The Professional Learning Community: Grades 4-12 Content Area Literacy tool will be based on the recommendations from the following practice guides: Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices and Providing Reading Intervention for Students in Grades 4-9. These professional learning community materials will be designed to promote change in teacher practice and student outcomes by supporting English language arts, social studies, and science teachers to incorporate evidence-based literacy practices into their instruction. Professional learning materials will be provided for facilitators, teachers, and educational leaders, and will focus on the recommendations from the two practice guides. Additional resources will include self-reflection checklists, videos of classrooms in action, tools to aid in implementation and sustainability, and more.

The Toolkit for Differentiating Reading Instruction in Grades K-3 (Toolkit) will be based on the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) practice guide, Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention (RtI) and Multi-Tier Intervention in the Primary Grades. While the practice guide addresses the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) and provides several recommendations for that model, this Toolkit focuses on Recommendation 2 from the practice guide: Provide differentiated reading instruction for all students based on assessments of students’ current reading levels (tier 1).?This Toolkit will be designed to promote change in teacher practice and student outcomes by supporting teachers in how to differentiate tier 1 instruction to help improve reading instruction for ALL students. Professional learning opportunities for teachers, facilitators, and educational leaders will focus on collecting and interpreting student data in order to plan and implement differentiated instruction. Professional learning resources include self-reflection checklists, action plans, videos of classrooms in action, resources to dig deeper about how to differentiate instruction, and more.

This project will offer three academy strands to provide evidence-based literacy practices for literacy educators in Florida Panhandle elementary schools. The first strand will focus on improving implementation of third grade summer reading camps through training on the use of the Summer Reading Camp Self-study Guide for first district literacy leaders and then school-based teams. The second strand will focus on providing training on evidence-based practices for content area literacy instruction for teachers in grades 4 and 5. The final strand will provide training sessions on how to implement differentiated Tier 1 literacy instruction in grades K-5.