ARI Literacy Leadership

The Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) is a statewide K-3 initiative committed to supporting the development of high-quality instruction that will prepare all students with the literacy skills needed to meet or exceed grade-level standards. The goal of the ARI is to significantly improve reading instruction and ultimately achieve 100% literacy among public school students.

The path to reading proficiency includes the developmental stages a learner goes through to become a confident and skilled reader, including the foundational skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary development, and comprehension. Supporting learners along their paths to proficiency allows educators to:

• Increase awareness of individual student differences. Learners progress at varying paces, and some will require additional support.
• Learn how to use regular monitoring to inform instruction.
• Utilize engaging instruction and interactive activities, using a student-centered approach.

A school-wide system for literacy can strengthen the path to reading proficiency. Each component in the school-wide system for literacy is like a cog working with other gears in a complex machine. The components are critical for improving reading proficiency. They contain the criteria that inform practices, processes, and the overall strength of services delivered to improve reading achievement.

The school leadership team, which includes teachers from various grade levels and administrators, will lead efforts to embed essential components of reading instruction into all school structures, including developing and updating professional learning related to literacy assessment and instruction.

- Adapted from LETRS for Administrators

• Conduct intentional and purposeful classroom walk-throughs.

• Review the schedule of the local reading specialist (LRS) and reflect on how you can support him or her in achieving the goal of coaching 60% of the day.

• Provide support for third grade teachers as they collect evidence for Literacy Act Portfolios.

• Ensure SRIP information is entered in PowerSchool Analytics & Insights.

• Hire summer reading camp teachers trained in the Science of Reading (SOR) and provide staff training specific to summer reading camp.

Improving literacy achievement is incumbent on discussions about the current state of literacy achievement. Discussions regarding literacy data must become a regular part of the school climate.

- Adapted from LETRS for Administrators

“School's Out for Summer!” no longer applies in Alabama! As a state, we work diligently to ensure that ALL students succeed. Summer learning enrichment can decrease summer learning loss, allow opportunities to close student learning gaps, and provide targeted and purposeful instruction. Planning and preparing for summer learning is not an easy task. It is a team effort!

Ensure the following tasks have been completed:

• Secure personnel (teachers, leaders, cafeteria staff, paras, bus drivers, etc.).

• Invite students based on data.

• Determine rooms and materials for instructing students.

• Analyze and plan for targeted instruction.

The K-12 Guidance for Summer Learning in Alabama can assist in your planning.

OXL, ARI, and OMI have collaborated to create the PowerSchool Analytics & Insights Guidance for K-5 Summer Camps resource folder, designed to support districts in preparing for summer learning within the platform. This folder includes a comprehensive video presentation, a slide deck, and a one-pager with direct links to PowerSchool tutorials.

Summer interventions will be active starting May 5, 2025; however, districts can begin creating student rosters in the SIS for invited participants now. We encourage districts to explore these resources and review the presentation with their summer learning implementation teams to ensure a smooth and effective setup.

Link to the folder:

https://bit.ly/3YcFmk2

Link to the YouTube video:

https://youtu.be/G5WZNjaS0NE?si=gTUEF7NiXb-mh4Pv

Evidence substantiates that every student is receiving effective, differentiated Tier 1 core literacy instruction from high-quality research-based curricula and instructional strategies aligned to state standards.

- Adapted from LETRS for Administrators

Educators can significantly boost student learning by enhancing the opportunities for student participation. Research indicates that providing more chances for students to respond improves academic performance and decreases disruptive behaviors (MacSuga-Gage & Simonsen, 2015; Van Camp et al., 2020).

The recent ARI Coaching Community and Strong Leaders, Strong Readers focused on eliciting student responses. In Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching, (Archer and Hughes), Anita Archer emphasizes the critical role of eliciting student responses—oral, written, and action-based—as a fundamental component of effective teaching. Archer explains that actively engaging students in the learning process enhances their understanding and retention of concepts.

Three Types of Student Responses:

Oral Responses: Choral responses are powerful when used to practice or review factual information, according to Archer. Another way students can verbally respond is through a partner strategy called Think-Pair-Share. This strategy for oral responses gives students time to think before responding and directs students to share their answers with their partners, instead of teachers calling on one student.

Written Responses: When responding to a question or prompt through writing, there are options available other than writing on paper. When teachers elicit student responses through response cards, students are given a limited field of answers to select from rather than all possible responses. Many quick responses can be requested until students have a firm grasp of the concepts or information. White boards or quick check tools involve the teacher asking students a question and students recording their responses on a small whiteboard, tool, or plastic sleeve protector. For both strategies, teachers must ask a question, provide thinking time, and allow students to hold up their answers.

Action Responses: Explicit Instruction also includes the use of action-based responses to engage students physically and kinesthetically. Touching/Pointing: It is important that teachers constantly ask their students to touch specific items, especially in primary grades. This strategy helps to increase the number of students who are at the correct place. Acting Out: Teachers can utilize acting out a concept within a lesson to make it more memorable and interesting to students. This can also help solidify learning among students.

“If instruction is truly interactive and students are constantly responding, then attention, on-task behavioral, and learning increase and behavior challenges decrease.”

-(Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching, (Archer and Hughes), p.131

For additional viewing and reading:

“5 Simple Teacher Moves With Big-Time Payoffs” by Larry Ferlazzo with Lindsay Kemeny

Partner Reading Video

Me We Reading Video

Additional instruction designed to meet students' specific needs is provided, while at the same time, accelerate growth toward grade-level benchmarks. Students needing acceleration also receive appropriate interventions to close the gap with grade-level expectation.

- Adapted from LETRS for Administrators

As we approach the end of this school year, let's ensure that we are considering all pathways to promotion for third grade students. While the ultimate goal for our students is reading proficiency, promotion can be gained via sufficiency. In addition to the ACAP test, there are other pathways to promotion that require additional documentation.

The following Alabama Literacy Act resources can assist in developing a deeper understanding of these pathways and the documentation needed.

Alabama Literacy Act Pathway to Promotion Funnel

Good Cause Exemption Checklist

Valid and reliable screening instruments and progress-monitoring assessments of reading achievement are used. These tools are clearly specified and used to guide instruction.

- Adapted from LETRS for Administrators

Many schools are embarking on their ACAP testing journey. Take time before the test to encourage students to do their very best. Celebrate growth in any area that may provide a boost in students' confidence before the test. This may also be a time to celebrate the instruction teachers have provided, as well as their dedication to analyzing and responding to data, aligning standards and supplementing core programs, and transferring science of reading practices from coaching cycles into practice.

Professional learning is an integral part of the schoolwide system for increased literacy achievement. Professional learning includes the skills and knowledge needed to improve teaching and is aligned to research-based principles and instructional practices.

- Adapted from LETRS for Administrators

The I See Me Literacy Summit is an opportunity to explore the latest data in literacy, uncover innovative strategies, and discover new tools that can help cultivate extraordinary readers; today’s scholars will become tomorrow's leaders. This year’s theme, "Rethinking Literacy: New Trends, New Tools, New Strategies," will guide dynamic discussions, expert-led sessions, and hands-on workshops aimed at equipping attendees with practical insights and actionable strategies for fostering literacy success in today’s diverse learning environments.

Date: May 1, 2025

Time: 8:30- 3:30

Location: Birmingham Botanical Garden, 2612 Lane Park Road. Birmingham

Tickets: https://ismliteracysummit.com/

The Alabama Coaching Framework sets the standard for how coaches in any content area conduct their work in Alabama. The coaching cycle is a standard process coaches and educators use to implement professional learning to improve student outcomes and educator practices. ARI uses a student-centered coaching model to guide the work. This coaching model was developed by Diane Sweeney and Leanna Harris and always keeps students at the center of coaching.

- The Student-Centered Coaching Guide for K-3 Literacy in Alabama Schools, page 10

Coaching cycles focus on a single outcome for student learning, and mini cycles add value to coaching, while helping teachers refine strategies and routines to enhance student learning. ' Mini cycles have the same key elements of a coaching cycle. They begin with a goal or target and include the collection of student evidence, co-planning, co-teaching , and reflection. The difference is that instead of going through the co-planning and co-teaching cycle over several weeks, those pieces happen closer in succession. ' (The Essential Guide for Student-Centered Coaching, Sweeney and Harris, p. 29).

In Using Mini Cycles to Take Student-Centered Coaching Deeper, Leanna Harris and Diane Sweeney inform us that mini cycles ' create rich opportunities for teachers and coaches to work together on a key strategy or instructional practice and monitor how students are doing as the new practice is used. ' They recommend using a series of guiding questions to steer the planning and implementation of the work. Together these questions create a focused series of conversations that keep student learning at the forefront.

April and May hold opportunities for LRS to incorporate mini cycles into their daily schedules. The content focus from Coaching Community #4 was eliciting student responses- oral, written, and action- as a fundamental component of effective teaching. LRS can utilize this quarter to insert various types of responses into mini cycles when planning with teachers. Consider how you will actively engage students in the learning process during instruction within mini cycles to enhance understanding and retention of concepts.

Both community and family are involved and actively contributing to the social, emotional, physical, academic, and occupational growth of students.

- Adapted from LETRS for Administrators

We're excited to share the latest edition of the ARI Family Newsletter with you! Inside, you'll find valuable family and community literacy resources to help support and engage student learning both before and after school, as well as during Spring Break.

This special edition also included our fun Family Spring Break Challenge! We invite you to submit a photo of your student engaging in one of the activities found in the ARI Family Spring Break Newsletter to arimedia@alsde.edu. The participation window is open from March 3rd to April 30th. Submissions will be featured weekly on the ARI social media platforms. Can your student “get caught reading?”

We encourage you to take the time to review these resources and share them with others in your community. Please let us know how we can assist you with your family and community literacy initiatives this school year. Together, we can achieve more! 😊

The information included in this document is done from the perspective of improving LITERACY instruction for students and is only intended to outline support that directly relates to literacy instruction. Please use any resource links with discretion, as their position statements are their own and not necessarily representative of ARI and the ALSDE. Usage of any materials should be with adherence to rules and regulations of the Alabama State Department of Education.