Breathe Fresh AIR Into Your Structured Literacy Initiative

By Vincent Ventura & Shannon Hickey, LitLife

Happy New Year! Depending on where you are in the AMISA region, you may be getting ready to start a brand new school year, or may be revisiting routines, responding to progress, and reinvigorating your literacy initiatives. School startup brings echoes of “this year, we will…” or “we have a new initiative, and it’ll be…..” midyear reflections combine the power of optimism with the wisdom of reality. 

We all know that the purpose of our literacy instruction is to continue enhancing the learning experience of our students, but what can we do when we feel stuck or that our effort is not providing the returns we planned for?

If this is how you’re feeling, you join a large collective community of educators across the globe. You’re not alone in wondering, “what can we do differently to get the results we know we can?” Have you considered pausing to take a breath of fresh AIR? Yes, AIR—administration, infrastructure, and resources. Use this as a simple checklist before launching any new features into your structured literacy initiative.

Administration

How much buy-in, support, and understanding does the administration provide? John Maxwell, an expert on leadership, said, “People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” If administrators don’t believe in the instructional methods, how can other teachers buy in? Teachers are smart and they can quickly see who is “in” and who is “out.” Is the Science of Reading in your school going to be a fad or a foundation?

As a team, it is key to stand together as a unified voice. Moreover, administrators and educators need to have a synergy of the “whats,” “whys,” and “hows” of structured literacy. Instead of asking educators to think about their own “why,” try answering the question yourself. What are teachers expected to know, understand, and do to ensure literacy achievement? How does this align to reading science? Why does this matter for our school community?

There will be questions and maybe there won’t be answers for all of them yet, but knowing where to seek the answers is appreciated. There isn’t a doubt that the road to successfully implementing structured literacy can be long and arduous and it is crucial that administration understand and acknowledge possible struggles ahead of them.

Questions to reflect upon: Is the team on board? How are we welcoming questions and concerns? What questions need answers to move forward?

Infrastructure

Structured literacy initiatives can be viewed as “adding more to my plate.” It is key to reflect on how full the staff’s plates are. Schools are not bottomless buffets. We can’t keep piling on more and more; the days don’t get any longer, the amount of items in each day just keeps increasing. The greatest key to successful implementation is strategic de-implementation. 

If the goal of your Science of Reading initiative is to enhance student literacy learning, the infrastructure of the school must be equipped to embrace this. The culture of the school is an important part of infrastructure. Schools with strong professional learning communities are more inclined to navigate the rifts and tides of change. Schools where teachers work in a culture of growing, sharing, and learning—rather than one that is siloed or resistant to change—can accomplish great things.

Schools should consider the following: Do teachers have time to accomplish the initiative? Do teachers need more information on professional topics to be integrated? Do schedules work for planning and instruction? What are the logistics necessary for this initiative to work?

Resources

A high-quality literacy Initiative requires resources. For a teacher, it is frustrating to not have the materials needed to implement the change. If you push for foundational phonics, but fill classrooms with leveled texts and assess with running records, your initiative will not get off the ground. Some schools attempt to solve this issue by asking teachers to share resources. Nothing against sharing, but let’s be honest, the last thing teachers want to do on a daily basis is to run down the hallway asking for resources or hearing “it’s in the drive” without knowing what to look for. The initiative can fail as a result of that alone.

Besides material resources, consider people as resources. Are there people (i.e. a literacy coach) present to support the initiative? By providing human resources, schools send a message of the importance of the proposal.

By considering AIR, schools can circumvent the pitfalls of a literacy initiative. If one or more of these elements are missing and/or weak, it may be more of an uphill battle for the initiative to be successful. When there’s a fresh idea for the school or classroom, the last thing you want is for your school to be breathless, and gasping for AIR!

Let’s chat about your literacy initiatives. Schedule a 30-minute chat with Vincent and Shannon by emailing info@litlifepd.com. 

About the Authors

Vincent Ventura - Director of International Partnerships

Vincent provides personable and relatable professional development in literacy throughout the world. He works with  administrators, teachers, parents, and students to use their knowledge, skills, and unique perspectives to create positive change through best practices of literacy.

Shannon Hickey - CEO

Shannon works with schools, districts, states, and global organizations to design and implement professional learning partnerships for educators, students, and families. She advocates for evidence-based knowledge, realistic goal-setting, and approachable implementation of instructional best practices.