Here is an overview of what literacy experts advise, when asked how teachers could collectively raise the school’s reading achievements.
Promote Leadership
As a teacher, you need to be in on the decisions that the principal is making. This means that you should be having meetings with the principal at least two to three times a week. By improving your leadership skills, you should essentially become a spokesperson for literacy matters.
Increase Literacy Instructions
Start by observing the number of literacy instructions that your students are receiving currently. You can ask your students to read on their own, which might help fluency, but it isn’t as effective when it comes to raising reading achievements.
Instead, teach them about word meanings and decoding and try to promote the ability to comprehend entire passages’ meaning. An excellent way to do this is by summarizing every passage you read.
You should also teach them ways of writing effectively. This is the phase where most of your time will be invested.
You can employ several techniques, such as holding workshops for professional development with teachers’ organized reading groups. Using this technique, you can pursue instructional issues and even co-plan lessons.
Monitoring
Monitoring kids’ progress is essential to assess them effectively, so teachers need to collect information on aspects such as fluency. This will allow you to observe students who may not have an adequate amount of progress. That way, you can then take the appropriate measures.
Within the ELA program, there will always be two groups of students who might struggle more than others, such as disabled students and second-language students. To help them cope, you can hold special classes for these students, such as an afterschool program for reading comprehension.
Parental Support
Parental support is an excellent promoter of any development, which is why teachers should enlist the help of each student’s parents. This can also include regular workshops for parents.
Concluding Thoughts
Raising reading achievement isn’t as difficult as it may seem, provided that the teachers of a school know what they have to do. It also isn’t something that you can achieve overnight, so keep at it, and you will eventually see the fruits of your labor.