Literacy Lines - Page 3 of 19 - Keys to Literacy

Home » Literacy Lines

How End of Year Data Prepares You for Beginning of the Year Success, Part 2: What Do our Teachers Need?

May is one of the busiest times of the year in schools. There are field days, field trips, awards ceremonies, musical concerts, spring festivals and still somehow, we manage to squeeze in, end-of-year testing. Too often end-of-year testing is seen as another mandate or item for compliance yet, using it wisely can bear the fruits of invaluable professional development insights for your teaching staff. We have the opportunity to harness the information found within those assessments to guide our professional development decisions which ultimately will help teacher and student performance.

Pati Montgomery | May 20, 2025 | 0 Comments

Writing Instruction in the Age of AI

How does the availability of AI influence writing instruction? How can students use AI to support their writing development? Will using AI diminish the cognitive and academic benefits students gain from writing as a tool for learning? My response to these questions is clear: just because AI can write for students doesn’t mean they no longer need instruction to become proficient writers. The challenge—and opportunity—is to determine how AI can supplement, not replace, best practice for teaching writing. This post highlights key points from a longer article I recently wrote with the same title.

Joan Sedita | May 9, 2025 | 1 Comment

How End of the Year Data Prepares You for Beginning of the Year Success, Part One

We, building leaders/principals, often breathe a heavy sigh of relief as we end the school year. Being a school principal is no easy task, and its workload burden is never lost on me. I walked in those shoes for over 12 years and clearly remember the days winding down to the close of another school year. Though those days were relished for perhaps finding an opportunity to relax for two minutes, I knew what critical information was being revealed to me that would prepare me for a smooth beginning to the following year.

Pati Montgomery | April 17, 2025 | 0 Comments

Principles of Effective Literacy Instruction

There are several key teaching principles that help educators address a wide range of learning styles and student needs across all grade levels when teaching reading and writing. These core instructional practices are emphasized in every Keys to Literacy professional development course. This post explains the following principles: Explicit and Systematic Instruction, Gradual Release of Responsibility, Models and Think Aloud, Differentiated Instruction and Scaffolds, Automaticity Through Practice and Review, Data-Driven Instruction, and Providing Opportunities for Success.

Joan Sedita | April 4, 2025 | 2 Comments

Discussion to Support Learning, Part 3

This is the third of a three-part series of posts focused on using discussion to support learning. Simply getting students to talk out loud or talk to one another does not necessarily lead to learning. Effective, academic talk and classroom discussions should be productive, meaning students share their own thinking and reasoning and listen with a purpose to other people’s thinking. Productive discussion is sometimes called dialogic teaching, dialogic pedagogy, argumentation, accountable talk, and respectful discussion. It is more than just answering questions by teachers that have a single answer. High quality, productive discussions require critical thinking, are structured, are deliberative and reciprocal, and include academic language and vocabulary. Effective discussions are prepared in advance and are purposely led by the teacher. They include sustained talk with students defending their statements by referring to text or citing valid information.

Joan Sedita | March 4, 2025 | 1 Comment

Why Aren’t We Moving the Needle on NAEP Outcomes?

With the recent release of yet another round of worse than stagnant results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress outcomes one cannot help but wonder, is moving the national needle in reading truly doable? In short, the answer to that question is a resounding, yes.

Pati Montgomery | February 26, 2025 | 1 Comment

Discussion to Support Learning, Part 2

This is the second of a three-part series of posts focused on using discussion to support learning. Planning Discussions: Besides identifying the content and text that will be the focus of a discussion, the teacher should develop goals for the discussion and explain them to students. This includes considering what the students should be able to do during the discussion, such as explain what they learned from the text, critique the text, make a connection to another text, or agree/disagree with the author’s position in an argumentative text.

Joan Sedita | February 4, 2025 | 4 Comments

Discussion to Support Learning, Part 1

Discussion supports learning in all subjects because it helps students think deeply and process information instead of just receiving it. Discussion-based learning is an alternative to having students memorize and recite information presented by the teacher or found in text. The guidance report Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools (Evidence for Learning, 2020, p. 24) explains, “Talk is a powerful tool for learning and literacy. It can improve reading and writing outcomes, enhance communication skills, and increase students’ understanding across the curriculum.” This is the first of a three-part series of posts focused on using discussion to support learning.

Joan Sedita | January 7, 2025 | 30 Comments

Reading Assessment Model, Grades 5-12

By the time students reach grade 5 and beyond, they require grade-level reading skills in order to learn and meet the growing demands of challenging text encountered in the secondary grades. It is therefore essential to screen all students at least once a year to determine if their literacy skills are keeping up with grade-level requirements. Many schools rely solely on high-stakes state assessments to determine grade-level reading ability for these grades. While this kind of assessment offers a first glance of who may be struggling to read, they do not provide sufficient data to determine why, and more importantly, the type of intervention supports these students need.

Joan Sedita | November 25, 2024 | 7 Comments

Disciplinary Literacy

As students advance through middle and high school grades, the required level of literacy skills increases significantly to meet the growing demands of reading and writing in different content areas. Students need to be able to understand the language used in school texts that becomes increasingly complex and specialized. This post focuses on what is frequently described as disciplinary literacy – what it is, how it is different from basic reading skills and content literacy (i.e., general reading skills and strategies), and the role that content area teachers can play in helping students develop the literacy skills needed to support content learning.

Joan Sedita | November 12, 2024 | 0 Comments

« Older Entries

Next Entries »