It’s no secret that these last few pandemic-filled years have created some above average gaps in student’s reading abilities. At times, teachers are finding themselves outside their comfort zones, teaching skills that aren’t a part of their usual curricula. One such area is foundational reading skills. Teachers whose reading instruction and assessment was once based mainly on the abilities of older readers are finding themselves scrambling to gather resources and an understanding of foundational reading skills in order to meet their students’ reading needs.
In fact, there’s been such a call for support in how to effectively and efficiently teach phonemic awareness and the phonics learning progression, PLIC’s Literacy Team decided to create a streamlined ebook filled with practical lesson plans and strategies. This user-friendly resource is perfect for teachers looking to make the most of their instructional reading time!
On Thursday February 3rd, 25 teachers and administrators took time from their snow days to attend the session Making the Most of Reading Time. In this 1-hour intensive Zoom session, participants reviewed the process of instruction that is driven by the data of explicit assessments, gained insights into a vision for that instruction with simple and effective lesson routines, and took a guided tour through the ebook to navigate the plethora of resources available.
Teachers were grateful for the resource. “This is amazing!” one teacher commented in the Zoom chat. “This will help me immensely” added another. Overall the session was a great reminder that powerful reading instruction doesn’t require extensive planning or expensive resources. Just a few simple tools can help to Make the Most of Reading Time.
