IN THIS ISSUE:

FOR-PD News

• Governor Bush's Middle School Reform Proposal
• Norton Anti-Virus information
• Facilitator Statistics
• FOR-PD's Strategy of the Month
• February Chat
• FOR-PD Has its "Walking Papers"
• What Are the Plans?
• Open Enrollment Re-Opens with Full Force

Monthly FOR-PD Tips

• Fine FOR-PD Facilitation
• Dear Felicity
• Share With Us

Awards, Contests, & Conferences

• Literacy Symposium
• FCRR Reading Conference
• Facilitator is Awarded

Literacy Resources

• Bringing Words to Life
• Reading Assessment and Intervention
• What's Your View?

Professional Resources

• Role of the Online Instructor/Facilitator
• Black History Month Resources
• Scholastic.com Online Resources

Governor Jeb Bush today announced new legislation and increased Just Read, Florida! funding geared toward adding focus and rigor to middle school academics. The Middle Grades Reform Act, sponsored by Senator Lee Constantine and Representative Dennis K. Baxley, uses reading as the foundation to increase student achievement in all subject areas. The Governor made the announcement at Carver Middle School, where he was joined by the bill's sponsors, and Chairman of the State Board of Education Phil Handy and Orange County Public Schools Superintendent Ron Blocker.

"While our middle school students are showing academic improvement, almost half of Florida's 6th, 7th, and 8th graders still do not read on grade level. The Middle Grades Reform Act provides our middle school students the tools they need to succeed. With the help of the legislature, this year we will drive the success of Just Read, Florida! into our middle schools," said Governor Bush.

The Governor's call for $46.4 million for Just Read, Florida! is an increase of $21.4 million. Under the proposal, $13 million of that funding would be used to put a reading coach in 240 of Florida's lowest performing middle schools next year. These coaches provide on-site professional development for teachers and help them teach reading effectively. Currently there are 448 reading coaches in elementary schools throughout the state.

"Our emphasis on reading in the early grades has begun to pay off with Florida being the only state to make significant improvement in 4th grade reading this year," said Chairman Handy. "This legislation will allow us to use proven methods to facilitate similar success at all grade levels."

Among the provisions of the Middle Grades Reform Act:

* By the 2008-09 school year, all reading/language arts programs offered in middle grades must be research based proven effective programs. The State Board of Education will consult with reading specialists and the Just Read, Florida! office to identify reading and language arts programs that are research-based proven effective programs.

* Beginning with the 2004-05 school year, each public school with a middle grade where fewer than 75% of the students are reading on grade level or above must develop a Rigorous Reading Requirement as the primary component of its school improvement plan. Based upon last year's FCAT data, this may effect between 400-450 schools that serve 6th, 7th and/or 8th grade students.

* The State Board of Education will conduct a Comprehensive Reform Study in consultation with school board members, superintendents, school administrators, parents, teachers and students, reviewing academic expectations, best practices to improve reading, strategies that focus on improving academic success for low-performing students, attendance policies and strategies, teacher quality, school leadership and parental and community involvement to determine all areas of middle grade education that need improvement.

* Beginning in 2004-05, a Personalized Middle School Success Plan will be developed and implemented for each entering 6th grade student who scores below level 3 in Reading on the FCAT administration. The Personalized Success Plan will be based upon academic information and a student's overall strengths and weaknesses. The plan will be developed in collaboration with the student, parent, and teacher and must include specific academic, data driven strategies to enable students to be successful in middle school and be ready for rigorous high school curriculum.

What is your opinion of the Middle Grades Reform Act? FOR-PD wants to know... email us at fff@orion.itrc.ucf.edu

 

There are still some concerns on the quizzes and discussion pop-ups. Remember that in order to ensure that your quizzes and discussions work properly, please make sure you disable or quit all pop-up blockers installed on your system. This includes 'Norton Internet Securities' if you have that installed. Recent additional default settings for AOL 8.0 & higher have pop-up blockers already installed. Therefore, if your participants are having difficulties accessing the quizzes and/or discussions, and they are utilizing AOL as their browser make sure they check this out first! If you try this and the participant is still unsuccessful accessing the quizzes and/or discussions give them our toll free number for the Help Desk:

1-866-863-READ

• Day hours - Monday - Friday : 9 - 5 pm
• Evening hours 7 - 10 pm
• AND, weekends Saturday 12 - 4 pm/ Sunday 1 - 4 pm

Although we consistently hear wonderful things about our facilitators, we wanted to share some data from the course evaluations with you to show you all just exactly how well you are doing!

The graph below depicts the participants' perception of the support offered by the facilitators in their learning through FOR-PD materials collected from 5 sections with a total of 100 participants. 91 out of 100 participants felt that the support from the facilitators were excellent or good! That really tells us that our facilitators are pro-active in their approach to assisting participants. EXCELLENT JOB!

Remember, the evaluation at the end of the course is a VERY important component for the success of the project. Please encourage your participants to complete the course evaluation before you complete your course wrap-up activities. The information we receive through these evaluations helps us to keep improving the FOR-PD experience for everyone and expands our services to Florida educators!

In our continuing effort to benefit teacher's needs across the state, FOR-PD has established yet another tool for educators to use. This tool is FOR-PD's Reading Strategy of the Month. Each month we will feature an effective reading strategy, explain the rationale behind the strategy, step-by-step directions on how to use the strategy with students, ideas for assessing the strategy, and, of course, a printable PDF version of the strategy itself that you can share with others and use yourself!

This month we're highlighting the 3-2-1 strategy from lesson 6. An important element of reading comprehension is the ability to summarize text. Summarizing requires readers to focus on the major elements of a text and to decide what is important. When reading longer texts, this strategy helps readers by allowing them to review what they read in one part before moving on to the next.

The idea is to summarize some key ideas, rethink them in order to focus on those that one is most intrigued by, and then pose a question that can reveal where understanding is still uncertain.

To kick off last month's strategy we created our ABC's of effective FOR-PD facilitation and ABC's of effective FOR-PD participation. We certainly hope that you will share this information with your participants and teachers at your school.

How does on-going assessment drive instruction? With the approach of FCAT, right around the corner - this topic is crucial for our understanding of why we need to analyze assessment for results to "individualize" our instruction.

Each month we have been focusing on great FOR-PD examples of the tips from Lesson 4 of your FOR-PD Facilitator Training and Certification Course. At the same time, we really enjoy giving a big FOR-PD salute to some of the great facilitators who have masterfully demonstrated their ability to be a Fine FOR-PD Facilitator! This month we are highlighting the following:

8. Keep track of problems and/or ideas to make the course better. Make yourself a sticky note or word processing document and make notes about things to improve, problems encountered, and/or good ideas for the next time the course is offered. Solicit input from participants and share with them what you have learned.

Last month we focused on "keeping expectations high". This month we're looking at keeping track of problems and/or ideas that could make the course better. There will be a need to communicate with the FOR-PD office and/or the district office -- to assist in recruiting participants, for example, and to report participant progress so that they can receive inservice points in a timely manner. You may also need to communicate with FOR-PD staff to report problems, to ask questions, to provide information that will allow your stipend to be processed in a timely manner, to gather and report statistics. Most of the communication can be done by email. Let's see some of the methods our facilitators have used in their sections this month to Keep Track of Issues in the course.

Joanna Durst (Seminole County) is offering fellow facilitators an idea on how to organize discussion posting subjects:

"New to facilitating I've realized that organization is KEY! I've posted several "FYI" postings in the Main section for my participants that way they know it's a "general" posting from me. Seems to be really helping. By giving them all a general title like-FYI RUBRICS, or FYI-LESSON 1 Quiz, I've eliminated the problem of teachers not knowing where to get specific info. With so many postings, sometimes the eyes get tired and confused. There is so much to scan over."

Another great example of keeping track of issues comes from Cherise Hollar (Lee County), with computer tips for the impending participants that will soon begin her section:

"If you are composing paragraphs for discussion, make sure that you hit the space bar twice to make a new paragraph. Otherwise it doesn't. If you wish to print a copy of your discussion for your literacy log, right click to show a menu and then click Select All. After it is all highlighted, right click again and click on print. Just some of the many things I learned during this course. If you have any other computer tips to make the computer aspect easier, please share."

Melissa Carr (Volusia County) knows how to keep track of the "copy/paste issue" for those participants that may show difficulties further through the course:

"This is my test page to use with participants when composing in Word first. After composing my text, I copy then paste into the discussion board under “compose new discussion.” This is the second test paragraph to see if the indentations transfer from Word to the discussion board correctly."

Our last example comes from Jessica Anzola (Seminole County) showing that she's kept track of her past experiences as a participant and passing on information on the literacy logs:

"This is just a quick message to everyone regarding the Literacy Log. Please check with your counties to see if you will be required to turn in a Log. When I took the course in Seminole County we were not required to turn it in. Many people still found it useful to create the Log even if it was not required. Here is a good chance for some of you to do some posting on the Message Board. If you find out your county's policy, please post it to share with the other teachers in our class."

Dear Felicity,
I am so impressed by the FOR-PD course! Wow! There is so much relevant information. Do I need to go through everything? Can you give me some suggestions on how to prioritize my tasks per lesson?

Just curious,
Anita Listmade

Dear Anita,

Participants can benefit from suggestions on definitely going over the content and items covered in the checklist, which can be found at the end of each lesson. We have included many resources and games to prepare them for quizzes, but they need to prioritize so they can spend their time and energy well. I know this is a catch 22--if anyone has a better suggestion, go with it. This is a question I have been asked a few times.

Hoping this helps,
Felicity

Send us your classroom reading success stories and FOR-PD reading strategies you have been implementing. Do you have any "funny" stories from your FOR-PD classes? Send your contributions to fff@orion.itrc.ucf.edu.

A recent participant, Linda Reid (Suwannee County), sent us her thoughts:

"I just finished the course and see the great need for an online format for all five competencies so educators can earn their reading endorsement through high quality programs such as the FOR PD course. Many of us live in small rural communities without convenient access to universities to take courses. The online format would certainly facilitate the process."

"Your numbers are wonderful news...it just keeps growing!" Kathy Smith (Lake County)

Another current participant, Audrey Barad (Broward County), also sends us her accolades of the course:

"I am enjoying the course immensely. The games that accompany each lesson make a great case for entertainment as a tool to educate. We are all having fun while learning and it doesn't have to be a drudge!"

6th Annual UCF College of Education Celebrate Literacy Symposium! on April 17, 2004 from 8:30-3.

The theme this year is "Get your hands on Reading!" The guest speaker will be Sharon Draper. http://sharondraper.com/index.asp Sharon Draper will give 2 presentations:

LITERACY, LAUGHTER, AND LEARNING (This one for the general session)

Sharon M. Draper will present a lively mixture of edification, laughter, and inspiration about the magic of books and the power of literacy. She will discuss the power of the past, the strength of the present, and the potential of the future for those that strive for excellence in education.

TEACHING FROM THE HEART (This one for the breakout session.)

Whether you are a beginning teacher, just trying your wings, or an experienced teacher who is "not quite burned out, but crispy around the edges," this session is designed for you. Suggestions and activities for classroom survival will be offered.The presentations include: engaging students with text, literature circles, motivating students to read through technology, leveled books, and much more. This event is for K-12 teachers, reading specialist, school library specialists, and all interested educators. The event is FREE to all Florida teachers!

To make it easier for all who care to register we have created an online registration page for you at http://www.itrc.ucf.edu/litsym/, and to assure that your fellow teachers can have all of the information for this conference we have also provided a flyer for you to download and share with them.

Dr. Vicky Zygouris-Coe will be visiting the FCRR Reading Conference in Captiva Island (February 12-13).The topics will be on vocabulary and comprehension.

Chris Yahn (Monroe County), a FOR-PD facilitator and member of the FOR-PD Advisory Board, is the honored recipient of this year's prestigious "Making It Happen" Award. The award is a nationally-recognized educational program highlighting the dramatic role educators play in the learning process using quality technology in the classroom. The program identifies educational technology leaders around the country and rewards those individuals for their commitment and innovation. The coveted "pink jacket" was awarded prior to the Florida Educational Technology Conference by industry representatives. Eileen Pracek, also on the FOR-PD Advisory Board, was last year's pink jacket winner.

"Being literate in contemporary society means being active, critical, and create users not only of print and spoken language but also of the visual language of film and television...Teaching students how to interpret and create visual texts...is another essential component of the English language arts curriculum. Visual communication is part of the fabric of contemporary life." NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts (1996) as quoted in Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 48:1, September 2002, pps.74-75

Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. By Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan New York, NY: Guilford Press ISBN: 1-57230-753-6

What is Robust Vocabulary Instruction? (Summary written by Dr. Zygouris-Coe)

A robust approach to vocabulary instruction involves directly explaining the meanings of words along with thought-provoking, playful, and interactive follow-up. According to Isabel Beck (2002), professor of education and senior scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, good readers have a well developed vocabulary. Beck has found that words are learned best when learned in context with thought-provoking and interactive follow-up in the classroom.

Beck (2002) has identified the following three tiers of words for vocabulary instruction:

1. Tier I (high frequency words) – includes high frequency, basic sight words that rarely require instruction in school — for example, the, play, and come.
2. Tier II (rich words) – includes high frequency words for mature language users. Instruction in these words can add to a student’s general ability — for example, coincidence, disposition, and industrious. This is where teachers should focus their vocabulary instruction.
3. Tier III (low-frequency words) – includes words whose frequency of use is normally quite low and limited to specific domains. These words are usually found within a content-area such as math or science — for example, isotope, galaxy, and eclipse.
   
   The following is a list of key suggestions for robust vocabulary instruction:

• Associate words with definitions but move beyond by having students manipulate words in rich and varied ways
• Associate new words with consequences
• Semantic groups
• Webs
• Use visual organizers
• Teach context clues
• Problem-solve with words
• Focus on conceptual understanding

  Reading assessment and intervention are key terms in today's schools for the development of quality reading programs that instruct students on an individual need basis. This site from Scholastic.com gives specific reasons on why teachers should assess on a continuous basis and specific interventions to provide for students that exhibit needs that require it.

  What is your viewpoint? Is it better for students to read anything or nothing at all? This is an interesting question posed by J. Kevin Tumlinson, a writer in Houston, Texas. Through his online magazine he poses concepts of varying interests to professionals and students alike. One of his opinions is entitled Reading Rights; Mr. Tumlinson gives several resources that teachers could use in the classroom that could motivate readers more than the "typical" texts offered in some classrooms.

Check these out!

The Role of the Online Instructor/Facilitator written by Dr. Zane Berge lists the roles and functions of the online instructor in computer learning. This is a research based document that depicts not only the roles and functions of the online facilitator, but it also offers pedagogical recommendations for facilitators to enable in order to make the online learning experience easier for the participants.

February is Black History Month. Education Commissioner Jim Horne and other education leaders are scheduled to kick off Black History Month with opening of the first ever Education Black History Exhibit. The opening was scheduled to take place on Monday, February 2nd. It is planned to host several artifacts contributed by various African Americans to America's education. FOR-PD knows that many teachers throughout the state whether elementary or secondary will focus on Black History sometime this month. The Department of Education has provided an excellent web resource on assisting teachers on how to utilize the web to teach Black History Month. Check this one out! For some interactive online activities online visit Culture & Change - Black in America. This site allows the students to meet famous African Americans, listen to jazz music, publish your own writing, and explore history with our interactive timeline.

Have you ever wondered what type of online activities are out there that can not only assist you with content delivery, but give you a resource in which to deliver it? Search no longer! Scholastic.com offers online activities that present current events with activities provided to develop student's learning. This month they offer information on the current events of the voting primaries for the secondary students and elementary activities such as writing Valentine Day cards. There are several other topics in which to choose from on this site.

Check these out!

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Last updated February 16, 2004
Contact us at forpd@mail.ucf.edu

A project of the Instructional Technology Resource Center at the University of Central Florida.
Funded by the Florida Department of Education and Just Read Florida!