Key to Success

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Keyto Success

• Irving Principals Meeting
• August 2 , 2007

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Why Consider a Change?

• A small group of committed people can change the
  world and indeed, its the only thing that ever
  does.
• -Margaret Mead

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Did You Know?
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• "Insanity doing the same thing over and over
  again and expecting different results."
• Albert Einstein

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It Takes a Village - Why do we need to do things
differently?

• If we could shrink the earths population to a
  village of precisely 100 people with all existing
  ratios remaining the same it would look like this

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• 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western
  Hemisphere (North and South) and 8 Africans
• 51 females and 49 males
• 70 non-Christians and 30 Christians
• 50 of the wealth would be in the hands of 6
  people and all of those people would be in the
  U.S.
• 80 would live in substandard housing
• 50 would suffer from malnutrition
• 1 would be near death and 1 near birth
• 1 would be college educated
• No one would own a computer
• Paraphrased from an excerpt by Lisa Brahim, San
  Francisco

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What does this mean for Texas?

• 4,383,871 students enrolled in Texas public
  schools
• More than 2,167,597 are enrolled in elementary
  schools (about 48)
• Ethnic Breakdown 14 African American, 45
  Hispanic, 38 White, 3 Other
• About 55 are Economically Disadvantaged
• Only 62 of ALL students met passing standards on
  all content area TAKS tests in 2004
• Overall drop out rate is about 4 (48,641
  students) with 61 of those students being
  Hispanic (29,671 students)
• 11 of 1229 Districts have an Exemplary rating.
  172 Recognized and 989 are academically
  acceptable
• 304 of 7908 Campuses have an exemplary rating

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How Do You Measure Success?
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Irving Cluster
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L.F. Smith Elementary
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Rick Schneider Middle School

• Five Feeder Campuses
• Transitioned Teachers to RSMS from Intermediate
  and Elementary Campuses
• New Concept of 5/6 Campus

• Lost Math Teacher Mid Year Sub for the
  remainder of the year Most Challenging Team
• Lost AP Mid Year to Open New School

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What does the research say?

• Comprehension is not increasing, but high school
  graduates are expected to read complex, technical
  material in order to be successful in the
  workforce.
• Secondary students in the U.S. are scoring lower
  than students in other comparable nations. This
  is especially evident as secondary students deal
  with understanding discipline-specific content.
• There continues to be an achievement gap.
• Secondary teachers are not prepared to teach
  literacy strategies that are necessary for
  students comprehension of content-specific text.
• There is little empirical data to support some of
  the programs that are being implemented within
  many of the secondary schools.
• RAND 2002 Reading Study Group Excerpts

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How do we find the answers?

• All Classrooms need
• Access to a variety of reading material
• Skill building instruction that creates an
  interest in more complex reading material.
• Highly quality assessments that indicate
  weaknesses and strengths of students and the
  professional learning needs of teachers.
• Highly skilled teachers who model and explicitly
  teach reading comprehension and study strategies
  across content areas.
• Reading specialists who apply explicit
  instructional strategies for the struggling
  reader.

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Key Elements to Improve Middle and High School
Adolescent Literacy Programs
Bianca-rosa and Snow, 2004
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What is Balanced Literacy?

• 4 key Components
• Gradual Release
• Workshop Approach (Reading, Writing and Word
  Study)
• Rigorous and Relevant
• Teacher is the most important element!

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Gradual Release Model

• Four kinds of reading/writing and Four levels of
  support.

TO
WITH
BY
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What is a Workshop Approach?

• An organized set of language and literary
  experiences (typically, a mini-lesson, variety of
  grouping (small, large, individual, conferring
  and sharing with peers/teacher) designed to help
  students to become more effective readers and
  writers in any content area.

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Translate effective instruction into a classroom
framework

• Workshop Approach

Immersion of print of every genre
Large Blocks of time for extended reading and
writing
Explicit Instruction in Reading Strategies that
facilitates greater access to content objectives.
Accessible Resources including organized books
baskets, charts, computers, pens, clipboards,
sticky notes, journals, notebooks
Opportunities for readers to read and practice
strategies in self selected text that they are
able to read.
Continuing opportunities for teacher and peer
response
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Components of Balanced Literacy

• Reading Framework
• Think Aloud / Read Aloud / Interactive Read Aloud
  / Book Talks
• Shared Reading
• Guided Reading
• Independent Reading
• Readers Notebooks
• Reading Response Journals
• Literature Circles
• Literacy Workstations / Workboard

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Components of Balanced Literacy

• Writing Framework
• Writers Talks
• Modeled/Shared Writing
• Interactive Writing
• Independent Writing
• Writers Notebooks
• Investigations
• Poetry

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Components of Balanced Literacy

• Word Work / Word Study
• Phonological Awareness (Constituent Sounds of
  words in learning to read and spell)
• Orthographic Awareness (Symbols within a writing
  system)
• Semantics (Derivation of meaning could be
  context clues)
• Syntax (Structure of language and Sequence
  grammar)

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Create a Narrow Focus

• Balanced Literacy in All Content Areas
• Safe and Civil Schools
• Effective Technology Instruction

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Building a Strong Literacy Leadership Team

• Essential Questions
• What are the characteristics of a successful
  curriculum focus on your campus?
• What does it look like?
• What does it sound like?
• How do you communicate that focus to your team?

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Building Strong Cross Curricular Teams

• Successful Teams
• Discuss curriculum and instruction and view
  literacy and an integral part of their content
  area.

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Traps that Negate Success

• When the campus stakeholders
• Believe that time will fix all problems.
• Refuse to acknowledge that teaming is a process
  not an event.
• Have unreasonable expectations.
• Resist change and/or refuse to compromise.
• Allow personality conflicts or personal needs to
  dictate the team focus.

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Traps that Negate Success, cont.

• When the campus stakeholders
• Display an inability/unwillingness to work
  collaboratively.
• Are inconsistent in meeting or in holding team
  responsibilities and deadlines.
• Refuse to commit adequate time and attention for
  planning, organizing, and preparing.
• Allow inequities.

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Timeline for Training and Implementation

• Year 1 The Training Year
• Year 2 Non Negotiable and Negotiable List
  created and Implemented by Staff
• Year 3 Increase Non Negotiable List and Deepen
  Understanding of Literacy at Given Level
• Year 4 Integrate Across Content for Concept
  Based Instruction
• Year 5 Needs Assessment and Begin Improvement
  Cycle

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What do we observe in our classrooms?

• Curriculum Instruction
• Do we know what is going on in each core
  classroom?
• How can we integrate instruction?
• How are we differentiating?
• What strategies (reading, writing, listening and
  speaking) should be consistent across the
  curriculum?
• How can we plan together for more effective
  delivery?

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Who is accountable on your campus?

• Accountability
• What do we need to know about our students?
• What do we need to know about our team practices?
• Where and how can we get this data?
• How will we know if we are successful?

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212 - The Extra Degree

• At 211 degrees, water is hot
• At 212 degrees,
• IT BOILS!!

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212 - The Extra Degree

• What will the extra degree look like at
• Your campus?

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Eleanor Roosevelt

• Every effort must be made in childhood to teach
  the young to use their own minds. For one thing
  is sure If they dont make up their own minds,
  someone else will do it for them.