Fans of Katie Wood Ray!

As I read your responses to Katie tonight, I couldn't post this information fast enough for you! To those of you who have never heard Katie speak, I strongly encourage you to take a look at the information below and consider attending. Not that you haven't given up enough of your summer, but this is an opportunity to see/hear Katie for FREE--food included!! ;) This mini-institute is what Christy and I were referring to when we were looking at our last class date.

There is still time to sign up if you're interested--you have until July 24th. However, due to the fact that it is free and provided by the state, I wouldn't wait to sign up if I were you! I know I plan to be there! In order to sign up (it can be a little confusing), you have to create an account using the link to Miko Group below. Once you create an account, you will receive an email giving you a link to all of the institutes they sponsor across the country. Scroll down until you see this one, and click to register. You will then receive a confirmation email letting you know you are registered!

Hope to see some of you there!

South Carolina Reading First Early Childhood Institute II

Promising Practices in Early Literacy

August 3–4, 2010

South Carolina Reading First (SCRF)’s second summer institute will be August 3–4, 2010, and is for educators interested in early childhood instruction and practices. Katie Wood Ray and Matt Glover will be the keynote speakers and the facilitators both days. Registration for this institute will begin daily at 8:30 a.m. with the keynote address starting at 9:30 a.m. The conference will end at 4:00 p.m. each day. Lunch will be provided to all attending. Recertification credit will be available to participants.

The conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Greenville. The hotel is located at 220 North Main Street, Greenville, SC 29601. The phone number for reservations is 1–888–421–1442. Please specify the conference name to secure state rates when making reservations for staying overnight. Reservations must be made by July 24, 2010, to receive state rates.

There is no registration fee for the institute. However, registration for the conference is required. Please register on-line with MIKO at http://www.mikogroup.com/events/.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AND DAILY FACILITATORS

Katie Wood Ray—After leaving Western Carolina University where she was an Associate Professor of language arts education for eight years, Dr. Katie Wood Ray is now a full time writer and researcher of the teaching of writing. With a particular focus on the study of writing craft, she leads teacher workshops and summer institutes related to the teaching of writing. Her professional background includes both elementary and middle school teaching experience and two years as a staff developer at The Reading and Writing Project, Teachers College, Columbia University. She has published numerous articles and books, and is the former co-editor of the journal Primary Voices K–6, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English. Some of her more recent published works include About the Authors: Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers, Study Driven: A Framework for Planning Units of Study in the Writing Workshop, and Already Ready: Nurturing Writing in Preschool and Kindergarten.

Matt Glover—Matt is a full time educational consultant and author. He is the coauthor (with Katie Wood Ray) of Already Ready: Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten (2008) and the author of Engaging Young Writers, Preschool—Grade 1 (2009). Matt is a frequent presenter at conferences and in school districts on topics related to nurturing young writers and supporting children’s intellectual growth and development. Matt has been an educator for over 20 years as the principal and instructional leader of Creekside Early Childhood School, a school of 900 preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students. Before becoming a principal, Matt taught first grade.

Reading Aloud--Wondrous Words

Oh, Katie Wood Ray!! Oh, I'm really going to have to restrain myself. I love Katie Wood Ray. I went to one of her sessions at NTCE two years ago, met her, and promptly burst into tears. I think I was trying to tell her something along the lines of, "Thank you for giving me the courage to do what I know is best for students even when everyone around me was telling me I was "doing it" wrong."

Up until I saw Katie, I didn't realize that I had pushed those first two years of teaching--the two years I literally spent in the principal's office because of "see me" notes--far far far into the back of my memory. During those miserable two years, other teachers had reported that I wasn't "using Vocabulary Workshop books" or "teaching Treasure Island packets" or even "reading the The Acorn People." Of course I wasn't reading The Acorn People, I said. It was too depressing and poorly written. And no, I said, I can't teach the Treasure Island packets because they bore me to tears. We're making room-length timelines trying to figure out flashbacks and sequence of events. We're making dictionaries to cover all the words we don't know in the all but archaic language that dominates classic literature." I defended myself poorly back then, because I didn't have the language to name what it was I was doing. All I knew to say was "Katie Wood Ray" says or "Nancy Atwell writes" and lean heavily on a master's degree from USC that gave me some credibility as a teacher. The book Wondrous Words literally saved me. I stuck to the curriculum I “had” to teach but I filled it with books I wanted, not to “teach,” but to TALK about. I spent the required 9 weeks on Treasure Island but I also threw in author imitation assignments to allow students to read aloud and imitate in writing their favorite authors. I completed Vocabulary Workshop lessons but I also made a Wondrous Words Wall, so that I could fill the walls of my classroom with words the students brought to me from their reading—words like “boondoggle” and “flabbergasted” and “flummoxed.” So it's no wonder that I cried when I met Katie Wood Ray in person, but now at least I understand why—I would not have survived those first two years without her.

As I read this chapter of Wondrous Words for the 3rd, 4th, 5th? time, I still respond to it with the same joy I felt the first time I read it. I could crawl into this book, this chapter, and live here. Katie just reminds me, as always, to have the courage to do what I know is right in my classrooms. I CAN spend 20 minutes reading aloud of a 90 minute block. It IS important. I can PROVE it. I CAN savor the language. I CAN. And I WILL.

Reading Aloud: Filling the Room with the Sound of Wondrous Words

Respond to the excerpt from Wondrous Words by Katie Wood Ray here.

Record Keeping

Respond to the School Talk article here.

Reading Aloud

R & W Workshop and Watching/Listening To Children Read

Fell asleep last night reading. . . . not bored, just sleepy! So, just now blogging!
“School Talk,” article was a super review for me. I appreciate the “Literacy Workshop Across The Day” summation at the end. Regrounds me.
I loved and will reread, “Watching and Listening Children Read.” This article/paper offers some very practical thoughts on making reading real for children. I also appreciate the practical thoughts on everyday/everywhere assessments and the huge amount of info to be derived from such.
Thank you for sharing!

Reading and Writing Workshop

This article was a good summary for me of the elements of readers and writers workshop. I noticed that they included shared reading and interative reading in the same heading.

I realized that I have already been doing write alouds and shared writing and independent writing in my science classes already. When we watch a United Streaming video, I ask the students to take one bulleted note for each 2 minutes of video (independent writing). After the video is finished I ask students to share their best notes with the rest of the class so that other students who may have missed something (or are just not proficient at watching a video and taking notes at the same time) have a compolete set of notes. As students share, I type their notes on the smartboard for all students to copy. This helps me ensure they have notes for all of the salient point on the video, and that they have a chance to review what they have learned. We work together on the grammar, spelling and semantics of the bulleted notes as I type them on the board. I even occasionallyt have student volunteers check a dictionary to make sure we are spelling things correctly.