Action Post #1

         Focus: Reading Comprehension Strategies

During our Professional Learning Day in November, Staff were guided through teaching and learning strategies to activate thinking before reading a text. Staff worked in small groups and were shown a series of pictures from a story and were asked:

How are the images connected?

What could be a possible theme? Why did your group choose this theme?

Who are the main characters? How do you know?

What are key vocabulary words that come to mind?

Before being shown the entire story, groups shared their thoughts and made connections to each other’s thinking. Teachers agreed that this strategy was engaging, developed vocabulary, and accessed prior knowledge to help students make meaning of text. They prepared to employ this strategy the next day with their students.

Focus: How can we use our learning spaces more intentionally to support self regulation and learning?

Our Resource team has been creating “Sensory Bins” to meet the sensory needs of our students. During our Professional Day this month, staff will be guided by District Staff on the use of the bins to increase student capacity to self- regulate and to communicate their awareness of self, the environment and their peers.