Some Take-Aways From the LILAC Conference
Meeting John Schu at the LILAC Conference!
At the end of March, I presented at and attended the LILAC (Long Island Language Arts Council) conference. After presenting my session, which was focused on ways to help parents support their children at home with reading and writing, I attended a session on Shifting the Balance from balanced literacy to more of a Science of Reading focus. The presenter for that session was great! She discussed the importance of rethinking MSV when kids are reading. So, rather than emphasize the importance of meaning and encouraging kids to guess a word that can make sense in the sentence, highlight the visual and make sure to have the kids try to decode the word. This means that MSV are still helpful to teachers, but the focus is shifting from the M - Meaning to the V- Visual. That makes perfect sense and it is necessary for the kids to try and read the word rather than guess based on what they think fits and not even pay attention to the look of the word.
While I was at the conference, I met the children’s author John Schu! He is the author of the books This is a School and This is a Story. His books are amazing - so full of details the excite kids. In This is a School, the illustration is drawn so that it looks like John is the librarian, and the library is full of his favorite books! Kids can identify so many of the books on those pages.
To end the day, educator and consultant, Kelly Gallagher spoke about writing instruction. He shared so many ideas and strategies to get kids writing beyond the four paragraph essay. One strategy that he shared was how to help kids give feedback to each other. Kids need to have their writing read by more than just the classroom teacher - so helping them learn to give feedback to each other is very beneficial to their writing. One idea is to do laps. For example, have the kids do an “I wonder lap.” After reading a peer’s writing, give feedback using the sentence started, “I wonder…”. Other sentence starters can include - “I noticed that…” or “I enjoyed the part…” or “Locate the thesis lap.” These help guide the feedback and keep it constructive and also have the writing read by more than the teacher.
Kelly Gallagher also spoke about the idea of volume of writing and getting kids to write more. He gave the strategy of free writing about different topics that provoke kids to want to write. At the end of the week, let the students decide which of their pieces you will read and give feedback on. I like this strategy because it lets kids write for the sake of writing, and does not mean that each piece will be read and assessed. It also gives the students the choice to decide which piece they want the teacher to see and provide feedback on.
Overall, it was a productive day full of lots of wonderful information that I am sharing with my students!