Here is what I learned during Day 2 of the Texas Literacy Institute.

Ready, Set, Teach
     Today’s session was designed for the classroom teacher.  I was reminded of the importance of proper planning for a classroom that includes centers/work stations.  Before beginning, presenters said, "standards should have an influence on how you setup centers in your classroom." 
     Everything from safety, types of centers, sinks, electrical outlets, teacher management, materials in the classroom, and furniture that cannot be moved should be considered.  One great tip I learned was placement.  Making sure that all of the items needed for a center should be close.  For example, if you have a sink in the classroom, the art center should be close by.  If not, students will trek across the classroom for clean up.  More so, all the materials needed should be available in the art center.  There are many minutes of time that students are robbed of when we have a disorganized classroom.  There are 3 general learning areas in the

 classroom that should be considered when designing your classroom. Include a place for whole group instruction, teacher lead small group instruction, and additional independent work areas (centers).

I used a free app called iPlanit to design a classroom blueprint of my perfect imaginary classroom. 

Fluency: The Bridge Between
Word Recognition and Comprehension

Before this session, I vaguely remembered learning how to test a student for fluency in college, we called it a  running record 11 years ago.  We all participated in administering one today.  I was reminded how to administer a fluency test and calculate fluency.

Fluency
Independent Reader- 95%-100% accuracy
Instructional Reader- 90%-94% accuracy
Frustrational Reader- less than 90% accuracy

Calculate Fluency
# of words read in 1 min  -  # of errors  =  # of words read correctly
# of words read correctly  -  # of words read  =  % accurate

The presenters spoke of the importance of modeled reading.  

Reading aloud to children in an expressive, exciting way, helps engage and bring in more readers.  They recommended modeling different types of reading to teach children the importance of reading with expression. Teachers and students should read like they are talking to a real person or telling their friend a story.  Presenters modeled reading using the same text with robot reading, race car reading, and reading with expression to demonstrate how much easier it is to follow a story and understand.  Robot reading is reading choppy with no expression in a monotone voice.  Race car reading is speed reading with out stoping to acknowledge punctuation.

I would definitely want to model the different types of reading aloud to help students understand.  I remember only modeling reading with expression.  They were never subject to the opposite styles of reading, by me.  

On a personal note, this is why I am not enjoying the current audio book I am listening to.  It really does sound robotic.  It’s torture!  

There's an app for that!

This was the first time in 4 years that I was invited to join and learn during any core content professional development.  I took it as a great opportunity to learn some of the latest strategies and kept my gears turning, trying to think of ways to integrate the technology.

General Session
There were several speakers that shared their reading programs with the group.  I was most impressed by Yoko Matsumoto from the Arlington Public Libraries.  Why all these programs for the community and parents?  Want a better reason?  Yoko said, "parents are their child's first and most important teacher/role model".  She presented literacy programs that were available for parents of children ages 0-4 and teen parents.  They had volunteer reading buddy programs, summer reading clubs, and a partnership with the local school district to offer each child a free library card and services to deliver books to a school for checkout. 

First 21 Days to Small Group Instruction
I learned a lot in this session.  They provided a plan for effective small groups.  Lee Wright, an early education professor, was our dynamic presenter.  Teachers shared that centers or workstations should be purposeful.  They should be backed up with the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). Strategies for successful independence of students in
centers/workstations included, showing instead of telling students, modeling correct behavior and implementing the four phases during the first 21 days.
Phase 1-Rules & Procedures, Building Independence, Teaching Procedures, Whole Group, Monitoring

Phase 2- Menu, Must Do/May Do, Transition, Monitoring
Phase 3- Must Do/May Do, Teacher Group, Reteaching, Debriefing
Phase 4-Multiple Flexible Groups, Differentiated Instructions, Exploration, Inquiry

My Connection to Technology
After attending First 21 Days to Small Group Instruction, I'm thinking all of the ideas in Phases 1-4 can be applied to include the iPad in centers/workstations.  The key to remember is that the activity should be purposeful and backed up with a TEK.  

My thoughts
A phrase was repeated a few times during the day, "What is learned here, leaves here."  I loved it, because to a technology integrator, that means we tweet it, blog about it, and tell our PLN.  I couldn't find a hashtag for this event or a twitter handle for our awesome presenters.  We need these awesome literacy educators in our PLNs.  Where are they?  They don't even appear in a Google Search.  I collected a few email addresses today.  I am challenging myself to email them and tell them how dynamic they are.  I hope they will model, "What is learned here, leaves here."