Teach Effectively!

Wrapping up ‘08 RF conference

As reported previously, I had the pleasure of attending the Fifth Annual Reading First National Conference. I found it a very impressive event. Although I really am flattered to be among the folks shown in the accompanying photo (l-f: Donna Scanlon, Joe Conaty, Frank Vellutino, and Katherine Mitchell), I think my favorite part of the event was hearing what the teachers, coaches, and administrators had to say.

When I hear most other folks talk about reading, they use a very different language; they talk about book tubs, word walls, high-interest books, round-robin reading, and such. When I talk with a select few colleagues about reading instruction, I am accustomed to talking about students’ performance on specific measures of component skills, altering teaching demonstrations (e.g., pacing), features of instructional presentations, scaffolding instruction systematically, and etc. For the first time in my life, I was in a place where literally 1000s of people were talking the way I am accustomed to being able to talk with only a few colleagues.

The teachers, coaches, principals, and others whom I met in Nashville know their stuff! Not only that, they know that they can help each other by collaborating using their shared language. There are powerful teams capable of excellent reading instruction scattered around the US now. They know they can teach kids to read. They have done it.

As Joe Conaty pointed out in his closing remarks, no one can take away from those teams what they now know how to do. Remembering this really makes my emotional cup full to overflowing.

Previous posts about the conference: Laura Bush’s comments (29 July 2008); pin map (28 July 2008); overview (28 July 2008).