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Literacy Coaching Corner
Helping Students Achieve By Working Together!
Welcome Back to In-Person Full-Time Instruction
*This newsletter will serve as an introduction to us, our work, and services available to you this year. For the following months, we will be providing more detailed information on the Essential Instructional Practices and resources you can use directly with your students!
Meet The Clinton County Early Literacy Coaching Team
Essential Instructional Practices in Early Literacy
As we begin the school year we want to take a moment to reflect and recognize the document that drives our work, The Essential Instructional Practices in Early Literacy: K-3. We have been working with districts across the county through the use of this document in the form of coaching cycles, school-wide professional development, and a network made up of classroom teachers (Literacy Leader Network). Taken from the document:
We believe that the use of these practices in every classroom, every day could make a measurable positive difference in the State's literacy achievement. They should be viewed, as in practice guides in medicine, as presenting a minimum "standard of care" for Michigan's children.
We look forward to continuing this work as we move through the school year. Reach out to any of the Early Literacy Team if you would like more information about the essentials.
What We Offer: What exactly can you expect from coaching?
Coaching typically works in a cycle in which we might do all or some of these supportive activities including conferencing, modeling, observing, co-teaching, and using assessments.
If you are looking for support in:
- Motivation and engagement
- Read alouds
- Differentiated instruction/ small groups
- Phonological awareness
- Letter-sound relationships
- Explicit instruction
- Writing
- Vocabulary
- Content knowledge
- Reading materials and reading opportunities
- Observations and assessments or
- Family involvement
We will also be supporting school-wide professional development and offering additional book studys and webinar opportunities throughout the year.
Remember that any coaching work you do, you will have the opportunitiy to earn SCECHs! Even for one on one coaching! :)
What Kind of Training and Knowledge do Early Literacy Coaches Possess?
All coaches start with three days of training which consists of:
- Instructional practices. This training provides coaches with a foundation for what research-based practices are and how these practices can be applied to any curriculum or program
- Coaching practices. This training provides coaches with an understanding of how to work with adult learners and systematic ways to work through coaching cycles.
- Quarterly day-long training
- Annual Three Day Advanced Coaching Institute
- K-3 Essential Modules
- MAISA study groups
- Three Day Coaching Intensive (housed in schools working with teachers, students and coaching leaders)
Literacy Leader Network: Who We Are, What We Do
Literacy leaders include:
- Anna Hungerford and Cadi Drayton from Ovid-Elsie
- Sharon Brown from Pewamo-Westphalia
- Amy Verhougstraete and Erin Larson from DeWitt
- Michelle Clark from Bath
- Tammy Wilson and Elissa Rowland from St.Johns
- Brenda Epkey and LeAnn Schafer from Fowler
Clinton County RESA Literacy Resource Website
The early literacy coaching team has created the Clinton County RESA Literacy Website to provide general literacy and Early Instructional Practices resources for teachers professional learning. You will also find past issues of the Literacy Coaching Corner housed there. We recently updated the site to include upcoming professional learning development opportunities for teachers of Clinton County.
Clinton County RESA Family Literacy Website
This summer we launched the Clinton County RESA Family Literacy Website. On the homepage of this website we posted a parent pledge for parents to pledge to make reading a priority over the summer. We were excited by the amount of families in Clinton County that made time for reading in order to avoid the summer slide.
If you didn't get a chance to look at our website, take a look and perhaps pass along the resources to your families. All of our summer newsletters are archived and available for sharing. Based on our analytics, parents engaged with these newsletters, but we know we did not reach everyone.
Fall is still a great time to share these resources. How To Read to Your Child is a great resource to share with parents. The video is posted below with additional resources found within the website.
Let's Keep In Touch
Supporting Bath and Pewamo-Westphalia School Districts
Cecilia Stajos
Supporting Fowler and Ovid-Elsie School Districts
Ashley Windgnagle
Supporting DeWitt and Ovid-Elsie School Districts