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Update on our drafts

Preview Chapter 12 and editing: seeing how a published article excerpt meets the "list of 8"

Passage #1:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wCHtPrw21U7TXFKMOYqhaApNszFtrtxO2WdB8vhMShs/edit?usp=sharing

Passage #2:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sOamOBluJhsqKFB1f4orSc8OiB4MoltYjzhUzBPBzgM/edit?usp=sharing

Preview the 5 elements of Belcher Editing

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Write about a professional article or book you read, or presentation you attended, that had a big impact on your teaching (or views on teaching). Consider why it had such a big impact!

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Just Apply- Seeking Professional Development beyond Your School

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We Teach English in Times of Perpetual Crisis- For All ELA Teachers, “the Time Is Always Now”

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This past school year, a parent reached out to me. In our very first communication, she threatened to go to the school board if I did not locate an assignment that we later discovered her child had not even turned in. Although I am in the habit of accepting late work without penalty, the student had not made any attempt to complete the missing work.

I found that parent's threatening tone and manner of address wholly unacceptable and I asked her to address me as a professional. An administrator who had been copied on the communication didn't take the opportunity to step in and protect his teacher-instead, he reached out to me to suggest I change my email signature so that parents know how to address me correctly in the future. It was just one of many instances I've observed in recent years where, faced with parent resistance, administrators conclude it's the teacher who must change.

Education increasingly resembles customer service, an expectation that privileges the comfort of parents and students over educational realities and priorities. Instead of serving our students and having difficult conversations with parents and stakeholders, teachers are often encouraged to "make the customer happy."

When teachers encounter problems with students and parents, we're likely to hear one or more of the following "solutions" from our school leaders: Do what you have to do to make the parents happy. Find a way to keep the students engaged. Choose assignments that the student will want to complete. You are responsible for the teaching, the learning, the grading, and how parents react to those grades. If you did not get through to a belligerent parent, this is a problem that you have created. If a student has failed, you did not offer enough opportunities for them to succeed.

What administrators mean when they convey these messages is: "I want to hear from parents less. Preferably not at all." For that to happen, it's the teachers' job to ensure that our customers-students and their parents-are always happy.

I fear that this push toward a customer service model in education will lead to poor outcomes. An educational experience can't always feel fun and five-star-review worthy.

In the private sector, customers generally meet a business halfway. There is choice on the customer's end, but there is also an expectation regarding conduct-it is a clear transaction that relies on participation from both parties.

In education, the "customers" rarely choose the places they patronize. Despite the recent expansion of school choice policies, the vast majority of students still attend a traditional public school. Public schools get the students they get based on the district's geography and enrollment policies.

Additionally, customers tend to want to go to the businesses they frequent. It is illegal for students not to attend school in some form or another, which flies in the face of the customer service model.

Our main competition for students' attention is social media-they are making 15-second videos while we are "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell"-ing our customers to death. In many cases, our student "customers" do not want or see value in our services.

As for our parent "customers," we are expected to sell them comfort only. Parents often have an inflated view of how much their children are learning. Many of them seem to care far more about whether their children receive passing grades than what they've actually learned. A customer-first mindset would have teachers give them what they want-high grades-which is not always what is best for the students and their educational outcomes.

The pressure to consider our work as customer service also does a disservice to teachers. The idea that the customer must always be right puts pressure on teachers to turn a blind eye to disrespect and inflate grades.

Take, for instance, an administrator I know whose recommendation for dealing with parents or students who are verbally or physically aggressive is to turn the other cheek. A true customer service agent, he recommends that teachers make every effort to ensure optimum satisfaction. He even penalizes teachers who disrupt this customer service ideal by heavily weighting parent feedback in teacher evaluations. In his evaluation system, a teacher with low student-test scores but high parent-satisfaction rating receives a higher rating than a teacher with high test scores but varied parent feedback.

While this might be consistent with keeping a business in the black and creating customer loyalty, it is disruptive to the authenticity and honesty of a school.

Administrators who suggest that teaching should be like customer service are not only out of touch but are a danger to the profession. A lack of support from administrators is already one of the top reasons teachers cite for leaving the profession.

The customer service model will always privilege customer comfort. If we treat education like a business, what are our bottom lines? What are we willing to give up to reach those bottom lines?

Sometimes, learning is uncomfortable. While it can and should feel worthwhile, it is not always enjoyable. Administrators should remember that public schools are a public good and their purpose is not to entertain or placate but to educate.

Instead of thinking of education as customer service, we should think of it as a plate of vegetables. You can steam them and cover them in cheese, but they're still vegetables-and they must be eaten.

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No, Teaching Isn't Customer Service (Opinion)

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Treating students and parents as "customers" often means asking teachers to endure disrespect and inflate grades.

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We work with a lot of teacher teams and leadership teams. They often feel unsure about having deep conversations about data and evidence. "Data" refers to raw facts, figures, or information collected from observations, measurements, surveys, tests, or other sources. In an education setting, data can include test scores, attendance records, survey responses, or classroom-observation notes. "Evidence" refers to data that have been analyzed, interpreted, or used to support a claim, conclusion, or decision. Evidence goes beyond the raw numbers to show meaningful patterns, trends, or findings that can inform action.

And that is where Michael's 3-year-old granddaughter comes into the equation. OK, almost 3 years old.

"It's mahogany, Papi."

Looking at crayon colors with Maisie, he asked her to name the color of a particular crayon.

There were many colors and several in the brown tones, so given that she had so many shades of brown, he was a bit taken aback that she named the crayon so specifically. Mike rolled the crayon in his hand to find the name. Maisie was correct. It was mahogany.

"How do you know this, Maisie?"

This time she looked at him with an expression that said, "How can you not know this, Papi?"

She answered, "It has more red in it, Papi. I like to color hair with it."

Later on, Peter heard Maisie say the color at breakfast and was completely blown away that such a young child knew the name "mahogany." Besides being a charming story, what does this have to do with the adults in school who will one day teach Maisie and be open to her teaching them a thing or two?

Three-Legged Stool
In our work with school leadership teams, we explain that shared understanding, joint work, and evidence of impact are what we call the three-legged stool of collective leader efficacy. During the evidence of impact "leg," we often share data expert and researcher Victoria Bernhardt's four types of data: Demographic, Perceptions, Student Learning, and School Processes.

We poll our participants, asking such questionsas:

A middle school reports an increase in chronic absenteeism. Surveys show that students feel disconnected from school. Which type of data does this scenario best align with?

A) Demographic

B) Perception

C) Student Learning

D) School Processes

The group quickly discovers that the answers vary widely. Our workshop participants banter (sometimes emotionally) about their selections. Some will share emphatically that their answer is the correct one. We let the conversation continue and draw them back to some of our opening slides that contain quotes from the book Both/And Thinking by Wendy K. Smith and Marianne W. Lewis. Immediately, participants acknowledge that there may be one best answer depending on the purpose or reason for gathering the data, or it may be powerful to understand how two or more measures might work together for better understanding. We then lead the group to the power of intersection of these four types of data.

Bernhardt states, "It is not until we intersect all four circles, at the school level, and over time that we are able to answer questions that will predict if the actions, processes, and programs that we are establishing will meet the needs of all students." With this intersection, we can answer the foremost question:

Based on whom we have as students, how they prefer to learn, and what programs they are in, are all students learning at the same rate?

Looking Deeper
Maisie didn't just name the crayon color "mahogany," she understood it. She saw something within the color that many adults might overlook. She recognized that mahogany had more red in it and she could articulate why that detail mattered to her: "I like to color hair with it." For her, the crayon wasn't just a label, it had depth, purpose, and context. That's the kind of discernment we need from school leaders when they work with data.

Too often, data conversations in schools are confined to surface-level observations, test scores, attendance rates, survey results, each treated as a stand-alone piece of information. But much like Maisie saw the nuance in a crayon color, educational leaders must learn to look beneath the surface of each data point and ask, "What is this really telling us?" They need to develop a lens that seeks patterns, contradictions, and connections across seemingly unrelated data sets.

Just as mahogany reveals its richness through the red it holds within, data become truly informative when we examine the information through an integrated lens. The intersection of Bernhardt's four types of data-Demographic, Perception, Student Learning, and School Processes-is where leaders and their teams have to spend time so they can become more informed.

When leaders bring these perspectives together, they move from simply naming problems to understanding root causes. They begin to ask better questions, design more impactful interventions, and engage their teams in joint work that is grounded in evidence and not just gut feelings or assumptions. It's in those intersections that we can finally address school improvement.

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Data Can Be Intimidating to Educators. But It Doesn't Have to Be (Opinion)

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An unexpected insight from a child offers teacher and leadership teams a way to appreciate a more nuanced use of evidence.

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Using Experience to Make a Recommendation

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Using Experience to Make a Recommendation

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The Benefits of Collaborating With Your School Librarian

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Working with a peer to develop projects for your students can enrich your instruction and support student engagement.

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Just Apply- Seeking Professional Development beyond Your School

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Seminar in Professional Writing Week 1 (Online only, preparation for First Zoom Meeting)

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 Seminar in Professional Writing Week 2 (Preparation for Second Zoom Meeting)

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What do YOU like to read for Professional Reading?

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What do YOU like to read for Professional Reading?

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Seminar in Professional Writing Week 3 (Preparation for Third Zoom Meeting)

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What have you learned about yourself as a reader, writer, teacher, person -- whichever resonate with you! -- as you have been reading, writing and thinking about your article?

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Write about a time you wrote something that made a difference. It can be in any context -- school, family, etc. When you land on one that interests you, elaborate.

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Using a Book Club to Navigate Challenging Topics

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Using a Book Club to Navigate Challenging Topics

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Using a Book Club to Navigate Challenging Topics

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Setting expectations and providing protocols can help create an engaged and productive student discussion.

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Using Collaborative Content Curation for Professional Development

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Having teachers work together to seek out and evaluate potential new teaching materials is a valuable PD opportunity.

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An intense program in phonological awareness can help middle school students who are struggling to keep up with reading.

In 2017, teacher feedback highlighted a common theme that had developed: Some of our middle school students weren't making enough progress with their reading skills to keep up with a typical middle school reading load. Most of these students received extra reading support, through an additional reading class or tutoring, but for some, this wasn't enough.

In response, my district created a summer invitational for middle school students who showed gaps in their foundational reading knowledge. We defined this as students who were missing phonological knowledge as evidenced by the Phonological Awareness Screening Test ( PAST), anecdotal information from classroom teachers, and evidence of reading issues from a variety of state and local assessments.

As secondary educators, we were grounded in teaching comprehension skills. We didn't have much knowledge of or training in teaching foundational reading skills. As preparation, we received early literacy instruction with a Pathways to Reading trainer, and we read David Kilpatrick's book Equipped for Reading Success. Kilpatrick is a professor emeritus of psychology, a certified school psychologist, and a leading researcher in the field of reading. His book provided us with a clear program to guide our work.

Our Structure

Working within the summer school frame, we had four weeks for the invitational. We kept the numbers small so that we could work intensively with each student. The district hired two teachers who each taught three-hour morning and afternoon sessions, and I was their instructional coach and parent liaison.

We leaned on Kilpatrick's information regarding older readers who struggle with phonemic awareness issues, and we followed the structure he outlines in his book. Each session included three instructional cycles.

We began with one-minute activities and vowel practice at each student's level, followed by various activities to work with onset-rime units. (The onset of a syllable is the consonant sounds that come before the vowel, and the rime is the vowel sound and any other consonant sounds that follow in the syllable.) After working with phonological awareness, we moved on to word-reading strategies and reading in context, which included some fluency work.

There's a lot more information available to teachers now, just six years later, but we relied on two valuable educator assets: collaboration and creativity. The teachers and I talked each day about what worked, what didn't work, and any suggestions for the next day. Teachers also made on-the-spot adjustments, and this freedom led to some of the most successful, innovative strategies of the summer.

Paying Attention to Student Attitudes

Social and emotional issues can override the work. Not surprisingly, the students struggled emotionally and acted out. Teachers dealt with attitude issues and comments about "baby work."

What we did. Utilizing stations helped solve some of the social and emotional issues. Since each session was small, we thought we could function as we would in a small group, but we discovered quickly that this wouldn't work. Students needed time away from peers to work intensively.

After a few missteps, we ended up with these stations: Onset-Rime, Multisyllable, Read Words, Read in Context, Photo Booth (visual texts), and Bookshare, a digital text station. We provided step-by-step instructions at each station, and we had a "station sheet" that documented which stations students accessed that day and included a place for a brief response of some kind. For example, the Read in Context station included a place for students to document a couple of words they felt good about understanding and a place to document words they didn't know.

Including more than phonological work

With foundational reading gaps, students needed time to bridge to grade-level texts. Since the decodable books (books that provide readers with specific letter-sound connections practice) we had access to were all for young readers, we had to be creative. We also needed ways that students could engage with words at their own grade levels.

What we did: First, we decided that we'd use visual texts as a way to bridge to grade-level work. While these intermediate students struggled with most aspects of phonology, including phonemic awareness, syllabication, and basic fluency, their oral language skills closely matched the skills of their peers. We provided engaging visual texts, asked students to discuss the texts first, and then had them write about their understandings, questions, etc. We started at the word level and then progressed to the sentence level, working through spelling approximations so that students always ended with accuracy.

We also used many of literacy education professor Tim Rasinski's strategies, including working with Greek and Latin roots, using vocabulary timelines, playing with idioms, choral reading, and reading poetry.

Creating community is essential

To maximize time, we skimped on community building at first. By day three or four, we recognized that we needed to spend more time creating community, and we had to work on it every single day.

What we did: We pooled everyone's most successful community-builders, which included creating heart maps and sharing the story of a personally significant photo, and we started dedicating at least five minutes at the beginning of each session to these activities. We also provided opportunities for students to engage in games at break times. Our most successful were Four Corners and a hula-hoop contest. We didn't make the games mandatory activities. Not every student joined in every time, but about two weeks in, we were averaging full participation more often than not.

We recognized that we needed ways to include identity work, too. We added journaling and gave students the option to journal anytime they were waiting for the teacher or finished early. We asked students to bring in their favorite school-appropriate song lyrics, which we projected on a screen and did choral readings of, followed by singing along with the songs. We worked to get students to celebrate each other's successes.

Including space for creativity

Teachers had the freedom to make adjustments as needed as long as the core lessons were in place. Because of this, it felt easier to handle the challenges. Daily brainstorming sessions were the highlight of every day, and these sessions also helped us create a strong, supportive, collaborative team.

What we did: We constantly adapted on the fly. For example, one day a teacher only had one student show up for a three-hour session. The student was despondent about being the only one there, so the teacher came up with some fun options to weave into the day. One was to create a hopscotch pattern of onset-rime level work, incorporating movement and fun into the day.

We also added some games to help students replace some of their negative attitudes and experiences with positive ones. One of their favorites was Rasinski's Word Ladders. He has now published an updated version.

The Results

All students except one gained three to five levels on the PAST. Teachers also noted gains in vocabulary, stamina, discussion skills, and general attitude toward reading. We recommended ongoing support through the next school year for all of the students.

Alongside the students, we learned both research and instructional strategies for helping striving middle school readers. We also walked away with experiential knowledge of applying the research and strategies within our own context, which is the most valuable kind of learning.

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Bridging Foundational Reading Gaps in Middle School

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An intense program in phonological awareness can help middle school students who are struggling to keep up with reading. In 2017, teacher feedback highlighted a common theme that had developed: Some of our middle school students weren't making enough progress with their reading skills to keep up with a typical middle school reading load.

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Seminar in Professional Writing Week 4 (Preparation for Fourth Zoom Meeting)

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When I began this essay in May, there were only 22 days left in the school year. Some were calling it the end of the year, but I called it 22 opportunities to grow as an educator.

Just kidding. I am not that teacher, and this is not that essay.

I am a teacher, though, and now I've finished my 10 th year in an 8 th grade classroom in the Philadelphia school district. Back in 2013, I completed my delightful-suburban student teaching and received a delightful-suburban wooden plaque that said "Student Teacher of the Year." I was convinced I was the next big thing in education. I fantasized about my own TV show: a "Nanny 911"-style show, except with teaching, where I go into struggling classrooms and transform them into education showplaces.

Three months later, I started my actual career in Philadelphia. If I deserved an award, it would have been a yearbook superlative simply saying "worst." Everything from my classroom culture to my instruction spiraled out of control my first few months, and the reality of having my own classroom in an underresourced community hit me hard. I crashed and burned because I thought I could waltz in from a suburban high school, where entire teams of seemingly well-rested staff members dedicated their resources to ensure every child attends college, and deliver that exact type of lecture-style instruction to 8 th grade children in a school that didn't even have enough desks.

But now it's 10 years later, and I'm still here. I've turned it around and I want to help you do the same. I've worked closely with many student-teachers, graduate students in yearlong mentorship programs, and first-year teachers. All these teachers have used at least some of the practices I'm going to share, and I've personally witnessed shifts take place within a month.

Before we get to the good stuff, it must be stated that there's no monolithic urban classroom. However, most schools that enroll predominantly children of color from low-income families struggle with the same core problem-a lack of adequate resources for students, families, teachers, administrators, and even the building you'll be walking into. Behavior concerns and lower academic achievement are not the root of the problem. Instead, those are the symptoms of a school's lack of resources. Once you accept this, you can begin adding to the resources by improving the culture and performance of your classroom.

Be prepared to have just four walls, 28 desks, and 34 students all with different strengths and needs. If you're struggling with classroom management, there won't be a magical "office" where kids can be sent-just a secretary and a principal trying to figure out how to resolve an overflowing toilet when the school's only custodian is out sick. There aren't "assistant principals" running around to break up an escalating argument in your classroom. And there's probably not even a well-stocked "supply closet."

The only resource you can truly count on is yourself, and my goal is to help you personally create a welcoming, safe, and educational environment for your first year. Here's what I've learned:

1. Teach with kindness. Teach with kindnessand you're more likely to receive it in return. Treat your students like rational adults, and that's what they'll eventually become. A simple "Can you have a seat real quick so I can go over this? Thank you!" is significantly more effective and better for everyone's mental health (including yours) than barking "Sit down, NOW!"

2. Avoid getting into power struggles. When you "demand" a child do something, they're either going to ignore you, hate you, start arguing, or most likely, all the above. Give each child a choice. "I need you to sit down or else I won't be able to give you credit for this assignment." This shows the truth: "Our teacher technically can't force us to do anything, but there are consequences, and we get to make a choice about those."

3. Communicate with families. If you're anxious about calling, just text them. No matter how "tough" a kid might seem or no matter what you think you know about their home life, almost all of them have someone in their life that they want to make proud.

4. Establish rules and consequences. To this day, I still have three rules: Stay in your seat, keep your hands to yourself, and don't talk across the classroom. If a rule is broken, have a clear and immediate consequence (incorporating the tip above is easy).

5. Stop yelling. Yelling is just exhausting yourself. I've never had a "good scream" in my life nor have I ever thought while being screamed at: "I'm going to work harder now to please this person."

6. Face your classroom at all times. Whether you're answering your classroom phone, taking attendance, or helping a student, turn your body to get a clear view of all children at all times.

7. It's OK to ask your students to wait. If a student needs help, has a concern about their grade, or wants to tell you about their birthday, make sure that your classroom is completely safe and calm before giving students individualized attention. You'll learn early on that it helps teach students patience and it's not a human-rights violation to tell your frequent flier students "Ask me again in 10 minutes" when they ask to use the restroom.

8. Don't stress about your administrators. It's OK if your administrators don't always like what you're doing. You don't need to wow them-this isn't a corporate job, and you won't get fired, especially if you're in a union. Instead, your relationship with your administrator should be collaborative. Ask their opinion, hear it out, then do what's best for you.

9. Enjoy yourself. There's a teaching adage that says "Don't smile until December." Smile on the first day of school, and if you can, smile the next day, too. If a kid says something funny, you're allowed to laugh. Students will match your energy and your mood, and if you create a positive classroom, you'll feel the impact when you go home and so will they.

Every teacher, child, class, and school is different, but I believe these are universal tips that can help any teacher, even the ones who won't crash and burn at the start of the year the way I once did. I wish you luck in your journey!

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How to Ace Your First Year of Teaching (Opinion)

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A veteran teacher offers 9 tips for how to make your classroom calm and productive right from the start.

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Teachers can rethink their grading practices to make them more mathematically fair for students and allow for redemption for a missed assignment.

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Edutopia is hosting an Ask Me Anything (AMA) about how to write for us! The panelists share their experiences, as well as their strategies for getting published.

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For some reason, this one was not "approved"? Trying again!

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Using Collaborative Content Curation for Professional Development

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Having teachers work together to seek out and evaluate potential new teaching materials is a valuable PD opportunity.

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Same with this one

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An intense program in phonological awareness can help middle school students who are struggling to keep up with reading.

In 2017, teacher feedback highlighted a common theme that had developed: Some of our middle school students weren't making enough progress with their reading skills to keep up with a typical middle school reading load. Most of these students received extra reading support, through an additional reading class or tutoring, but for some, this wasn't enough.

In response, my district created a summer invitational for middle school students who showed gaps in their foundational reading knowledge. We defined this as students who were missing phonological knowledge as evidenced by the Phonological Awareness Screening Test ( PAST), anecdotal information from classroom teachers, and evidence of reading issues from a variety of state and local assessments.

As secondary educators, we were grounded in teaching comprehension skills. We didn't have much knowledge of or training in teaching foundational reading skills. As preparation, we received early literacy instruction with a Pathways to Reading trainer, and we read David Kilpatrick's book Equipped for Reading Success. Kilpatrick is a professor emeritus of psychology, a certified school psychologist, and a leading researcher in the field of reading. His book provided us with a clear program to guide our work.

Our Structure

Working within the summer school frame, we had four weeks for the invitational. We kept the numbers small so that we could work intensively with each student. The district hired two teachers who each taught three-hour morning and afternoon sessions, and I was their instructional coach and parent liaison.

We leaned on Kilpatrick's information regarding older readers who struggle with phonemic awareness issues, and we followed the structure he outlines in his book. Each session included three instructional cycles.

We began with one-minute activities and vowel practice at each student's level, followed by various activities to work with onset-rime units. (The onset of a syllable is the consonant sounds that come before the vowel, and the rime is the vowel sound and any other consonant sounds that follow in the syllable.) After working with phonological awareness, we moved on to word-reading strategies and reading in context, which included some fluency work.

There's a lot more information available to teachers now, just six years later, but we relied on two valuable educator assets: collaboration and creativity. The teachers and I talked each day about what worked, what didn't work, and any suggestions for the next day. Teachers also made on-the-spot adjustments, and this freedom led to some of the most successful, innovative strategies of the summer.

Paying Attention to Student Attitudes

Social and emotional issues can override the work. Not surprisingly, the students struggled emotionally and acted out. Teachers dealt with attitude issues and comments about "baby work."

What we did. Utilizing stations helped solve some of the social and emotional issues. Since each session was small, we thought we could function as we would in a small group, but we discovered quickly that this wouldn't work. Students needed time away from peers to work intensively.

After a few missteps, we ended up with these stations: Onset-Rime, Multisyllable, Read Words, Read in Context, Photo Booth (visual texts), and Bookshare, a digital text station. We provided step-by-step instructions at each station, and we had a "station sheet" that documented which stations students accessed that day and included a place for a brief response of some kind. For example, the Read in Context station included a place for students to document a couple of words they felt good about understanding and a place to document words they didn't know.

Including more than phonological work

With foundational reading gaps, students needed time to bridge to grade-level texts. Since the decodable books (books that provide readers with specific letter-sound connections practice) we had access to were all for young readers, we had to be creative. We also needed ways that students could engage with words at their own grade levels.

What we did: First, we decided that we'd use visual texts as a way to bridge to grade-level work. While these intermediate students struggled with most aspects of phonology, including phonemic awareness, syllabication, and basic fluency, their oral language skills closely matched the skills of their peers. We provided engaging visual texts, asked students to discuss the texts first, and then had them write about their understandings, questions, etc. We started at the word level and then progressed to the sentence level, working through spelling approximations so that students always ended with accuracy.

We also used many of literacy education professor Tim Rasinski's strategies, including working with Greek and Latin roots, using vocabulary timelines, playing with idioms, choral reading, and reading poetry.

Creating community is essential

To maximize time, we skimped on community building at first. By day three or four, we recognized that we needed to spend more time creating community, and we had to work on it every single day.

What we did: We pooled everyone's most successful community-builders, which included creating heart maps and sharing the story of a personally significant photo, and we started dedicating at least five minutes at the beginning of each session to these activities. We also provided opportunities for students to engage in games at break times. Our most successful were Four Corners and a hula-hoop contest. We didn't make the games mandatory activities. Not every student joined in every time, but about two weeks in, we were averaging full participation more often than not.

We recognized that we needed ways to include identity work, too. We added journaling and gave students the option to journal anytime they were waiting for the teacher or finished early. We asked students to bring in their favorite school-appropriate song lyrics, which we projected on a screen and did choral readings of, followed by singing along with the songs. We worked to get students to celebrate each other's successes.

Including space for creativity

Teachers had the freedom to make adjustments as needed as long as the core lessons were in place. Because of this, it felt easier to handle the challenges. Daily brainstorming sessions were the highlight of every day, and these sessions also helped us create a strong, supportive, collaborative team.

What we did: We constantly adapted on the fly. For example, one day a teacher only had one student show up for a three-hour session. The student was despondent about being the only one there, so the teacher came up with some fun options to weave into the day. One was to create a hopscotch pattern of onset-rime level work, incorporating movement and fun into the day.

We also added some games to help students replace some of their negative attitudes and experiences with positive ones. One of their favorites was Rasinski's Word Ladders. He has now published an updated version.

The Results

All students except one gained three to five levels on the PAST. Teachers also noted gains in vocabulary, stamina, discussion skills, and general attitude toward reading. We recommended ongoing support through the next school year for all of the students.

Alongside the students, we learned both research and instructional strategies for helping striving middle school readers. We also walked away with experiential knowledge of applying the research and strategies within our own context, which is the most valuable kind of learning.

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Bridging Foundational Reading Gaps in Middle School

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An intense program in phonological awareness can help middle school students who are struggling to keep up with reading. In 2017, teacher feedback highlighted a common theme that had developed: Some of our middle school students weren't making enough progress with their reading skills to keep up with a typical middle school reading load.

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Seminar in Professional Writing Week 5 (Preparation for Fifth Zoom Meeting)