we have been introduced to this year through our Tri-County Coaching Network. Knight's 10 Habits of Better Conversations has allowed for more of an introspection to better our coaching conversations.

We have been fortunate enough to network with districts within Lorain County ESC and Mid-Ohio ESC. Both networks have helped us dive into Literacy Coaching in the Secondary Grades which offers some new perspective into coaching. As we were given the opportunity to Zoom with Jade Wexler, one of the co-authors, her informative session offered some new instructional reading, writing, and vocabulary ideas and techniques.

Through Tri-County ESC, we have completed Volume 1 LETRS training this year. LETRS, which stands for Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, is an intense professional learning course for educators and administrators that provides a deep dive into mastering the foundational and fundamentals of reading and writing instruction focusing on phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and written language. This course requires 36 in-person contact hours as well as up to 48 individual hours to complete 32 online modules. As we prepare to begin Volume 2, it has been great to have the chance explore more of the why behind the transition to the Science of Reading and the research that brought around these changes. If LETRS is something you'd be interested in taking in the future, please let us know.

March 25th - 29th

April 8th

ELA: April 3rd & 4th

Science: April 16th & 17th

Social Studies: April 23rd & 24th

Math: April 29th & 30th

May 1st - 15th

Located in the Literacy Lounge, these bins correlate with Amplify CKLA Domains. There is not a bin for every single domain K-5, but quite a few domains have bins. We also have generic bins (i.e. animals, plants, countries, continents, science, etc.) that you are welcome to use as well. Let us know which bin you need and we will be happy to deliver it to you classroom!

Located in the office's side hallway, these bins contain novels and higher level readers that could be used in WIN Enrichment groups. As of now, the Scholastic Books are still located in the Library. This will soon change though as we will be working on adding these books to Knowledge Bins, Enrichment Texts, moving some up to the middle school, and getting them in the hands of our students.

(Soon to be) Located in the Literacy Lounge, new Decodables have been ordered from Heggerty and Whole Phonics. We will have Heggerty Libraries grades K-2 Decodable Classroom Sets (2 of each grade) and Whole Phonics through Level 3 with the first book of Level 4 (10 copies of each). We also have purchased the 1st Grade Decodable Bundle from Learning at the Primary Pond. These are will be available once copies and booklets are made. All WIN teachers are welcome to utilize these resources for your small group, no matter the grade level!