Continuous, high quality, job-embedded professional development for staff is essential for success. Ongoing support for implementation of the professional development expectations must also be provided.

Reading and ELA Seminars
Professional Development and Resources to Help You Teach Common Core Standards.

Most of the content of our seminars is not taught in college methods classes nor in the training done for published reading programs. This information and methods will allow teachers to consistently implement more effective instruction no matter what program is used.  

Check these 22 ways our Reading Seminar can help you 
improve your students’ reading skills and strategies.
Please Review our Reading Seminar Sessions

1.   Practical ways to assess students’ prerequisite skills for reading.
 2. Methods to teach students to hear sounds in words so that they understand the connection between speech and print. Lack of this skill is the major characteristic of disabled readers.
3. How to fix the b, d, g, p, q, letter confusions.
4. End students’ confusion of letter sounds and names.
5. How to stop students from guessing and over reliance on contexts and pictures.
6. The most effective word and syllable blending methods.
7. Simple effective steps for teaching decoding and spelling that can be used with any program.
8.  The difference between simple and complex syllables and how to teach students to read and spell them. 
9. How to determine the independent application and proficiency of each students’ decoding skills.
10. How to develop English Language Learners’ (ESL students) vocabulary and phonemic awareness so that they quickly improve oral language, listening, and reading.
11.  How to teach and stabilize the reading and spelling of long and short vowel patterns to eliminate miscues. /e/ and/ea/, /a/ and /ae/, etc. 

12. Simple but powerful techniques for developing oral language so that students speak and write more standard English.
13. Steps for teaching vocabulary so students learn to read words while they learn the meanings.  This is a powerful strategy for teaching content words and sight words.
14. How to teach the reading and spelling of high frequency words.
15. Practical ways to provide engaging practice that requires little teacher preparation.
16. Practical games and independent activities that students enjoy and provide practice that workbooks and worksheets cannot.
17. How to pace, focus, and organize instruction so that all students are successful.  All students cannot be paced the same.
18. Ways to organize instructional time and materials so that you can provide more small group and individualized instruction.
19. Ways to teach spelling so that students become accurate spellers.
20. Checklist for identifying students who may have learning disabilities.
21. How to select the right instructional materials for your class. The most effective ways for using decodable texts
22. Methods to improve “deep, thoughtful reading and engagement with texts.