Let's Get Back to Basics

Today's post is contributed by Julie Schwartzbauer.

Here we are, another school year off to a great start!  I am very excited to share this year’s coaching plan for my school district. Before I do that, I would like to share some background information on how the coaching plan for my district was created.

Three years ago my school district fully implemented the use of balanced literacy within the workshop model.  Some of the teachers in the district had been “doing” balanced literacy for years and for other teachers, balanced literacy was brand new.  With having 16 elementary schools in the district, I have had the opportunity to observe in many different classrooms.  I have found varying levels of expertise in delivering the components of balanced literacy.

However, I struggled to find one component of balanced literacy that was strong across the district.

As I was reflecting last May on the 2013/2014 school year with my colleague, we decided that we needed to go “Back to Basics.”  What this meant was that we would create a plan for building Literacy Coaches to implement with consistency across the district.  We would select 4 to 5 components of balanced literacy to focus on for the 2014/2015 school year and create a coaching cycle for our building coaches.  

We knew that our biggest hurdle would be to get everyone on board, including the principals.  I am including a document that shows how my district interprets balanced literacy within the workshop model.  I have highlighted the areas of focus for the 2014/2015 school year.  In my next post, I will share the coaching cycle for the “Back to Basics” plan.

Use GoogleDocs to view the document below as a PDF.