Sharp Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction (Secondary)

Description

This course focuses on comprehension teaching in the secondary classroom.

This workshop provides participants with:

• a knowledge of the skills employed by successful readers,
• an explicit, transferable routine for comprehension instruction, that empowers students and simplifies the work of teachers
• classroom strategies to enable students to be active in their reading and increase engagement in their learning.

Whether working one-to-one, in small groups, or with the whole class, this approach to reading comprehension instruction is simple and effective. Extensive research and classroom trials support its effectiveness as a successful teaching approach that improves reading engagement and achievement.

The course will focus on the Sharp Reading stage 3 Comprehension Strategy Instruction routine that focuses on constructing meaning at the sentence level. Following that will be a focus on stages 4 and 5 of the Sharp Reading progression that moves students from constructing meaning to text analysis at the paragraph and whole text level.

  Resources:
• 12 months of online tutorials valued at $99 NZ
• Twelve months of small step, at-your-own pace learning with weekly tutorials, video modelling and supporting

TARGET AUDIENCE:
Principals, Secondary Teachers, Literacy Leaders, Support Teachers and Teacher Assistants.

Presenters

Christopher Witt (AISWA Staff)

Literacy Consultant

Christopher Witt joined AISWA in 2009. Prior to that he was a Consultant at STEPS Professional Development.  At STEPS, Chris developed a literacy resource for secondary teachers: Tactical Teaching Reading. It included materials and professional learning courses and had great success nationally and internationally, helping many secondary teachers to successfully support literacy across their curriculum area.

After teaching for 25 years, Chris worked in various advisory and consultancy roles in curriculum improvement. He has been at AISWA for 12 years as a Literacy Consultant providing support for teachers and schools in professional learning and literacy improvement initiatives. This includes Sharp Reading, First Steps and Primary Connections. Key PL programs developed by Chris at AISWA include Scaffolding Adolescent Literacy and Programming and Assessment in English (P-10).