Summary of Main Ideas

As the week comes to a close, I'm thinking about the big ideas that were discussed. 1) Mentor texts (excellent examples from literature) should be used to teach reading and writing. 2) Assessment should be used to focus teaching. It's an ongoing process, which means that teachers need to spend a great deal of time observing student behaviors. 3) Districts must come up with a common set of values and beliefs about how reading and writing are learned so everyone is on the same page. What will proficiency look like? 4) The introduction in a guided reading lesson is most important. The teacher must provide enough support without doing everything for the students. 5) One of the goals of literacy instruction is to develop strategic actions in children that can be applied independently to any text.