#UnstoppableWS
Faculty Meeting
Your Shoebox number is 341296
You must register in Shoebox before Jan 9
Do register for this one :)
Data Wall
Report Cards
MAP Testing
16-2nd Grade
17-1st Grade
18- Kindergarten
HERO Reward
Power Panthers
Jonathan Perez
Sofia Sanchez
Duncan Jackson
Out of Building
#prayingforamiracle
Phonics First
SPED will attend. They will attend on the SPED day.
Group 1: Feb 7-9
- KIndergarten: CE / ES / SS / MSE
- PreK: NS / WC / WS
Group 2: April 11-13
- Kindergarten: MC / SC / WS / CLA
- PreK: CE / MC / MSE
Email from Dr. T
Dear Cabot PK-6 Educators:
During the December 2017 school board meeting, Brainsprings Phonics First ® (K-4) and Structures (5-6) was officially adopted as our Tier 1 phonics and spelling curriculum and K-6 dyslexia intervention program. Your building administrator will be meeting with you soon to answer questions and to discuss the training schedule. It is impossible to find blocks of time during the summer to train all staff without dealing with massive conflicts, so we have made the decision to begin training this spring. We know that you do not want to be out of the classroom, but it is imperative that we train every staff member in an effective and efficient manner to ensure that the program is implemented with fidelity. We believe that this will have a very positive impact on our students and I look forward to observing implementation in our classrooms. My initial concern about the loss of 3 to 5 days of instruction this spring has been countered with knowing that this investment has the very strong potential to make not only an immediate but a long-term impact on student success in our classrooms. That's pretty awesome and we can make it happen!
If you know that you will not be returning to the district next year for whatever reason, please visit with your building administrator as soon as possible to determine if you need to participate in this extensive training program.
I hope you are excited about what you can learn from this opportunity, because I guarantee that if you approach this in a positive way, it will make a difference in what you are able to bring to your classroom.
So, why are we heading down this path?
In October of 2016, the Arkansas Department of Education released education rules governing how to meet the needs of children with dyslexia. This requires us to screen all K-2 students, and any student grade 3 or higher who has difficulty in: phonological and phonemic awareness; sound symbol recognition; alphabet knowledge; decoding skills; rapid naming skills; and encoding skills. Students that qualify for dyslexia intervention services must follow the instructional approach's guidelines.
On January 26, 2017 Governor Hutchinson and the Arkansas Department of Education launched the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (RISE). This initiative set in motion the need to increase the depth of knowledge for teachers in the area of phonics and phonological awareness and how that knowledge impacts fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and writing. This includes focusing on the science of reading.
As a district we made it a top priority to strengthen our current phonics and spelling program while also taking a deeper look at the dyslexia services we were providing. We wanted to ensure that we were not only meeting the requirements of the dyslexia law and the RISE Initiative, but also making an impact on students. As a pilot group, a team of teachers from Ward Central were trained through Brainspring to become certified to teach phonics and spelling using their Phonics First® program for the 2017-2018 school year. One of the factors that attracted this cadre of teachers to the program was the explicit, systematic, multi-sensory approach that fulfills the dyslexia law requirements and meets the criteria of the Arkansas RISE Initiative (http://www.arkansased.gov/divisions/learning-services/r.i.s.e.-arkansas). Over the summer they attended a 5-day workshop to gain an in-depth understanding of phonics and phonemic awareness to support beginning and struggling readers.
To further assess the instructional needs of our district, our curriculum department and principals visited nearby school districts using Phonics First®, sought support and recommendations from the Wilbur D. Mills Co-op, met with ADE, and reviewed the data from the pilot classrooms from Ward Central. Between the academic data gains, and the unanimous agreement between all stakeholders, it was clear that Brainspring’s Phonics First® was the perfect choice for our district.
Phonics First® and Structures are Orton-Gillingham based and accredited by both the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) and the International Multi-sensory Structured Language Education Council (IMSLEC). Phonics First® and Structures meet the needs of a wide range of students, including beginning, at-risk and struggling elementary readers and those K-12 students identified as dyslexic and/or learning disabled. Content can also be adapted to meet some needs of cognitively impaired students. This curriculum also enhances the reading and spelling skills of at- or above-grade readers at all levels of tiered instruction and the RTI model.
This intensive training will require you to attend either a 3-Day or 5-Day workshop depending on your position. Since the program is Orton-Gillingham based we chose to include our pre-K teachers so that they could implement the multi-sensory approach with their high performing students, and to gain a deeper understanding of phonics and phonemic awareness.
Since the majority of the training will take place this spring, we looked closely at the ACT Aspire testing dates to ensure that there was no major conflict. We did our best to ensure that training took place after state testing, or far enough in advance that it didn’t impact the weeks leading up to state testing. We realize that this will be time away from students, so thank you for this investment in your time and focus. It will make a positive impact on how you approach phonemic instruction, spelling and dyslexia with your students.
Please review the training schedule and work with your building administrator to ensure that you will be trained and prepared to fully implement the program for 2018-2019. Specific information about registration will be shared by your building administrator soon. We believe that implementing this program with fidelity will provide a deeper understanding of why we teach phonemic awareness and phonics, how to systematically teach reading, and how to reach every level learner in your classroom. We are excited about this new adventure and pleased that you will be a part of implementing this dynamic new program.