The ultimate goal of reading is to gain meaning, and it can be incredibly tough to do so. There are several models of reading comprehension that try to explain/simplify the process, including The Simple View of Reading, Scarborough’s Reading Rope, the Four Part Processing Model, and the recently developed Active View of Reading. A recent … [Read more…]
This week has proven to be yet another in which I have found myself in pursuit of perseverance. As I’ve been writing recently, our district is shifting its instructional coaching model from an invite-only model to a systems coaching model, which means that we no longer wait to be invited into classrooms to support teachers … [Read more…]
I was thrilled to be joined by eight other educators from Fort Madison Community School District at the Decoding Dyslexia Iowa Conference this past week. We were treated to a host of sessions that furthered our knowledge around dyslexia and structured literacy. Our keynote speaker on Thursday morning was Mindy VanZuiden, a reading tutor and … [Read more…]
It feels like we’ve had a breakthrough as an instructional coaching staff this week. (Here comes the sun!) We spent a great deal of time collaborating to arrive at common tools and language for our coaching work. More importantly, we focused on how we will move forward leading as a team, letting data drive our … [Read more…]
I’ve been wrestling with this blogpost for several days now, and am late in posting it according to my self-imposed Sunday, 1:00 p.m. deadline. I’m not sure that I can pinpoint the struggle with getting coherent words on the screen, but perhaps the struggle is evidence of the internal struggle I’m experiencing. The Internal Struggle … [Read more…]
In the last two weeks, the phrase, “Progress Through Struggle” keeps running through my head. That looping reminder is occurring because I have experienced more struggle than usual as an instructional coach as the beginning of this school year has unfolded. Part of that struggle comes from my cheese getting moved, part of it comes … [Read more…]
In my work as an instructional coach, I have the great fortune of working with many teacher teams across many grade levels. This allows for a birds-eye view of our district happenings, where I tend to train my eyes on literacy instruction. A common theme among teacher teams, related to literacy or any other content … [Read more…]
This past week brought the annual Tri-State Rodeo to Fort Madison. 75 years of “…some of the best rodeo action on earth”. I don’t follow the circuit, but I LOVE attending the Tri State Rodeo each year. The dust, the dirt, the livestock, the clown, the cowboys & cowgirls, the cool fall nights – it’s … [Read more…]
The EDVIEW360 podcast from Voyager Sopris recently released a stellar episode featuring two of education’s greats: Dr. Anita Archer and Dr. Louisa Moats. The world is a better place because of these two individuals. Their work has resulted in and will continue to result in high levels of learning for teachers and students everywhere. I … [Read more…]
What a whirlwind of a week… or three! As I write today, I’m sitting in the Atlanta airport, buzzin’ like a bee from an AMAZING four days at the 2023 Open Up Resources HIVE conference! There is so much learning to process; I’m thankful for several hours in the airport to do just that. This … [Read more…]