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in and sharing why it is important, can boost the confidence of the student. I do
this, but I do not think that I do it enough. This is something that I am going to
work on because of this conference.
With the Coaching Conference, I liked that the goal and strategy to help achieve
the goal is shared with the student. So often, the student just learns the strategy
and does not know that it helps with the goal in mind. This is also something that I
will be working on implementing with my small groups.
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the list. I understand to a point, but how much more can be put on our plates
before it starts to overflow and collapse.
This session wasnt as useful as the other sessions for me.
EXHIBITORS
Teaching resources and materials from the Exhibitor tables that would be
beneficial to have in my teaching situation and how I might use them:
There didnt seem to be as many Exhibitors as last year, or it just wasnt as
overwhelming as last year because I knew what I was interested in. Our district is
in the process of reviewing our assessments and our reading program. We were
able to learn more about STARS and how it would work with progress monitoring.
Currently, we have AIMSWeb and are not completely satisfied with it. The
biggest challenge we have is the weekly progress monitoring that we need to have
on grade level. STARS says they have the progress monitoring but I question that
it is at grade level because it works with where the student is at. This is
something that we are going to have to investigate further. I was also able to
explore the Benchmark and Journeys reading program for the classroom and bring
back information for our Literacy Group to review.
Friday, April 10, 2015
9:00 12:00 Keynote: Shane Templeton
Effective and Engaging Word Phonics, Spelling and Vocabulary Instruction:
Integrating Word Study into the Context of Common Core Expectations
My reflections, questions and application ideas include:
I got the most information from Shane Templetons sessions. I have worked with
Words Their Way at a different school. Last year, I used it as my intervention for
Kindergarten and First grade because it was something I knew and I had the
materials. This year, we implemented LLI (Leveled Literacy Intervention) and I
set it aside. My district is not familiar with it so it was encouraging to see that
the teachers we brought and our new Title Director want to know more.
Words Their Way really does align with the CCSS (Common Core State Standards)
and how it ties in at each grade level. Shane tied it together nicely. I really liked
how Shane talked about how sounds are spelled: by where they occur within words
and other sounds they are close to. He also shared that decoding (reading words)
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comes before encoding (writing words). That was an a-ha moment for me. So many
times we give the students words to memorize, not in text, no wonder they have
difficulties spelling them.
1:00 2:30 Shane Templeton
Revolutionizing Vocabulary Instruction K-12
My reflections, questions and application ideas include:
Shanes Tower of Talk with Unifix cube stacking was a great idea. I liked that it
could be utilized in so many ways to get the students participating. It could also
work with the student that dominates the conversation and allows the other
students to be able to contribute.
I appreciated how Shane talked about Effective Questioning in guiding the
students to discover patterns, comparing and contrasting. With the
Kindergarteners it is so interesting to see how the break apart pictures and the
combinations that the students create to help them learn.
Even though I do not work with the middle/high school students, I really
appreciated Shane getting into the Greek and Latin morphology. This would work
well for the advanced elementary students in diving into where the words
originated and how they have changed over time.
OVERVIEW
My overall impressions of the conference and application ideas are:
This was my second Title 1 Conference. We brought three of our teachers to the
conference this year to gain a better understanding of what Title is. I am so glad
that we did because they have better understanding of our role as Title teachers
and how they can utilize our services in the classroom. It was a good conference,
but the opportunities were limited and I did not gain as much knowledge to bring
back to share.
Last years conference was fabulous and I learned a lot of strategies and saw more
collaboration and sharing with everyone. This year, I did not see as much
collaboration and sharing. Maybe having an evening social to further collaborate
outside of the sessions may help with this.