We are excited to announce the release of updated document to support Early Literacy in your schools and systems!
It is my honor to bring you tools to support Michigan's Individual Reading Instruction Plan and Dialogue for improving student literacy learning.
We know that your commitment to helping all of your students become readers and writers has been a focus for you AND we understand that the Michigan Reading Legislation has influenced the sense of urgency around reading proficiency in the state for our K-3 students. In a sincere labor of love for Michigan children and a devotion to the educators who make the difference for students, we have developed tools, that are published on the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Association (MEMSPA) website, including an Individual Reading Instruction Plan (IRIP) form and an IRIP Companion Document, to enhance and assist your teachers and literacy teams to focus on the right work of supporting and accelerating a student’s literacy growth. We created a short video explanation of what you can expect from the tool and the companion document here. The IRIP form is a unique 2 page document, as it supports teachers and teams to summarize individual assessment data and has a value on a teacher’s observations of the student and ability to summarize across multiple points of data to determine the next best focus for literacy learning. Additionally, the second page is specific and differentiated based on the goal determined by the teacher or team. The specific second pages house resources and hyperlinks to scaffold the teachers and teams to plan for the needs of the students and develop a course of instruction. We are thankful that we have the work of the GELN Early Literacy Task Force to embed for teachers to continue to reference as Research Based instruction.
You will also notice an unparalleled focus on a teacher’s reflectiveness and planning for Core Instruction (Tier I) as part of the IRIP second page. This intentionally placed section carries the value that we know in order to support our students’ literacy growth we can not intervene our way out of a Core instructional problem, and that teachers must be using and including the Essential Practices in every classroom, every day, for every child.
As former principals, we have implemented Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS) and know how the instructional plans for students are only as effective as the quality of the conversations the teams have around student data. And out of these experiences and value systems, the Companion Document evolved. Understanding that you and your teams would benefit from an easy to use, one stop shop guide for conversations and resources, we developed a short document than can be used to guide the IRIP work in your schools (no matter which form you are using). We expect you find the section explanations, the guiding questions, and the appendix valuable resources for you and your teachers to plan for student literacy instruction.
We plan to continue to add to the resources for you and adjust the form and the companion document based on the feedback we get from amazing leaders like you! If you find yourself needing something that isn’t in here, please don’t hesitate to let us know so we can include it. If something doesn’t work well in practice once you begin to use the resources, please let us know that, too! We are here to support you.
We sincerely hope these tools support your commitment to ensuring students are receiving quality literacy instruction and educators have the critical tools to work collaboratively to provide that instruction.
