During the 2007-2008 school year, our literacy team decided (with the help of our administration and department chairs) to create literacy-based lesson plans to be used in all core classes. The information and objectives of the plan were presented to the entire faculty at the first in-service of the year in August 2008. We began our first round of weekly lessons during the second week of school, and added the second round of lessons at the start of the 2nd quarter. We are continuing with the school-wide lesson plans into the second semester---focused mainly on Title 1 classes and low-level college prep classes in need of extra literacy-based instruction.
First Round- Kelly Gallagher’s Reading Reasons
*Started the second week of school—every Wednesday during 2nd period
*Each “Reading Reason” comes with an overhead transparency, teacher instructions, and student worksheets.
*Lessons are put in teacher’s boxes at the beginning of each week
*Teachers are free to modify the lesson for their individual classes and use the student worksheets for class credit if they choose
Second Round- Core Class Literacy Lessons
*Started the first week of 2nd quarter
*4 Individual Lessons: Prediction/Visualization/Active Reading/Summary
*Each lesson is literacy-based with high-interest reading material designed to relate to individual core classes (English, Math, Science, and History).
*Teachers received a binder at the beginning of 2nd quarter with all 4 lesson plans and teacher materials.
*We started with Prediction and moved through the lessons---two weeks per lesson.
*Teachers had to teach the lesson to ALL their classes within the two week time period
*The main premise: students are getting a prediction/visualization/active reading/summary lesson in all core classes---using different text pieces and student worksheets. Students will see that the four different reading strategies can be applied to all content areas.
We are continuing the “Reading Reasons” every Wednesday school-wide and have received wonderful feedback on that particular program. As a result from surveys collected in regards to the core-class literacy lessons, we have decided to continue to implement them in only Title 1 classes and lower-level college prep classes (based on teacher recommendation). We will continue to modify and update the lessons in order to have new material for the teachers and students. Our hope is that within the next one to two years, literacy will be a school-wide priority and all teachers will implement research and standards based lessons within their core classes.