Embracing Literacy 2024

Educators at Cody High School in Cody, Wyoming, have established a Literacy Learning Laboratory that serves as a reading intervention course (RIC) (Scammacca et al, 2016) for 9th and 10th grade students who are struggling with literacy. This RIC is designed around principles of disciplinary literacy (Moje, 2007; Shanahan et al, 2011) as they apply directly to the school’s curriculum focusing on English Language Arts (ELA) and social studies-specific vocabulary and morphology instruction (Rainey, 2016; Reynolds et al, 2022; Wineburg, 1998), discussion (Greenleaf & Valencia, 2017), and other instructional strategies chosen to meet students’ needs. The educators responsible for this work are developing a progress monitoring tool to consistently and accurately track student improvement in these areas over the course of the academic year. In our presentation, we will describe the process of developing the progress monitoring tool and the affordances and constraints it provides for monitoring adolescent learners’ progress in literacy. We will also provide a guided workshop supporting teachers in using our model to create a discipline-specific progress monitoring tool that aligns with curriculum in their school.

Understand the role of a progress monitoring tool at the secondary level and the ups and downs of the development of such a tool;  Recognize the constraints and affordances provided by a progress monitoring tool in assessing adolescent learners’ literacy progress; and  Be able to use their own curriculum to draft a discipline-specific progress monitoring tool.

Link to the presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dL8nTrdkzfcoPOebz6vGqdV1fODOf3hloUuFgAn65R4/edit?usp=sharing