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= Focusing on Critical Reading at the Middle Level =



(photo by @http://www.flickr.com/people/somemixedstuff/) “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” - H.E. Luccock We are 5th-8th grade Phillips Elementary School teachers: Tom Piekart, the science teacher; Paula Roy, the social studies teacher; Andrea Ferrari, the reading specialist; and Margaret Nerney, the English teacher (For more specifics, see the "About Us" page.)
 * About Us:**

Our LPLC formed in the spring of 2009 when Tom Piekart, Paula Roy, and I, Margaret Nerney, were working on an integrated unit together. We realized that we were all incorporating reading assignments, yet the students weren't making the connections between the skills that they were learning in their English class and the skills they needed for the reading materials in their social studies and science classes. It began quite informally and has already led to more cohesion and a variety of other integrated units. We work together during most half-day workshops and meet frequently after school to collaborate on current and upcoming units.

Andrea Ferrari joined our group in the fall of 2009 when she became our district's reading specialist. Our district has set improving literacy as a focus due to our NCLB status, so she was a natural fit. Her involvement has allowed the group to become more focused on literacy strategies at our weekly team meetings and allows us to have more consistency across the district. Andrea allows us the opportunity to connect with the staff outside of our LPLC and therefore reach a wider audience.

Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. -- Abigail Adams It is our mission to research and implement new reading strategies across the curriculum at Phillips Elementary School (grades 5-8). It is our understanding and belief that our students will learn best through collaboration across the content areas and with consistent terminology and strategies. We are hoping to bring continuity to our students through a team approach.
 * Our Mission:**

Our district high school is already working on this with a Literacy Specialist, Darlene Bassett. She has worked on creating grade level teams that develop and share literacy strategies in order to create the consistency and collaboration that we are also working toward at the middle school. So far, the high school has freshman and sophomore grade level teams. I, Margaret Nerney, have worked at the high school and have been involved in some of the literacy work done there. Therefore I am aware of the different strategies used there and have relationships built with the teachers of those grades. This allows for a natural bridge for communication and collaboration. Eventually our team will be able to meet with the high school teachers, but for now we are attempting to collaborate locally at the middle school level.

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes This wiki is a place for our LPLC to share and collaborate. It offers a place to store our valuable resources with the ability to add more. We have organized them into three different categories. "Cross Curricular Literacy Strategies" is a page dedicated to resources focused on specific strategies and graphic organizers for students. The "Instructional Resources" page offers resources for curriculum development, philosophies, and research based programs. "Tools" is a page dedicated to the web based, downloadable, and software tools that will aid students in the implementation of those strategies. There is also a page labeled "Meeting the Standards" which highlights the National, state and technology standards that we are meeting through the different sources. Notice that there are icons used to coordinate the many resources with the standards that they meet. **
 * Purpose of the wiki:

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