“Writing is not caught, it must be taught,” Dr. Anita Archer. Teaching structured, consistent lessons in composition helps students to become better communicators and most importantly improves reading skills. The skills taught in writing build upon foundational skills.

Workshop details effective methods for teaching expository writing; persuasive essays, informational pieces and narratives. Focus is on developing student engagement, creating a writing identity, using meaning, organizational skills, structure, elaboration, word choice, conventions of spelling, grammar and punctuation

The powerful Reading Workshop is a model of instruction that focuses on the work of the reader. Teachers model and directly teach the skills and strategies that proficient readers use. Readers' Workshop allows students to learn skills and strategies while reading books they have selected themselves. The workshop method emphasizes teacher-student conferences and peer conversations about books

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Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote, “ Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

It is proven that students learn best when they are involved in the learning process…so the co-creation of anchor charts is a win-win! These charts provide students with a source to reference when working on their own, supporting their work, creating independence and also saving teachers from having to spend classroom time going over multiple times.

Research indicates that 2 months of reading skills and 2 1/2 months of math skills are lost over a single summer. Plus, the summer slide is cumulative, so those lost months add up over time (Kuhfeld, 2021). Therefore, it is incumbent upon teachers and parents to engage students in consistent reading activities during the summer break

The National Reading Panel conducted an extensive study which found that many students experience difficulties learning to read because of their inadequate phonemic awareness (2000). The combination of explicit instruction phonics instruction coupled with a balance of Literacy correlates to a significant increase in reading progress.

Given this knowledge teachers can finally put the reading debate on whether or not to teach explicit phonics to their students to rest and teach it systematically within the framework of a balanced literacy classroom.

Our greatest assets are our teachers and support staff professionals who use their levels of expertise and knowledge of their students’ needs to collaborate and develop a productive system of support for all students. During this workshop, strategies, hands-on experiences and useful information are provided for teachers to implement for optimum student achievement

“Without data, all we have is an opinion” (Edward Diming). We use data because we can gain important knowledge about the comprehension of our class and individual students as compared with district expectations. Our ultimate goal is to use the information to target our instruction so every child will learn and succeed.

“Without comprehension, children gain no meaning from what they read.” Comprehension strategies are used to increase children's understanding of the text to help them become active readers by engaging with the text.

A large study conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Pinnell et al., 2005) states that 44 percent of fourth-graders lack the fluency levels necessary for grade level comprehension. Therefore, teaching students research-based strategies for fluent reading builds stamina and increases students’ comprehension levels significantly.

It has been said that there is no better measure of a school’s culture than how inclusive it is of its most vulnerable students. Tomlinson’s model of Differentiation provides tailored instruction to meet the needs of individual students. By differentiating content, process, products, or the learning environment coupled with ongoing assessment and flexible grouping, this becomes a successful approach to instruction.

Workshop provides guidelines for developing an organized classroom management system that produces a self-managing classroom. Teachers who develop this type of classroom environment experience greater student achievement and fewer behavior problems. The goal is to begin the year with a strong foundation that will nurture and support the development of a positive environment for higher-level achievement.