TCS District Literacy Committee Meets

The District Literacy Team met this afternoon, focusing on implementing nonfiction strategies from Jennifer Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book.  Dr. Jennifer Cardwell, Kelly McGough, Edra Perry, and Jenni Peters designed the agenda for the meeting.  The group members have been focusing on Doug Lemov's Reading Reconsidered for three years.  Today, the group revisited his chapter on Interactive Reading.  The two texts provided information and strategies for teaching students how to get the most from nonfiction text. 

Lemov contends that simple habits like interactive reading and discussion are two vital systems for building habits of lifelong readers.  During Interactive Reading (IR), a student engages with the text by underlining, marking up key points, and summarizing ideas in the margin.  IR causes students to interact more directly with the text and thus helps increase student attentiveness and focus during reading.  It also provides students with tools to break down and make sense of otherwise daunting texts.  The process starts with teacher planning, explicit modeling and instruction, and, of course, lots of practice. 

According to Lemov, teachers need to help students develop discussion skills.  Students gain greater depth of understanding when they are able to communicate effectively with their peers.  Strong habits of discussion support students in learning to entertain opposing viewpoints and to change their opinions in acordance with fact and reason. The goal is shared collaborative inquiry, not debate. 

The District Literacy Team members will share their new learning with colleagues at their schools in turnaround training.