I never thought about working with the little kiddos until this past school year when my district decided that they were going to hire back 2 more coaches, but we would stay in one building (last year I was in all four buildings concentrating in Intermediate). This would mean that each coach would have to go back to Lesley University in Cambride, MA to learn the other half of their specialty.
Training started this week with 4 jam packed days of intense instruction about literacy in the primary classrooms. I found myself a few times saying not only in my head, but also aloud, "What did I get myself into?!"
A lot of the time was spent discussing the theory behind LC in primary concentrating on the work of Marie Clay, as well as many others. While the theory is grounded and very similar in both the primary and intermediate settings, there were some big ideas that we needed to dive into to understand the preK-2 world.
We discussed Writing Workshop and spending a lot of time practicing storytelling and making books. This is very new to me, but I'm looking forward to trying it out this year (I will share our work here this year).
Interactive Writing was a huge undertaking. I've done Shared Writing with my students in the Intermediate setting, but Interactive is a whole new game. While it is powerful for students, teachers must be careful observers and know their students. It is all about the Zone of Proximal Development and nudging students to learn an aspect of writing that as individuals they need to focus on and incorporate in their independent writing. I will post a video on this once I try it out this year.
More about this last week to come....
Any thoughts on Interactive Writing or Writers' Workshop?
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