CHAPTER 3
Forming a Literacy Team and Creating a Literacy Vision
Vignette: After teaching fourth-grade for seven years, Mark has completed his master's degree in reading and has been hired by his district to "improve the reading program". He has been tasked with making his districts vision of reading "transparent" for the public. This vision is to include core standards and aligning curriculum to the standards. Mark is not sure one person should write a plan for the district and would like to develop a plan with input from a team consisting of all shareholders in the school system and community.
First Step: Identify Core Beliefs to develop a written vision statement
Questions:
- What is literacy?
- What do we know about evendence-based literacy instruction?
- What are the beliefs and cultural forces that shape the ways in which literacy is defined and used in and out of school within the various literacy "communities"?
- Who has angency in the decision-making processes?
Creating a Team - Collaboration!
Why? To create:
Goals of the TEAM
- increased knowledge and expertise (individual and collective knowledge in literacy instruction)
- ownership (teachers consider themselves professionals and capable of contributing to schoolwide literacy goals)
- empowerment for participants (given authority to develop and decide on the literacy program enabling them to take on the task as one group working together)
Goals of the TEAM
- Improve literacy schoolwide at all levels (construct meaning)
- Identify inequities and reverse to cover total population of students (this is what we do as teachers)
- Manage resources and financial constraints (universal resources for the entire community)
- Understand student population to meet needs (perspective of all involved including community)
- Use evidence-based instruction tied to "value-added" student outcomes
- Collect data to analyze for decision making
- Develop and coordinate interventions and assessments
Creating the Vision Statement
A vision statement sets the course for the district or schools to navigate towards and should be based on beliefs, theory and research of all state holders. A vision statement is needed to figure out "where we are" so that a school can figure out "where we want to go" and in the "how best to get there". (2007, p. 65)
Developing a Vision Statement
In developing a Literacy Vision Statement the question "What is literacy?" needs to the answered. Since no one right definition exist, one must be agreed upon by all involved in writing the vision statement. The following three step can guide this process:
1. Does a vision statement already exist? If so, does it need to be updated, revised or completely rewritten?
2. Get everyone involved in the vision statement. Letting everyone share their ideas of what literacy is and how it looks in their classroom.
3. Once a vision statement is agreed upon - get it OUT there. Advertise IT. Make it known to ALL!