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 literacy among all public school students.

During the autumn months, leaves begin to change colors and fall off the trees. This process is a transition between summer and winter. Although this marks the end of a crop growing season, we want our students to be continually growing in the area of literacy through all seasons. Autumn can be an exciting season of change for our schools. How can you make a shift in practices that will better serve your students? Look to the Alabama Leaderships Cogs as you plan steps to implement change at your school.

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.

• Leadership and Implementation Teams
• Universal Core Instruction
• Intervention
• Data-Informed Decision Making
• Assessment
• Professional Learning
• Community and Family Involvement

• Share Alabama Literacy Act for Families information with the community.
• Continue to conduct science of reading-aligned literacy walk-throughs regularly.
  
• Analyze formal and informal data and determine areas of need for professional learning.
• Hold a data team meeting to review benchmark results, grade reports, student work, and other data. Discuss progress toward goals.
  
• Using student data, hold data-informed conversations with teachers and identify next steps.

Intentional leadership is important for any data-informed shift. The leader should be clear on the vision and set goals to guide the work. Now that the opening of school is behind us, it is important to note that each of you has an important role in creating an environment where students can reach their full academic potential. The partnership between the instructional leader and Local Reading Specialist (LRS) is the foundation for creating and maintaining successful moves that will impact student achievement. The instructional leader sets the expectation that coaching is for all, is data-driven and student-centered, and will increase student achievement. As the leader in your building, have you thought about the shift to first gear? Have you met with your LRS to discuss coaching needs? Have you analyzed spring ACAP and BOY data to ensure coaching is occurring based on data? Have you ensured that teachers understand the role of your LRS? Are you ensuring that your LRS is supported in his or her coaching efforts?

Our diagnostic assessments help us harvest baseline data on our students, identify consistent reading deficiencies, and develop a plan of action. However, we can’t stop there! Progress monitoring is a critical piece of ensuring student growth. LETRS, Volume 1, page 71 explains that there are three main reasons why progress monitoring is necessary once a student has been determined to have a reading deficiency and begins receiving intervention supports.

1. It is important to directly measure the student’s response to intervention to make sure that the instruction is working to close the gap.
2. Insufficient response to intervention is a criterion by which students who may need an IEP can be identified and get the help they need.
3. Objective data is better than our subjective impressions or opinions of student progress.

Progress monitoring assessments should be:

• Given frequently (every 1-3 weeks).
• Formative in nature and used as a guide for teachers’ instructional decisions.
• Brief and measure progress toward a specific goal.
• Repeated frequently, as needed, to measure student growth.

Where does your school stand on harvesting evidence for Literacy Act Portfolios (LAPs)? The hard work teachers put forth with planning lessons based on standards, aligning resources, and assessing students’ learning is similar to the harvesting process. Gathering appropriate resources for planning, implementing lessons with science of reading strategies, and gathering evidence of student learning mirrors the harvesting of crops. For Literacy Act Portfolios, appropriate artifacts yielding scores of 70% or higher can be used as mastery evidence pieces (except fluency, which is 90%) to support this pathway to promotion. If planned in regular standards-based instruction, collection of these pieces of evidence can be done for all third graders in your classroom utilizing your core reading program.

In the context of the Alabama Literacy Act, tiered instruction and intervention are structured approaches to improve reading and literacy skills among students, particularly in the early grades. This is the standard, foundational instruction that is designed to meet the needs of the majority of students. The Alabama Literacy Act aims to ensure that all students receive the necessary support and instruction to become proficient readers by the end of the third grade. Data-informed decisions for tiered instruction and intervention strategies are crucial components of this effort, ensuring that struggling readers receive targeted and effective assistance.

The Alabama Guidance for Problem Solving Teams, page 13, defines Tier I:

Tier I is the core instruction and universal support for all students and consists of high-quality, standards-based instruction in the classroom setting by highly qualified personnel using evidence-based curricula and instructional strategies differentiated to meet every student's needs. Data from screening and progress monitoring are used to differentiate instruction within Tier I, which occurs in whole group, small group, and individual settings. Tier I must be considered the key component in successful tiered instruction.

Did you know that oral language is the foundation of all reading, writing, and spelling achievement? What does LETRS tell us about oral language development and its importance?

LETRS for Administrators, page 72 states:

The oral language abilities most closely associated with beginning reading and spelling have to do with the identification and mental manipulation of speech sounds as they are used to form words. There are three oral language abilities most closely associated with later reading comprehension and writing:

• Vocabulary related to knowledge of semantics and morphology

• The understanding and production of sentences

• Sensitivity to the use of language in social settings

LETRS for Early Childhood Educators, page 86 informs us that children engaged in developmentally appropriate activities focusing on both spoken and written language tend to display improved skill and mastery in both.

LETRS Volume 1, page 20 explains:

One cannot understand by reading what one cannot understand by listening. Therefore, oral language development, vocabulary enrichment, and verbal reasoning skills are critical components of classroom literacy instruction from the outset.

Our approved core programs serve as a tool and resource for teaching the Alabama State Standards. The standards outline exactly what students should be learning at each grade level. The Vertical Alignment Resource, linked below, affords teachers the opportunity to view each standard across grade levels. The benefits of knowing the requirements before and after each grade level can assist teachers in planning for purposeful and explicit instruction. In addition, this tool boasts a color-coded element to signal some of our most important standards at each grade level.

The following aligned standards can support educators in planning:

• Standards with Proficiency Scales
• Standards tested on ACAP Reading
• Standards tested on ACAP ELA
• Standards tested in the Text-Dependent Writing portion of ACAP

Now that all Early Years Assessments are complete...what is next? It’s time to carefully analyze the data and make instructional decisions that will impact the learning of each student. ARI has created flow charts aligned with each Early Years Assessment that can be utilized when making these instructional decisions. It’s important to begin intervening with our at-risk students starting at their lowest deficit. The flow charts found in the folder below and can benefit your team when making data-informed decisions concerning interventions, groupings, and even core instruction priorities.

ARI has released a video that aims to equip families with information about literacy screeners and help them learn important questions to ask their child's teachers about supporting reading outside of school. The video has been posted on our social media platforms.

The ALSDE Student Reading Improvement Plan (SRIP) template has been updated in the PowerSchool Analytics & Insights platform. This update includes optional elements, such as vision and hearing screenings, and introduces a key new feature- a Plan Update tab. With this feature, there is no longer a need to duplicate plans when carrying them over into the next school year. For the 2024-2025 school year, Tier III interventions will be documented directly within PowerSchool Analytics & Insights. Documentation for Tier III interventions will be organized by the title of the intervention program used.

We are excited for the implementation of the next component of PowerSchool Student Analytics and Insights (formerly Unified Insights) … MTSS Student Plans! This quick reference guide addresses the top ten frequently asked questions related to MTSS Student Plans; however, the list is not exhaustive. On demand video tutorials may be accessed here. Additional guidance and tutorials are coming soon! For more information, please contact the following ALSDE staff or a PowerSchool Coach:

• Kristie Shankles, kristie.shankles@alsde.edu, AL-MTSS
• Amy Tilford, amy.tilford@alsde.edu, OMI
• Misty Wilson, misty.wilson@alsde.edu, ARI

Summer starts in September with the Office of Extended Learning! View the video presentation and Google Drive files below to help guide your initial summer learning planning meeting. Everything is included to help you lead your summer learning planning team.

Summer Learning Rocks Video Presentation

Summer Learning Rocks Google Folder

Email Jeff Norris, Education Specialist for more information: jeff.norris@alsde.edu

Dyslexia is defined by the Alabama Literacy Act as a specific learning challenge or disability that is neurobiological in origin and characterized by difficulties with accurate and/ or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the delivery of effective classroom instruction.

We are excited to offer virtual sessions for all administrators, led by Diane Sweeney and Mel Ilk! This includes assistant principals since they will not be attending SLSR Leadership Labs. However, all administrators are invited to attend. These sessions will support school leaders in the implementation of student-centered coaching, as well as the critical systems and structures necessary for the successful implementation of a system of literacy instruction. Participants need to register on WebEx and PowerSchool to receive credit towards the Principal’s Act. Details are in the flyers below.

SLSR Leadership Labs are an opportunity to engage in school-embedded professional learning as a team of principals. They are structured around an observation of a principal leading a coaching effort. A pre-brief provides time for the principal to set the focus and share tools and strategies that are being used at the school, and the debrief is a time to unpack implications and points of learning. The SLSR Leadership Labs are centered around the administrative cogs outlined in LETRS for Administrators.

Date: October 17-18

Location: US Space Camp Operations Center, Huntsville, AL

Details: Join The International Dyslexia Association for a two-day conference. Become more equipped to help students Rise to the Literacy and Math Challenges of Dyslexia and Dyscalculia. Learn strategies that promote better reading, writing, spelling, and math skills for those who struggle. Also, become more aware of some of the issues that often accompany these struggles, including anxiety, attention deficits, frustration, and more.

Register here.

Date: November 7-8, 2024

Location: Birmingham Marriott Hotel, Birmingham, AL

Details: The Alabama Literacy Association (ALA) is the local affiliate of the International Literacy Association, whose mission is to transform lives through literacy. Their mission is fulfilled through the work of committees and local councils around the state. The annual fall conference, Celebrating Success!, includes keynote speakers Wiley Blevins and Dr. Holly Lane. Register here.

The following calendar has been created to help you think through your LETRS journey. Multiple sessions will be offered throughout each window. NOTE: You must have LETRS Credentials: Username and Password for the Learning Platform (letrs.com) to attend sessions. It is imperative that you attend the sessions in order.

For questions about LETRS & Admin, email: alabamaletrs@alsde.edu.

For questions about Early Childhood, email: ece.letrs@ece.alabama.gov.

Local Reading Specialists were recently introduced to the Student-Centered Coaching Guide for K-3 Literacy in Alabama Schools. This valuable resource houses coaching tools that center around coaching and supports LRS Bridge to Practice. It includes:

• Instructional Framework Models
• Coaching Resources for Local Reading Specialists
• An Appendix with Digital Copies of All Coaching Tools

At Coaching Community #1, each LRS received a copy of the Student-Centered Coaching Guide for themselves and one for their principal. The digital version of this resource can be found here.

“Coaches are defined by how they spend most of their time. If coaches mostly lead PLCs, then they are defined as PLC facilitators. If they mostly teach interventions, they are defined as an interventionist. If coaches are mostly in coaching cycles, they will be defined as a coach. For this reason, it is important for coaches to spend more than half of their time in coaching cycles. Otherwise, they will be defined by whatever else they’re doing.” (Diane Sweeney Consulting Blog, Getting to the 60%).

As a Local Reading Specialist (LRS), 60% of your time should be spent coaching and mentoring teachers daily via planned coaching cycles based on data, and the other 40% of your time should be spent carrying out other ARI duties and responsibilities as outlined in the MOU/MOA.

The expectation is that each LRS with one or more years of experience complete a minimum of four full coaching cycles and new LRS complete a minimum of two full coaching cycles each semester using the Results-Based Coaching Tool, in addition to the various mini coaching cycles that are the ongoing work of the LRS. That is eight for the year for returning LRS and four for the year for first year LRS. This expectation is aligned to the increased funding allocated for ARI-funded LRS. Our weekly schedules and coaching tools make our coaching visible, in addition to highlighting our impact. Each LRS is expected to upload coaching documentation (RBCTs, mini logs and schedules) in the folder his or her RLS shared. The data is gathered from LRS folders twice per year and is used to provide information to the state legislators about the impact of coaching.

Our focus is to ensure ALL students are able to read at or above grade level by the end of third grade. With this in mind, the September Coaching Communities included a deep dive into the first two components of the Alabama Structured Student-Centered Practice Profile- Analyzing Data and Facilitating Data Conversations- to plan for coaching cycles. Along with your instructional leader, continue to analyze data from the various viewpoints. When first analyzing data, begin with school ACAP Data and Early Years Assessment data. Once ACAP data has been analyzed and connections to EYA have been made, you can plan collaboratively with teachers to identify the Tier 1 class deficits and co-plan to collect additional data in the form of a coaching cycle pre-assessment. Utilizing this data, you can then collaborate with the teacher to determine goals and learning targets. Remember that data analysis is part of all phases within the coaching cycle.

ARI has created the Alabama Literacy Act for Families 2024 Module to assist you in providing information so every K-3 parent can understand the Alabama Literacy Act and ways to support their child. ARI can partner with you in turning around this training to families. We want to provide an opportunity for EVERY family to attend a training. Here are a few ideas:

•This can be coupled with an event already scheduled or a solo event. (Ex: October is National Family Month.)

•Consider doing this as a district endeavor led by your local reading specialists (with support from ARI regionals) or providing a training at each school.

•Consider inviting community agencies to support students before or after school, so they will be equipped as well.

Fall is the time! Let’s give every family a chance to have this learning the first semester of school!

The Alabama Literacy Act for Family Communication Tool links are included below:

ALA Family Communication Tool

ALA Family Communication Tool, Spanish Version

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.