NEISD Reading Academy News
May 2023
Teacher Spotlights
Meet Danya Davis
3rd Grade
East Terrell Hills
To be honest, my initial thought when I first found out about Reading Academies was that this is just another program to add to the list of implementation strategies given to teachers. However, as the trainings progressed, it broadened my perspective as a teacher as well as the student’s perspective in their learning journey. The conversations that took place during each session were personal, insightful, and meaningful because even our own experiences as bilingual learners came into play during these discussions.
A “Big Rock” I learned from Reading Academies is the importance of phonics instruction. We learned how to teach phonics in a systematic and structured way that helps students build a strong foundation for reading. The power of data-driven instruction helps teachers identify areas of need and tailor their instruction to meet those needs, [especially when partnered with] the effectiveness of explicit instruction and providing students with more manageable ways to master the skills. Providing students with feedback helps support their learning progress and success. Teachers learn how to teach vocabulary in a way that helps students understand the meaning of words and use them in context. Reading Academies provided me with a range of strategies and resources that can be used to better support struggling readers achieve success.
My Cohort Leader, Vanessa Trevino, is AMAZING! She helped me by providing me with guidance, support, and coaching throughout the Reading Academies. She provided feedback on lessons, observed classroom instruction, offered strategies for addressing student needs, and facilitated discussions among the group. Having a Cohort Leader who is knowledgeable, experienced, and supportive was invaluable in helping me implement the strategies effectively and improve my teaching practices in the classroom.
If you are starting Reading Academies next year keep an open mind and be willing to learn new strategies and approaches to teaching reading. Collaborate with your colleagues so you can share ideas and strategies at each session. You will learn so many different approaches from new teachers and veteran teachers. Overall, the key to success in Reading Academies is to be open to new ideas and willing to put in the effort to implement them effectively in your classroom. It’s a melting pot of knowledge from all backgrounds- take advantage of this opportunity!
Connecting Reading Academy Content with NASOT
The more opportunities students have to write (or draw), the more opportunities they have to think deeply about their learning. Writing and drawing is an effective way to ensure all students have a chance to respond to their learning, thereby Increasing Student Response Rates, which is Element 24 of NASOT. Another NASOT element that ties closely to the content of Module 11 is Element 14: Generating and Defending Claims. As students engage in persuasive and argumentative writing, or even as they respond to questions about a text they have read, they perform the academic skills of generating a claim and supporting it with evidence. While the NASOT Handbook offers a description of how to guide students through this process, one of the simplest ways to encourage this type of thinking and writing is to provide sentence stems for the claim (My idea is...), the reason (I think this because...), and the evidence (My evidence from the text is...). These sentence stems support both the thinking process students need to employ to bolster their understanding of a text and provide a scaffold for written response in a variety of contexts.
Encourage student writing throughout the instructional school day. Writing to process the understanding of content should occur daily, not only in ELAR, but also in Math, Science and Social Studies.
Informal assessments provide data about students' writing processes, writing products, and composition skills as well as convention skills. Informal assessments in writing can include teacher observation notes, anchor charts, process checklists, writing-product checklists and rubrics, and portfolios.
Formal assessments ask students to write in response to standardized prompts, with writing samples evaluated according to a rubric that has undergone a validation process.
Our district curriculum offers various rubrics and checklists to facilitate the assessment process.
When Things Aren't Going Right, Go Left
When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left is about a boy who experiences some tough times and develops fears, worries and doubts. He learns to leave his burdens behind and move forward. Students will learn how much one can accomplish when you leave your stresses behind. This lovely picture book inspires readers to slow down and quiet their fears.
The Surprise
By Zadie Smith and Nick Laird
La Sombrilla Grande
By Amy June Bates
Al lado de la puerta delantera hay una sombrilla. Es grande. Es tan grande que cuando comienza a llover hay espacio para todos debajo de ella. No importa si eres alta. O si llevas ropa a cuadros. O si eres peludo. No importa cuántas piernas o patas tienes. Exuberantes ilustraciones y un sencillo texto lírico tocan con sutileza los temas de inclusión y tolerancia.
Vanessa Trevino, Cohort 11
Translanguaging, as we learned in Reading Academies, is an approach to the use of language in which the language practices of our bilingual students are viewed not as two separate language systems but as one linguistic repertoire. In Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education, Garcia and Wei trace the development of the theory of Translanguaging and describe how Translanguaging is used by bilingual learners to learn and by teachers to teach. Readers will come away with a different appreciation of not only their own language practices, but also those of their students.
~Vanessa
Want to learn how writing can support reading?
Check out this article!
Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading
By Steve Graham and Michael Hebert
