TCS Literacy Team Meets

The TCS District Literacy Team met Tuesday for the second time, discussing two important components of Reading Reconsidered, close reading and reading nonfiction.  The team is lead by Dr. Jennifer Cardwell and district reading coaches, Kelly McGough and Edra Perry.  Members are comprised of teachers and administrators from all schools in the district.  

According to author Doug Lemov, "One of the goals of teaching is to instill in students the ability to wrestle with the most demanding texts, interpret them independently, and understand why and how them mean what they do.  Close reading does this, and that makes it critically important."  He defines close reading as, "the methodical breaking down of language and structure of a complex passage to establish and analyze its meaning."  Teaching students to do it requires layered reading and asking sequenced, text-dependent questions; and it should end whenever possible with mastery expressed through writing.

Each school's Literacy Team will provide turnaround training for teachers in December or January.