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Culture of Literacy
Resources and Templates
| Literacy Action Plan - This template helps lay out specific goals, and their related timelines, resources and intended outcomes. |
| Indigenous Literacy Resources - Culturally relevant literature is an important component of both classroom instruction and the classroom library. This list contains many titles featuring Indigenous characters, stories, and authors. We hope it will be a resource for you when looking to add to your collection of books for instruction, as well as your school or classroom library collection. |
| Inclusive Literature Resources - This document highlights many diverse books to further enhance your collection. You’ll find selections for topics such as LGBTQIA2+, physical & mental disabilities, multicultural, social justice and diversity. We hope this resource will assist you as you examine your classroom and school libraries and perhaps offer suggestions for additions to your existing resources. |
Additional Readings and Resources
| Building a Culture of Literacy - Ideas for making literacy the foundation in your school by Linda Jacobson |
Data and Evidence
Resources and Templates
| Literacy Data Analysis Template - Use this template to reflect on your class/school literacy data and come to meetings prepared! By identifying students who are at/above grade level, as well as the students who are below grade level expectations, you will be ready to begin the planning process for literacy support. By identifying areas of weakness such as; comprehension, fluency or accuracy, and giving some thought to planning for support, you will be well on your way to establishing a literacy support plan for your students. |
| Literacy Screen Information - Are you considering implementing a literacy screening tool for your school? Use this interactive template as a guiding process to determine a tool best suited to your school’s needs. |
| Examining Literacy Screens - Not sure which literacy screen is right for your school? Check out this document with links to 10 common literacy screens employed by schools. |
| Student Literacy Data - Compiled - When looking closely at all of the pieces of data for an individual student, use this template as a means of organizing and documenting their strengths and needs according to the various pieces of benchmark assessment administered. |
| Literacy Data - Classroom Profile Template - When you take the time to bring all of your literacy data together for analysis use this practical tool for a visual representation of which students would benefit from particular areas of instruction. This template can be used for the process of going from assessment to instruction as detailed in the blog post I've Assessed, now what? Teachers: Detectives of Assessment. Feel free to change the headings to best suit your context. |
Additional Readings and Resources
 | Literacy Assessment: What Everyone Needs to Know - Literacy assessment needs to reflect the multiple dimensions of reading and writing and the various purposes for assessment as well as the diversity of the students being assessed. Provided by the International Literacy Association | 2017 |
Best Practice
Resources and Templates
| Literacy Strategy Lesson Planning - Determine a literacy strategy beneficial to your students and pick a mentor text well suited for modelling this strategy. Choose the pages you will be stopping at and detail how you will be modelling the strategy from particular excerpts from the text. |
| Literacy Planning Template - Use this template to take stock of the current reality of your literacy block and reflect upon any changes you can make for how to include more of the areas that matter in literacy instruction. |
| Literacy Resource Inventory Template - You want to make sure you know exactly what you have for literacy instruction before purchasing additional resources. It’s not until you take stock of what you do have for whole, small and independent contexts that you’ll know where the gaps are. Here’s a template to use for capturing the literacy resources within your classroom or the school at large. |
| The Interactive Read Aloud is an important instructional component in any classroom. Use the following template to intentionally plan for this instructional context and take your read alouds to the next level. |
Additional Readings and Resources
 | Every Child, Every Day - The six elements of effective reading instruction don't require much time or money—just educators' decision to put them in place. Authors Richard L. Allington and Rachael E. Gabriel. |
| What I've Learned About Effective Reading Instruction - Using data from a lengthy study of first- and fourth-grade teachers in six states, author Richard L. Allington concludes that enhanced reading proficiency rests largely on the capacity of classroom teachers to provide expert, exemplary reading instruction — instruction that cannot be packaged or regurgitated from a common script because it is responsive to children’s needs. |
Intervention
Resources and Templates
| Intervention Spanning the Tiers - Intervention is most effective when planned with careful consideration to student need, trained staff, and purposefully scheduled groupings. This template will help determine scheduling needs and training required as well as give an overall picture of the range of planned interventions. |
| Literacy Intervention Lesson Plan - Template - Check out this literacy lesson plan template to support students needing intervention in a small group context. This lesson is designed to be completed in a 30 minute timeframe. It includes key early literacy components of phoneme awareness, alphabetic principle, irregular words, writing and shared reading. |
| Literacy Intervention Plan Template - Intervention lessons need to be targeted & timely as we know there is not a moment to waste when supporting our students. Check out this intervention template, and the accompanying sample lesson with description, to see how each section targets key components of early reading from phonological awareness and phonics to shared reading & writing. |
Additional Readings and Resources
| What Works Clearinghouse - find what literacy interventions work based on the evidence, developed by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. |
| Intensive Intervention - Literacy Strategies to Support Intensifying Interventions, developed by the National Center on Intensive Intervention. |
