Reporting Forms:

DRA

Welcome teachers, 

to our school's newest staff development resource! 

The Web seems a natural way for us to

• provide access to resources that will support your instructional goals,
  

• support any time, any where, individualized opportunities for learning
  

• encourage sharing and collaboration among colleagues, and highlight the connections among our various curriculum frameworks.

 Please send comments and contributions to 

  Donna Shaw

Suggested Professional Days

• Poetry Workshop by Denise Johnson

• Setting Up Your Classroom
• Classroom Management
• One way to set up your centers
• Center Signs: Create beautiful signs for your centers and work boards.

See what Other Teachers have to say about centers!

• "Write" on Track:
  Practical Literacy Centers for Your Classroom
• All-Star Center Ideas
  ...including a nice overview of learning centers, this site gives ideas for different types of centers at the elementary level
• Literacy Centers
• More Literacy Centers
• Language Activities and Center Ideas
• Components of a Balanced Literacy Program

• ^{Balanced Literacy: Teaching the Skills and Thrills Of Reading by By Dorothy Strickland} 

  Independent Reading:

• What is Independent Reading?
• How Should I structure Independent Reading?
• What materials should be available in my classroom?
• How do I monitor Independent Reading?
• Self Selected Independent Reading 
• Guided Independent Reading

Interactive Read Aloud

In an interactive read-aloud the teacher engages in a series of activities, including: pre-viewing the book; asking students to make predictions and connections to prior knowledge; stopping at purposeful moments to emphasize story elements, ask guiding questions or focus questions; and using oral or written responses to bring closure to the selection.

• Suggested Reading List

• Elements of a good read aloud

• The Developmental Retelling Model: ^{This article was excerpted from The Power of Retelling: Developmental Steps for Building Comprehension by Vicki Benson and Carrice Cummins}
• Story Retelling: Linking Assessment to the Teaching-Learning Cycle By Eileen Kaiser, Ph.D.

• Revisit, Reflect, Retell:
  Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension By Linda Hoyt  -  A great resource for any teacher attempting to evoke high-quality responses to literature

• Phonemic Awareness:
• Phonemic Awareness Instruction:

• Systematic, Explicit Phonics Instruction: Information of research and instructional strategies provided by the Early Reading Technology Project.

• Whole-to-Parts Phonics Instruction

  by Margaret Moustafa, San Jose State University

The words are written one at a time with an emphasis of saying each word slowly, listening for the word parts and thinking about an easy way to write the word such as listening for sounds, finding "chunks," looking around the room to find the word written. These created texts are also used as shared readings and referred to by the children as necessary in their independent work. The strategies children learn during an Interactive Writing session really "frees them up," to try new things in their independent writing time.

• Interactive Writing: This site will give you a brief overview and some sample activities.
• Guided Reading
• What is Guided Reading? What does it look like at your grade level? A great site with lots of information.
• Guiding Reading From the MCPS Early Literacy Guide. This site will provide  you with lots of information to get you started and comfortable with Guided Reading.