The first keynote speaker was Irene Fountas, yes the woman who is one half of Fountas and Pinnell. Her message focused on "Access, Equity, and Joy in Literacy Learning: Every Child, Every Classroom, Every Day." One question that she posed to the audience that stuck with me was: what are the bigger purposes of literacy instruction and are we losing our way? She stressed that all of our children should feel a sense of agency and joy as a literate person. And then she put this slide up on the screen for all of us to strive for...
Irene also talked about how we need to be a team, we need a common vision if we are going to help all kids become readers. I loved that she stressed the importance of a positive school culture in a speech about literacy instruction. And she referenced Hattie's effect size research...
Collective efficacy is the highest ranked factor influencing student achievement. Basically, we all need to believe that we all can do it!
And one of my favorite lines from her speech that I promptly tweeted out to the world...
Amen @FountasPinnell “zero out the copy paper budget and get more books!” #mra50 #booklove @Scholastic— Liz Garden (@PrincipalGarden) April 4, 2019
Friday's opening keynote by author, Jack Gantos, had us laughing so hard that my cheeks hurt. I loved listening to him talk about his writing days at the Boston Public Library. He also told us about the stories from his childhood that inspired many of his books that he has written. He painted this great image of his mom stirring sauce while cooking dinner, and as the spoon is stirring the sauce one way, stories from his mom were spinning out the other way. He also shared a great little activity that he does with kids. He has them find the spot in the library where their book would go on the shelf. He told us to have the child slide their hand into the spot and think "wouldn't this be the perfect place for a book written by me?!"
I attended a session with Jeff Anderson. He is an author who has also written several professional development books mostly focused around editing and conventions. He was another session where my cheeks hurt from laughing, but also where I kept nodding in agreement with his message. I loved his thought...what if conventions in writing were about wonder and possibility instead of dread? He had us repeat the mantra: correcting is not teaching. I think sometimes we get caught up in fixing kids' writing that maybe we forget about teaching them? He shared three ways to ruin writing...
1. Flood lessons with unnecessary, abstract terminology
2. Take a right-or-wrong stance
3. Focus on product over process
Another awesome session that I attended was presented by Annie Ward, the author of From Striving to Thriving and an assistant superintendent. Her session was titled: Riverkeeper Leadership: Maintaining Vital Streams of Books for All Readers. She started the session talking about a great moment where a child was given a book from his teacher and took the book home to share with his family. Annie's message was to think about all of the links in the chain that helped to get that book in that child's hand. She has put a lot of thought into how to restructure district process and procedure so that schools and classrooms and homes are not experiencing book deserts. Imagine the idea of volume building as an intervention, meaning a part of a child's reading intervention plan is simply to have a plan for increasing the number of quality books that the child has access to and the time to read them.
She actually has someone she hired who she calls her literacy ambassador. That person's job is to help elementary teachers curate their classroom libraries. Sign me up! I found my next career! (Just kidding, sort of.) Here are some of the slides from her presentation, including the data that is backing up the changes she has put in place in her district...
And the last session I attended was with Tammy and Clare, they are local literacy consultants who recently wrote the book It's All About the Books: How to Create Bookrooms and Classroom Libraries That Inspire Readers. Here's a sobering slide that I know is not news to any of you...
During their talk, I loved that they discussed the importance of capturing kids' dispositions as well as their skills. We watched a video of them working with some 1st graders and instead of asking the students what they liked to read, they asked "what do you like to think about while reading?" Some other great points from them were about scope and sequence and how we need to not be so rigid, we should allow ourselves to go back and go forward, mixing genres and topics throughout the year. I also loved how they shared some great student created labels for classroom libraries. You can read more about that and see some here: https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2019/03/30/top-ten-book-basket-labels-created-by-kids-by-tammy-mulligan-and-clare-landrigan/
There are more takeaways from my time at MRA, but I need to still look back over my notes and process everything. It was two packed days of literacy love and spending time with so many other bookaholics, my people!
Currently reading:
Since I just spent two days attending sessions at the MA Reading Association Conference...of course I got some new books to read! I finally finished Dry; definitely a good book to read if anyone wants to borrow it. Not a book for our student population, but an edge-of-your-seat read for an adult. One of the speakers at MRA was the author Jack Gantos. He is a local author (who I can hopefully bring to Mayo), who wrote the series Rotten Ralph. He was a hilarious speaker! He has written a variety of books, many that are somewhat autobiographical, filled with stories from his life. I came home and started reading Dead End in Norvelt. After hearing him speak, I think I will certainly enjoy his writing and the stories he tells.
I picked up the next book on my nightstand to start reading. I have heard great things about The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise. And I even had one of the parents on our library committee come up to me to recommend it, so now I am diving into this book!
Events this week:
Monday - Patty at the Assistant Principals Conference, 4th grade makeup MCAS in the conference room, Girls on the Run @ 3:45
Tuesday - 5th Grade ELA MCAS day, Kindergarten and Grade 1 Team Meeting @ 3:45 (Lexia training, 2nd grade will join if available)
Wednesday - Report Cards will be available for parents at the end of the day, Grade 2 team meeting @ 8:00, Grade 3 practice MCAS, possible 4th grade MCAS makeup, Pumpernickel Puppets for K in the library @ 10:00, Girls on the Run @ 3:45
Thursday - 5th Grade ELA MCAS day
Friday - Grade 1 Field Trip to Mt. Wachusett Community College, SPED meeting @ 12:15 in the conference room, 4th grade MCAS makeup, SEPAC Family BINGO at Mountview @ 6:00pm
Great things I noticed last week:
- I had fun solving area problems with 3rd graders on Monday.
- While I don't have any pictures, I can tell you that the 4th grade team did a great job as our first MCAS group. Teachers were ready, students worked hard, and there were no major technology issues! Way to go 4th grade!
- I sat with some 3rd graders who were working on writing about the Statue of Liberty. Mrs. Hilton was helping them use the text to include evidence in their writing.
- I had fun attending and presenting at the MRA Conference on Thursday and Friday. Kristin and Joann joined me on Thursday (I forgot to snap a selfie!) and Maria and Maura joined me on Friday.
Check it out:
Check out this great video series about how learning happens: https://www.edutopia.org/how-learning-happens
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