Topic: Daily Lit Bit

Challenging books lift readers, and diverse books expand their life experiences and knowledge of their world.

Systematic assessment is very helpful because the more precise you are in your assessment, the more effective you will be in your teaching.

Within the social world of classrooms, students learn what it means to be a global citizen. Through books, learning extends beyond the classroom walls. They learn how to collaborate, how to learn, how to solve problems.

School shouldn't be a place where everything is leveled. It should resemble a library or a bookstore where books are categorized by author, by topic, by genre, anything that would interest readers. We want the readers not to see themselves as a level, but as people who are choosing books that interest them and that they want to read.

Rather than simply teach the level/book, notice and use behavioral evidence to guide your next teaching move.

Powerful early intervention can change the path of a child’s journey to literacy.

To be effective, intervention must incorporate everything we know about what students need to learn, especially those who are experiencing difficulty.

Use language from The Literacy Continuum with parents. Each level in the guided reading continuum has descriptions of what students are doing at that level.

Explain to parents and families that levels aren’t intended to categorize students, but in the hands of teachers, they inform instruction.

When communicating with parents, use clear indicators of a student’s processing abilities such as understanding, word-solving abilities, accuracy or fluency.

When you respond precisely to students' observable behaviors, you can meet students where they are and lead them forward with intention and precision.

The decisions you make based on the data you collect will be the heartbeat of your responsive teaching.

One cannot teach effectively without gathering information about the unique strengths and needs of each learner.

You can see the results of your teaching through accurate assessment.

The primary purpose of assessment is to gather data to inform teaching.

Collaborative inquiry is coming together with colleagues and delving into what students' behaviors mean. By looking at the continuum together as a tool to engage in that process, the collaborative inquiry, it makes colleagues of us all.

Every teacher has the right to be a part of a learning community in which people help each other and believe that the progress of children relies on everyone working together.

Educators must develop a culture of collaboration within the school. The school should be more like a community. This can happen if teachers work together toward this common vision of what literacy progress looks like.