Shifting To The 90 Minute Reading Block

I am so excited! The Instructional Coaches for the district came over last week to help develop a schedule which will include 2 - 90 minute blocks of instruction. One block is for Communication Arts and one block is for Math. Since I've been a principal at the Elementary level, I continually hear frustration from the teachers about how many times students are pulled out of their class: special education, remedial reading, speech, counseling, etc. By developing these blocks, we can eliminate the pull out system and incorporate more small group instruction in the classroom. The special education teachers and Title 1 teachers will go into the classroom and help the regular education teacher. In addition, we incorporated a 30 minute intervention block which will allow us to give intensive intervention time with struggling students. YEAH!


To Do List:


1) Create a schedule that has large blocks of learning time
2) Talk with teachers about this. Listen to pros and cons
3) Find out who is hesitant to implement and why
4) Determine professional development needs for Guided Reading
5) Continue to shift traditional ways of thinking about instruction

Wait! I need to go back to #3............my district has always implemented Title 1 services via a pull out method (that doesn't sound very good, does it?). I need your help - how does your school implement Remedial Reading? Literacy Specialist? Title 1? How do we make the switch from pull out to push in? What does that look like? Is that what is best for reading instruction? I would appreciate any and all help you can give. In the meantime, I'm Googling my behind off (hopefully)!

Going Up A River With No Paddle!

Aligning curriuculum, Marzano strategies, intervention groups, struggling students, naysayers.............whew! I feel like I'm a salmon swimming upstream trying to find my way home. When I get there, every one of my students will be reading on grade level, have an intrinsic desire to learn, and the parents and teachers will smile everyday. No frowning allowed.

Everyday, I dodge that grizzly bear trying to eat me alive as I jump upstream. You know, the bear that waits at the waterfall snatching the salmon as they jump upriver. The bear is the teacher that refuses to acknowledge that they need to improve the quality of relationships with students, parents and colleagues. It is the naysayer that doesn't want to implement a new way of doing things. The bear is the parent that doesn't agree with the detention you assigned to the boy that scratched profane words on his desk. Will I avoid the bear and make it home?

For now, we are trying to focus on improving reading scores. We have implemented intervention groups and are trying to find that intervention that will magically fix all of those students that have a hard time comprehending what they have just read. Until I make that jump upstream, and dodge the bear I guess I'll just keep researching, keep trying, and keep inspiring!