Teachers’ Book Study Group-After School Professional Development

by Patti Leary, Literacy Coach – Wing School

The district’s Pre-K to grade 6 teachers have been presented the opportunity to earn credits towards renewing their teaching licensure through some “in-house” coursework.  These voluntary courses held after school are being taught by District ELA Curriculum Coordinator Maureen Wiklund and District Literacy Coaches Donna Eident, Ellen Mantenfel, and Patti Leary, in collaboration with Lesley University.   The fall offerings, When Readers Struggle and Supporting Independent Reading have recently wrapped up and evaluations and feedback from participants were highly positive.

The “When Readers Struggle” course met for eight 2 hours sessions from October through January and ran much like a book study-group. The 20 teacher participants read and discussed current literacy issues that impact readers who struggle such as reading fluency and the connections between reading and writing.

Each teacher also chose a “case-study” student to teach, observe, and assess using some of the methods read and discussed in the course.  The final project was to report on the growth in the case-study student as a result of the teaching that had occurred.

A teacher participant wrote that “learning to analyze student work at a deeper level has helped her to plan and implement more individualized lessons for the diverse learners in her class.”   Another wrote that “having the text book and articles from this course will serve as a huge resource for me in teaching all of my readers and not just those who find reading and writing difficult.

Winter/Spring offerings begin later this month and any faculty member who has an interest should look on the district’s professional development page for more information.