M O N T H LY N E W S L E T T E R

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December 2009- January 2010

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Meetings/Collaboration

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Dec/Ja
Thursday, Dec. 10
Regie Routman Session #6:
(1:30-3:00 PM) Checking
Students’ Understandings
Through Informal Reading
Conferences

Tuesday, Dec. 15
RT ESLAR Mtng
(12:20-12:50)
Review listening and
speaking benchmarks.

Thursday, Jan. 14
Regie Routman Session #7:
(1:30-3:00) Using An Informal
Reading Conference to
Change a Child’s Reading
Life

Tuesday, Jan. 19
Grades KG2-3 Reading
Team Meeting (Time TBD)

Thursday, Jan. 21
Regie Routman Session 8:
(1:30-3:00) Thinking Aloud
With a Nonfiction Text
G OA L S E T T I N G : BECOMING
P R O F I CI ENT AT USING PRO TOCOLS TO Thursday, Jan. 26

A ANALYZE DATA
t our leadership team retreat on November 18, we worked
through Deb Welch’s powerpoint presentation to confirm
Grades 3-5 Writing Team
Meeting (Time TBD)

our direction for goal setting this year. Realizing that a move to Wednesday, Jan. 27
data-driven goal setting required proficiency both in 3-5 MAP Testing Data
collaboration and in using protocols, our focus this year will be Results Meeting A protocol
on working together as vertical groups to find the best protocols will be used to facilitate this
for analyzing our data points. MAP data discussion

This work will be conducted through various meetings and Wednesday, Jan. 27
discussions throughout the year. In May, we will celebrate KG2- G3 + Jen Host
meeting our goals, by sharing our selected protocols for each Parent Coffee on READING
data source.
 WRITER’S WORKSHOP UPDATE
W e have successfully
completed the first two
units in the Lucy
Calkins Units of Study series.
Both Launching the Writer’s
Workshop and Raising the Quality
of Writing gave teachers a
chance to work through a
series of lessons on personal
narratives.
Assessment and writing
prompts will be a focus in
December. Teachers have
decided to give students the
open-ended prompt “Write
about a person, place, or object
that matters to you,” to see
how students are applying their
learning to on demand
writing. (Which is the term
Big Books! We have agreed as a KG1-2 group to move the big books into the Literacy
Library so they are easier to share. As you are ready, please send your big books (and carts to
store them) to me in December. A%er the Winter Break, the Reading Team wi& meet to
determine the best way to organize and check out the books and how TAs can help Jen get
them sorted.
Notes from the
Lit Coach...
Regie uses instead of
“prompted” writing to describe
the writing kids are asked to do
in test taking situations and as
they get older.)
In January teachers will begin
the third unit: Breathing Life
Into Essays. This unit takes
students through very concrete
steps to create a persuasive
essay. Not only do students
learn new skills for this new SUMMER PD IN NYC!
genre, they are taught how to
WE HAVE 5 TEACHERS APPLYING
apply the solid writing FOR THE SUMMER WRITING
techniques learned from the INSTITUTE IN NYC THIS SUMMER
first 2 units to this work. In my WITH LUCY CALKINS! OUR
experience, the results of the PAPERWORK IS NOW WITH FRED
work accomplished in the essay AWAITING ADMIN APPROVAL.
FIRM DATES FOR THE INSTITUTE
unit is truly amazing. WILL BE AVAILABLE IN JANUARY.
PA REN T ED U CATIO N
LC LINK ARTICLES
Each week I will be writing a “Notes from the
Lit Coach” column for parents in the ACS Link.
These short articles will be sent to reading/
writing teams to read prior to their addition to
the Link. If you have topics you think have a
whole-school focus and would be of interest to
parents please let me know.
 READER’S WORKSHOP UPDATE
Our lower elementary school teachers have been working to refine reading instruction. The inclusion of
units of study for reading has provided a much-needed framework for our teaching which spirals through
the grades. That said, we are now trying to make sense of how the "parts" fit into our 90-minute reading
block:

* Conferencing/Conferring
* Guided Reading/Strategy Groups
* Read Aloud
* Shared Reading
* Centers
* Word Study
* Independent Reading Time

We determined as a group that we needed to "see" reading workshop in action with all of the components
listed above. The result- I am going to work with Betsy, (who I’m quickly learning is a wonderful, brave, and
fantastic grade 1 teacher!) from start to finish on her unit titled: Making Meaning: Using Prediction to
Further Our Thinking.

To communicate with teachers here and for others who are interested, I am going to chronicle our journey
by posting daily blog write-ups. My hope is that we will make this process seem "doable", while also
modeling our thinking (which will change and improve) as we go.

Interested?
You can follow our work on my blog December 6-20. I’m also going to try and offer some after school chats
about this work on December 13 and 14th.

“... But Mr. Plumbean’s H al lw a y s as Le ar ni ng en vi r o nme nt s

house was like a
rainbow. It was like a
jungle. It was like an A book to inspire us...
explosion. “My house is
me and I am it. My The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater
house is where I like to
be and it looks like all
my dreams,” said the
man...Then, one by
one, they went to see
Mr. Plumbean, late at
night. They would sit
under the palm trees
and drink lemonade
and talk about their
dreams--and whenever
anybody visited Mr.
Plumbean’s house, the
very next day that
person would set about
changing his own house
to fit his dreams.”