Grades 3-12 Reading Language Arts
Spring 2024 Professional Development and Information
“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.”
I hope you are willing to learn this summer. Whether you pick up a book, watch a TEDTalk video, or come to a Region 17 ESC training, make up your mind that you will learn. Ask questions. Provide scenarios. Give feedback. Learn.
I invite you to make a list of what you want to learn. What did STAAR results teach you? What did your students reveal that you need to learn? "I want to find a strategy to help my students...", "I would like to learn how to help my students make connections between...", and "I want to be the best teacher I can be and learn...".
Be willing to learn. Don't let anyone stop you.
STAAR
STAAR 2024
April 9–April 19 (Districts may choose to administer assessments on Monday of the second testing week without submitting a request to TEA.)
- Grades 3–8 Reading Language Arts
- English I
- English II
STAAR (Summer Dates)
June 18–June 28:
- English I
- English II
Click Here to View the Full 2023-2024 Student Assessment Testing Calendar.
When will you see your students' scores?
Early Student Results will be available in CRS for District Testing Coordinators and Superintendents:
- EOC: May 22, 2024
- Grades 3-8: May 30, 2024
- EOC: May 24, 2024
- Grades 3-8: June 4, 2024
- EOC: June 4
- Grades 3-8: June 11
- EOC: July 10
- Grades 3-8: July 19
Click Here to View the Full 2023-2024 Texas Assessment Program Calendar of Events.
Summer '24 Professional Learning Opportunities
GROOVE IS IN THE HEART
A Two-Day Mini-Conference for Paraprofessionals
Teachers, please share this information with your Para-Professionals.
Groove is In the Heart promises to be an enriching experience, equipping you with the tools and insiration to excel in your vital role as a paraprofessional. Come join us as we celebrate the impact of your work and empower you to continue making a difference in the lives of students.
View the flyer for more information.
May 29-30, 2024
Mondays at the Museum Summer Learning: Hybrid Style
Join us for this hybrid summer professional learning that brings our local community museums and more into our classrooms. The session will illustrate ways to connect content areas to the learning that takes place at our local points of interest. Participants will leave with STAAR/EOC connections as well as STEM and Fine Arts resources.
June 3, 2024
Summer Splash Effective Schools Summit A New Skate of Mind
Our keynote speaker, Hamish Brewer (aka the Tattooed Skateboarding Principal), grew up in a home disrupted by poverty, addiction, and family dysfunction. He understands the feelings of fear, lostness, and desperation that overwhelm too many children today—because that was his life. That experience is what drives him to work relentlessly to empower people living in the toughest areas to envision and create a better future for themselves.
The Summer Splash will target the Effective Schools Framework Essential Actions for leaders and teachers. Topics will include strong school leadership, strategic staffing, positive school culture, effective instructional strategies, PLCs, and data driven instruction. You will leave with actions and strategies that you can implement on day one of school!
June 4, 2024
Creating Secondary Classroom Writing Rubrics From Punctuation to ECR!
In this workshop, we will start with the TEKS and Student Expectations of Grammar and Punctuation, setting up our non-negotiable rubrics and a timeline for these to 'make the list'. The list will be made up of those rules students should know. This list will be aligned to our Short-Constructed Responses and Extended Constructed Response Rubrics.
We will practice speaking response skills and how to prompt students to speak in full and complete sentences using academic language. How do students use the question or prompt to accurately provide an answer? Sentence starters will be used and created as needed during this part of the workshop.
June 5, 2024
Summer of Wonder Curriculum Conference
Bring your staff to our 2024 Summer Curriculum Conference. We will have sessions for you and your team to choose throughout the day. We will have sessions focused on Core Content, STAAR, TEKS Resource, Special Populations, and more.
June 6, 2024
Using the TEKS Resource System to Enhance Instruction
The Region 17 TEKS Resource System Conference brings district educators together for one focused day of collaboration, innovation, and learning. The conference will showcase amazing speakers, hands-on workshops, and content-specific informational sessions.
The (Texas Curriculum Management Program Cooperative) TCMPC provides content and support for an online curriculum management system known as the TEKS Resource System. The content includes curriculum components and sample unit assessment items aligned to the most current versions of the State Board of Education-adopted standards (TEKS).
June 7, 2024
Creating a Language Rich Environment Supporting ALL learners K-12
In this full day workshop you will learn and practice many strategies to take back to your classroom. These are strategies that will help create an interactive learning environment where students can be successful. Not only will the strategies presented support emerging bilinguals in listening, speaking, reading and writing, they will enhance academic language for ALL students in ALL grade levels and content. Among, but not limited to, the topics covered will be differentiation, engagement, speaking, vocabulary and learning supports.
The morning session will be dedicated to whole-group learning while the afternoon session will include break-out sessions. In these 30 minute break-out sessons many strategies will be taught and modeled.
June 11, 2024
Creating Elementary Classroom Writing Rubrics From Punctuation to ECR!
3rd Grade-5th Grade teachers, students need to know the expectations from the beginning of the year. You need to be able to communicate these expectations from the beginning of the year.
In this workshop, we will start with the TEKS and Student Expectations of Grammar and Punctuation, setting up our non-negotiable rubrics and a timeline for these to 'make the list'.
We will move on to speaking response skills. How do students use the question or prompt to accurately provide an answer? Sentence starters will be used and created during this part of the workshop.
June 14, 2024
Summer Session at the National Ranching Heritage Center: Genre Connections with John R. Erickson and Hank the Cowdog
Join us as we use literature from John R. Erickson and Hank the Cowdog to explore various genres, their characteristics, and the connections between them. We will explore fiction, non-fiction as well as poetry.
June 21, 2024
Unlocking the Wonder of Literacy
The Science of Teaching Reading is truly an art and a science when planning and delivering instruction. This two-day conference will support teachers and administrators as they work to deliver reading instruction and improve student reading performance.
June 25-26, 2024
7 Mighty Moves for Reading Success in K-3 with author Lindsay Kemeny
Lindsay Kemeny, the author of 7 Mighty Moves: Research-Backed, Classroom-Tested Strategies to Ensure K-to-3 Reading Success will share practical ways to implement the Science of Teaching Reading, including:
- Move 1: Teach Phonemic Awareness With Intention
- Move 2: Teach Phonics Explicitly and Systematically
- Move 3: Teach Decoding Strategies, Not Cueing Systems
- Move 4: Use Decodable Texts Instead of Predictable Texts
- Move 5: Embrace a Better Approach to Teaching "Sight Words"
- Move 6: Focus on Meaningful Fluency Practice
- Move 7: Improve Comprehension by Developing Vocabulary and Background Knowledge
This workshop is great for K-3 Teachers and well as Interventionists!
July 15, 2024
Global Literacy to Read and Write About the World Making Connections Across the Curriculum
The session will provide strategies to connect the power of reading to our World History, World Geography and World Cultures classrooms. Cross-curriculum connections will also be included to support our ELAR teachers as we explore how these different texts can be used to support STAAR and EOC.
Teachers will also explore the various options available in the free rental library and help build the program by discussing new options of books to include.
July 15, 2024
RLA: Chapter and Verse (Elementary) Starting the Year with Literacy and Author's Purpose
In this workshop, Elementary Teachers (Grades 3-5) will work on understanding the details of upcoming units' content and instruction: Foundational Literacy Skills and Author's Purpose and Craft .
Elementary RLA Teachers, we will be diving deep into formatively assessing students' literacy skills to give us a starting point for the year. We will also be analyzing what author's purpose and craft are and how we use them in the elementary classroom.
July 16, 2024
Reading Reconsidered: by Teach Like a Champion
Learn the most up-to-date guidance on reading and writing instruction. This practice-intensive workshop provides instructional leaders with the materials and guidance to deliver high quality literacy classroom support and provides teachers with the tools to implement research-based literacy instructional practices with their students, both with the goal of driving literacy results in schools.
As educators you will learn more about high quality literacy instruction based on the Science of Reading and Learning. Facilitators will share research related to fluency, background knowledge, attention, and deliberate practice, as well as support participants in considering practical applications of this research that will support student literacy achievement.
WE WILL ANALYZE AND PRACTICE:
- Ways of Reading
- Knowledge Building and Tools
- Vocabulary
- Writing for Reading
- Close Reading and Text Complexity
July 17-18, 2024
TexQuest: TeachingBooks Overview & More Virtual Training
Presented by: TexQuest Representative
In this 3 hour virtual session, librarians and classroom teachers of all levels will learn more about TeachingBooks, which is a resource within TexQuest.
July 24, 2024
RLA: Chapter and Verse (Secondary) Literacy Fundamentals & Beginning Analysis
In this workshop, Secondary Teachers will work on understanding the details of the beginning units' content and instruction: Fundamental Literacy and Communication Skills and Literary Analysis.
Secondary RLA Teachers, we will be diving deep into formatively assessing students' literacy skills to give us a starting point for the year. We will also be analyzing what Literary Skills, at the Secondary Level, are and how we use them in the secondary classroom.
July 30, 2024
Teaching Typing (Article, Lessons and Pacing Guide)
Did you know? The STAAR Assessment is online and students, starting in 3rd Grade, have to type their Short-Constructed Responses and Extended-Constructed Responses with a KEYBOARD? All Across Texas little fingers are poised above a QWERTY-board. Searching, searching... Peck! Searching, searching... Peck! It's enough to make a Reading Language Arts Teacher read a blog!
TCEA's Sara Reed has shared an excellent blog in this month's technotes. I urge you to check it out: How to Teach Typing in Upper Elementary and Middle School.
English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) Review
Last year, TEA began convening English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) review work groups to provide recommendations for revisions to a preliminary draft of revised ELPS. The 2023-2024 ELPS review work group recommendations for revisions to the ELPS are currently available for review and feedback on the English Language Proficiency Standards Review web page.
TEA is collecting feedback on the draft recommendations through an online survey. The ELPS Draft Recommendations Feedback Survey is available at https://bit.ly/ELPS-Survey.
Feedback from educators is an important part of the SBOE’s review and revision process for the state curriculum standards. The work groups’ draft recommendations for revision to the ELPS are scheduled to be presented to the SBOE for first reading and filing authorization at its June 2024 meeting (June 25 – 28, 2024).
Resources and Information
New STAAR Resource from TEKS Resource System
STAAR Assessment Resource Documents
RLA Resources Archive
TexQuest Databases
TexQuest is a statewide digital resources program that provides anytime, anywhere access to high quality, authoritative digital resources to all educators, students, and students' immediate families in Texas K-12 public schools and open enrollment charter schools. Supported, in part, by appropriations from the Texas State Legislature, Texas districts pay a small per student participation fee to gain access to TexQuest resources from the providers listed on this page.
The Texas State Library and Archives Commission administers all aspects of the TexQuest program and is responsible for the selection and coordination of all TexQuest resources, as well as district invoicing.
If you are unsure if your district takes part in the TexQuest, contact Jerard Lafuente at jlafuente@esc17.net.
TEKS Resource System
TEKS Resource System can offer specificity to parents to better explain what students need to know or be able to do.
The performance assessments might help you design work or guide parents in getting students to successfully meet the expectation(s).
Use it to create essential questions paired with text.
Remember the system also offers STAAR stem questions that can be paired with a specific genre of study.
COVID-19 Planning Support and Resources provide teachers with TEKS R.S. Instructional Support Resources, a Texas Home Learning (THL) Correlation, and an Education Service Center Support.
RLA Team Contact Information
Lori Pittman
Education Specialist
Amplify K-8, Eureka K-2, & Pre-K Every Child Ready Support
(806) 281-5832
Julie Rogers
Education Specialist
K-2 RLA, Math, Science, Social Studies
Grade 3 RLA
jrogers@esc17.net
(806)-281-5841
Jerard Lafuente
Email: jlafuente@esc17.net
Website: Region 17 Reading Language Arts
Location: 1111 West Loop 289, Lubbock, TX, USA
Phone: (806)281-5878
Twitter: @JerardL