In the fall, the district offered schools the opportunity to apply for 5 days of literacy collaboration release days.  At Blundell, we submitted our application, and were successfully granted these days.  Our focus was specifically around supporting our primary classes, as, when looking at data/assessments, we noticed that many of our youngest learners were "Emerging" in their literacy skills and understanding. These collaboration days allowed our primary teachers to collaborate with one another in grade groupings, along with their Learning Resource Teachers.  This allowed them to look at the literacy assessments done in the fall, look for areas where students were not yet demonstrating proficiency, and to then plan targeted supports and interventions.

Another benefit to these collaboration days is that it allowed our more experienced Learning Resource Teachers to begin to build capacity among teaching staff in the primary grades, in terms of literacy development and skills.  We are fortunate to have a Learning Resource Teacher who has specialized training specifically in literacy interventions, and so this allowed her to be able to share this knowledge, experience, and resources with our entire primary team.

We will continue to find ways to support ongoing collaboration time among our primary team.  

This is their summary of their Literacy Collaboration Days:

Literacy Collaboration Days at Blundell Elementary^h

Big idea: 

Practical strategies connected to Scarborough’s Reading Rope, which breaks skilled reading into two intertwined strands: Word Recognition and Language Comprehension. 

Resource for explaining all things literacy: 

Reading Rockets – www.readingrockets.org

The Reading League - www.thereadingleague.org

Podcasts for explaining all things literacy (and one for math): 

Melissa and Lori Love Literacy

The Reading Road Trip from the Ontario IDA

Chalk and Talk with Anna Stokke from Winnipeg University – math!

Shanahan on Literacy with Tim Shanahan

The Reading League Podcast

The Science of Reading: The Podcast

1.  Word Recognition Strand of Scarborough’s Reading Rope

• Small literacy groups within the classroom.
  How to structure groups, assess to know how to group students, assess and reassess for progress, what to focus on, where to start with each group, group frequency, sample lesson plans, weekly planning, and scope & sequence to follow.
  This also tied into using data from the Spark and Acadience screeners to inform instruction and form groups.

  Resources shared: 

  Florida Centre for Reading Research – great collection of ideas for small literacy groups. https://fcrr.org/student-center-activities/kindergarten-and-first-grade

  UFLI’s Toolbox with lots of decodable passages: https://ufli.education.ufl.edu/foundations/toolbox/

• Brief overview of how the English spelling system works and why following a scope and sequence is so important.
  Many people think English spelling is unpredictable, but it’s actually quite logical once you understand how our 26 letters represent 44 unique sounds, plus rules for adding suffixes (e.g., sadder vs. sadly), spelling changes (cried vs. stayed), blends vs. digraphs, and patterns like sign vs. signal.

  Resources shared: 

  UFLI’s scope and sequence: https://ufli.education.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/UFLI-Scope2.pdf

  Understanding the purpose of a scope and sequence from an Orton Gillingham Lens: https://journal.imse.com/understanding-scope-and-sequence/

  Measured Mom Scope and Sequence: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/tmm_optin/free-phonics-scope-and-sequence/

2. Language Comprehension Strand of Scarborough’s Reading Rope

• Introducing morphology in the classroom, even in kindergarten.
  Because English is a morphophonemic language, understanding morphemes (prefixes, roots, andsuffixes) helps students make sense of spelling patterns and word meanings.

Resources shared: 

The Grammar Project: scope for teaching morphology, lessons and slides ready to use (includes the Morphology Project and the Syntax Project) https://ochre.org.au/ 

Morphology Magic by Deb Glaser. Lessons ready to go (book to buy if you wanted it) https://drdebglaser.com/morpheme-magic/

• Developing language through planned read-alouds and dialogic reading

Shared the idea and templates from book by Molly Ness called Read Alouds for all Learners. 

** in the grades 2 to 4 grade group each teacher took the template away and prepared a read-a-loud for the following week.**

Resources Shared:

Reading Rockets explains Dialogic Reading https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/comprehension/articles/dialogic-reading-having-conversation-about-books

Molly Ness’s book Read Alouds for all Learners

• Creating text sets 

A collection of sources (not just books, media sources) that support a specific topic or content area for instruction purposes to build content knowledge on a specific curricular unit.

• Explicit vocabulary, syntax, and grammar instruction. The importance of teaching vocabulary (in context), syntax and grammar structures across the curriculum.

Resources shared: 

The Grammar Project: scope for teaching syntax, lessons and slides ready to use (includes the Morphology Project and the Syntax Project) https://ochre.org.au/ 

Natalie Wexler’s book The Knowledge GAP.