Building a
Culture of
Literacy
• What happens when
literacy is a school’s
foundation
• Ideas for promoting
literacy across the
disciplines
• Using picture
books to model
classroom behavior
July/August 2017
Volume 35, Issue 1
LITERACY TODAY
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Contents
LITERACY TODAY
Volume 35, Issue 1
July/August 2017
EDITORIAL STAFF
Managing Editor Colleen Patrice Clark
Editors Christina Lambert & Alina O’Donnell
ILA LEADERSHIP
Executive Director Marcie Craig Post
Associate Executive Director Stephen Sye
2016–2017 BOARD MEMBERS
William Teale, University of Illinois at Chicago,
President; Douglas Fisher, San Diego State
University, Vice President; Diane Barone,
University of Nevada, Reno, Immediate Past
President; Gwynne Ash, Texas State University;
Donald Bear, Iowa State University; Julie
Coiro, University of Rhode Island; Catherine
Collier, Chesapeake Public Schools, Virginia;
Lori DiGisi, Framingham Public Schools,
Massachusetts; Rachel Karchmer-Klein,
University of Delaware; Stephanie Laird,
Southeast Polk Community School District,
Iowa; Stephen Peters, Laurens County School
District 55, South Carolina; Jennifer Williams,
Calliope Global Education Initiatives, Florida
ADVERTISING
For information, contact Megan Ferguson at
800.336.7323 x 417 or advertising@reading
.org. Acceptance of advertising does not imply
endorsement.
ABOUT US
Literacy Today is the bimonthly membership
magazine of the International Literacy
Association, a nonprofi t that strives to
empower educators, inspire students, and
encourage teachers with the resources they
need to make literacy accessible for all.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Literacy Today (ISSN 2411-7862, Print; 2411-
7900, Online) is included in the cost of ILA
membership. To join, visit literacyworldwide.
org. POSTMASTER: Send address changes
to Literacy Today, PO Box 8139, Newark,
DE 19714-8139, USA. CANADIAN GST:
Registration number R-129785523. Publications
Mail Agreement No. 40033039. Return
undeliverable Canadian addresses to PO Box
503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill,
ON, L4B 4R6.
CONTACT US
CUSTOMER SERVICE
800.336.7323
customerservice@reading.org
EDITORIAL
800.336.7323 x 446
literacytoday@reading.org
Write to Literacy Today, PO Box 8139, Newark,
DE 19714-8139, USA.
MAILING LIST RENTALS
ILA rents mailing lists only to groups approved
by the Association. Members can have
their names removed from lists rented by
writing to ILA Customer Service or e-mailing
customerservice@reading.org.
© International Literacy Association
20
3
EDITOR’S NOTE
4
LIT BITS
6
ILA UPDATE
ILA 2017
8
Engaging Immigrant Communities
Through Literacy
10
Literacy’s Role in Educational Equity
LITERACY LEADERSHIP
12
Reading Activities as a Mechanism to
Strengthen School–Home Collaboration
14
Powerful Partnerships: Literacy,
Your Librarian, and You
18
Turning Around Districtwide Performance Through a
Literacy-Rich Environment
COVER STORY
20
Building a Culture of Literacy
THE ENGAGING CLASSROOM
26
How Morphological Awareness Can Help With Elementary
Vocabulary Comprehension
28
Inspiring Positive Student Conduct With Children’s Picture Books
30
Side-by-Side Learning: A Summer Program Focused on Science Literacy
32
Developing Disciplinary Literacy in History Among Middle School
Struggling Readers
34
Teacher Talk as an Instructional Tool
THE ILA NETWORK
36
Empowering Students by Encouraging Them to Write Their Own Stories
GLOBAL IMPACT
38
Affi liates at Work
40
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
42
EVENTS
Building a Culture
of Literacy
EDITOR’S
NOTE
t can empower students to expand their
opportunities and their understanding of
the world and the people around them. It
can provide avenues for educators to truly
engage with families, and it can turn around
the entire culture of a school and set it on a
new path of academic achievement.
That is very much what this Back to
School issue is about. Literacy is the key to
personal, school, and community success,
and it needs to be embedded within every
aspect of a child’s education.
That might sound lofty, but it can
begin in simple ways. In our article
on page 8, it starts with challenging
preconceived notions and recognizing the
literacy-rich lives many of our students
are already living outside of school,
particularly during breaks. This can lead
to new ways to engage with families and
make them stronger advocates in their
child’s learning.
In the pages that follow, you’ll
gain ideas for cross-content literacy
connections, establishing a stronger
partnership with your school librarian,
and even setting rules and expectations
regarding classroom behavior without
taking any time away from your
instructional units. (Bonus: Picture books
are involved!)
In “Differentiated and Meaningful
Instruction” on page 18 and then our cover
story, “Building a Culture of Literacy,”
on page 20, we dig deeper into the idea of
literacy as the key. You’ll see examples of
how school culture is impacted when both
classroom teachers and school leaders
recognize literacy as the foundation of all
learning.
If the culture described doesn’t sound
like your school, ask yourself what you
can do to change that this year and start a
ripple effect that impacts the lives of the
students in your classroom and beyond.
Warmly,
LITERACY IS THE KEY
Colleen Patrice Clark
Managing Editor
cclark@reading.org
LITERACY TODAY | July/August 2017 | literacyworldwide.org
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literacyworldwide.org | July/August 2017 | LITERACY TODAY
LIT BITS
Being organized is more than keeping materials tidy. It’s a focused mind-set that saves you time and energy. Using these
five tips will help you focus your energy and save you dozens of hours throughout the year.
Tips for Staying Organized All Year Long
My Five…
1. Determine importance. This will guide decisions about
which resources to keep and which to purge, how to
manage instructional materials, what to include in your
daily routine, and more. If it’s important to students’
success, find space or time for it. If not, get rid of it.
2. Set routines. Organize your day and help students
succeed by creating procedures for beginning and
ending the day, transitioning between content, turning
in completed work, and locating absent work. Routines
help eliminate distractions, wasted time, and confusion.
3. Prep materials. In the fall, create several additional sets
of materials for students who join your roster mid-year.
Place each set in a large zip-top bag so it is ready to go
when your new student arrives. Create a sub binder and
2–3 days’ worth of lesson plans now so you’re prepared
for unplanned absences.
4. Use a lesson-planning process. A structured process,
such as the Understanding by Design framework, not
only streamlines your planning time, but also ensures
alignment to standards and building goals.
5. Store resources digitally. Save materials to a
flash drive or cloud service. You’ll spend less time
searching and have access wherever you go. Once
uploaded, organize files in digital folders by theme,
content strand, or standard for easy access.
Remember: Consistency is key. Integrating these ideas
into your practice will keep you organized all year long.
—Jennifer Martinez, ILA member since 2015, education
blogger at everythingjustso.org
Have an idea for a brief My Five article? E-mail
literacytoday@reading.org.
Out now: Free virtual journal on global issues
A new cross-journal virtual
edition on Global Issues in
Literacy Development is
available through October.
Not a journal subscriber? This
is an opportunity to check
out content from all three of
ILA’s journals—The Reading
Teacher, Journal of Adolescent
& Adult Literacy, and Reading
Research Quarterly—free of
charge. The issue includes four
articles from each publication
on the cultural, economic,
political, and geographical
factors that infl uence literacy
development. View the journal
and other free resources at
literacyworldwide.org/
journals.
LITERACY TODAY | July/August 2017 | literacyworldwide.org
In October, a membership rate
increase will go into eff ect. This allows
us to keep providing you with the
resources you rely on and the support
you deserve. By renewing now, you’ll
continue to make a diff erence in the
lives of your students—and get the
best rate before the increase takes
eff ect. Renew at literacyworldwide
.org/membership.
BY THE NUMBERS
1st 1 in 4 45% 44% 37%
Place China
ranks, followed
by Belgium
and Canada, in
a new OECD
report on
15-year-olds’
fi nancial literacy
Number of students in
the 15 OECD countries
that participated who are
unable to make even simple
decisions regarding everyday
spending, according to the
report
Amount of intermediate
and primary school
principals who feel they
have the resources to
support quality digital
learning, according to
a New Zealand Council
for Educational Research
survey
Millennials surveyed
in a U.S. study from
MindEdge Learning
who received a relative
‘F’ in critical thinking
skills in terms of their
ability to identify fake
news
Amount who
admitted to
inadvertently
sharing
inaccurate
information on
social media,
according to the
report
If you’re attending the ILA 2017
Conference & Exhibits in Orlando, FL,
or if you want to get an idea of what
you’re missing, tune in to our next Twitter
chat on July 13 with ILA Board member
Jennifer Williams who, along with ILA staff
members, will provide a sneak peek at
what to expect.
On August 10, our #ILAchat will focus
on addressing the challenges of the digital
divide. Join the conversation by following
the hashtag.
Save the date
Where we stand
Literacy Assessment: What Everyone
Needs to Know, a new ILA literacy
leadership brief out now, shares how
assessments need to be interpreted
to improve student literacy learning.
Characteristics of Culturally
Sustaining and Academically Rigorous
Classrooms, to be published in July,
examines how to engage students with
meaningful curriculum that will prepare
them for our increasingly global world.
Download them at literacyworldwide
.org/position-statements.
Renew now for
savings
Welcome to a new year of teaching,
collaboration, and leadership.
Each of you participates in all of these roles
every day. You change mind-sets about the
content of your teaching, and your students
change their ideas about being learners. This
change might happen in subtle ways—through a
quiet comment, a recommendation of a special
book, or just a smile from you at the perfect time.
You are collaborators. You work closely with
faculty, principals, district leaders, and others. This
work is always guided by the need to improve the
learning outcomes for all of your students.
You’re a literacy leader in the classroom. You
offer professional development sessions. You lead
meetings. You model your professionalism each
and every day for colleagues and students alike.
You participate in International Literacy Association
(ILA) activities within your schools, communities,
states, countries, and internationally.
These responsibilities are enormous, so we
suggest that you don’t go it alone. Colleagues can
support the important work you do, and ILA is
there for you as well.
Here are just a few ways we can support the
valuable work you do every day this school year:
If you’re attending the ILA 2017 Conference
& Exhibits in Orlando, FL, in July, you will
get multiple ideas to bring back to your
classroom, school, and district. I think
the hard part here is reviewing all of the
ideas, and then coming up with a plan to
implement them. If you aren’t able to go to
the conference, follow along on Twitter by
searching the #ILA17 hashtag. Handouts can
also be found afterward on the ILA 2017 app
at ilaconference.org/app. Although there will
be many special events at the conference,
I suggest checking out details about the
current events panel, “Disrupting a Destructive
Cycle: How Literacy Drives Social Change,”
through our Literacy Daily blog coverage at
literacyworldwide.org/blog.
Another resource is ILA’s literacy leadership
briefs, which provide succinct information on
important topics. The following are the latest
updates, which will be published between
now and September at literacyworldwide
.org/position-statements:
Literacy Assessment: What Everyone
Needs to Know shares the importance of
summative and ongoing assessment. The
brief explains how summative assessment
has dominated public conversations about
student achievement and shares how
assessments need to be interpreted so
that student literacy learning is improved.
(Available now)
Characteristics of Culturally Sustaining
and Academically Rigorous Classrooms
uses the metaphors of a mirror, a window,
and a doorway to describe culturally
sustaining and academically rigorous
classrooms. Using the mirror, it is important
for teachers to prepare students for a world
requiring new technical skills. In order to be
successful with this preparation, students
need to be literate. The window allows
students to explore their world and learn
about the global community. And, finally, the
doorway showcases the need for students
to be aware of the world’s possibilities by
being engaged in rigorous, meaningful
curricula. (Available in July)
Overcoming the Digital Divide: Four
Critical Steps explores assumptions
surrounding digital literacies. The brief
suggests that the belief that all individuals
have access to digital technologies is a false
assumption and it offers ways to overcome
the divide. (Available in August)
Ready for a New Year
ILA UPDATE
6
literacyworldwide.org | July/August 2017 | LITERACY TODAY
BROWSE ONLINE: literacyworldwide.org/get-resources
PD RESOURCES FOR
LITERACY EDUCATORS
Use ILA’s professional development resources to make an
impact on all levels of learners in your classroom! Our print
publications and digital tools can help you develop new and
practical classroom strategies.
Topics include
� Comprehension Instruction
� Differentiated Instruction
� Literacy Leadership
� Motivation & Engagement
� Research & Standards
� 21st-Century Skills
Discover these resources and tools to
keep your professional momentum
going during the school year!
Critical Role of Parents in Early Literacy
Learning for Immigrant and Refugee
Children concentrates on the importance of
maintaining a first language as children learn
to read and write in a new language. The
brief discusses cultural models of learning
and teaching, divergence in literacy practices
among families, codeswitching, and
transferring knowledge across languages.
(Available in September)
Each of these briefs will inspire you to be even
more responsive to your students. They provide
necessary information about key topics relevant
to teachers, schools, and districts. And, best of all,
they are written in language that is accessible to
individuals outside of education. They are perfect
pieces to share with community and state leaders
and parents.
Among the many resources on the ILA website,
don’t forget to check out the Choices reading
lists, which were released in May. I accessed the
Teachers’ Choices list to find books to share with
my university students and loved exploring all
the titles. Children’s and Young Adults’ Choices
reading lists are also available for download at
literacyworldwide.org/choices.
We will continue to add practical resources
to the website throughout the year, as well as
publish valuable articles through our journals,
blog, and magazine, to stand by our goal of
supporting you in the
important work you do.
Diane Barone
Immediate Past President
LITERACY TODAY | July/August 2017 | literacyworldwide.org
here are several overgeneralizations about summer vacations. One is that it’s a
time of leisure, when youth are recuperating from the academic year. Another is
that it’s a period of mental stagnation. For students of color, students from low-
income backgrounds, and immigrant youth learning English, time away from
school is often framed as a step backward—the “summer slide”—which could
potentially erase literacy gains.
In our work as teachers and researchers, we have learned that it’s important
not to make presumptions about students’ lives. Experiences—in and out
of school—are shaped by the dynamics of culture, race, class, gender, and
immigration status. Just because students may not have access to an elite summer
camp or may not be traveling the world does not imply that they are not involved in
intellectual inquiry.
Becoming more attuned to the literate practices of students’ lives, as well as
to the barriers many families face in accessing opportunities, may help educators
Going beyond the vacation essay to foster deeper school–
community relationships
THE REAL SUMMER
EXPERIENCE
By María Paula Ghiso & Gerald Campano
Gerald Campano
(campano@upenn.edu)
is an associate professor
and chair of the Reading/
Writing/Literacy Division
at the University of
Pennsylvania’s Graduate
School of Education. His
scholarship focuses on
practitioner research,
immigrant students and
families, critical literacy,
identity, and university–
community partnerships.
María Paula Ghiso
(ghiso@tc.columbia.edu)
is an assistant professor
in the Department of
Curriculum and Teaching at
Teachers College, Columbia
University in New York. Her
scholarship investigates
literacy in multilingual and
transnational contexts.
ILA 2017
8
literacyworldwide.org | July/August 2017 | LITERACY TODAY