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September 2021 Literacy Updates

Kindergarten Night Out will be held on September 8 from 4:15 - 5:15 in the auditorium at the ASB. Please invite all kindergarten teachers to attend. We will be learning some tips and tricks to use in Walk to Read for students who are above level. This is a time to collaborate and get some freebies for the classroom.

There is a new curriculum planning tool available for third-grade teachers who are using HD Word Plus called the HD Word Plus Weekly Road Map. This map will help guide teachers through the resources available in HD Word Plus and it serves as a helpful day-to-day planning guide. This resource will continue to be developed throughout this school year. Please be sure to share this HD Word Plus Weekly Road Map link with all third-grade teachers and all building coaches.

The literacy department is hosting a weekly literacy Q&A every Thursday in September from 3:30-4:30. An updated link to this meeting is included. Please share this information with your teachers and coaches and feel free to join us if you have any literacy questions. Please be sure to use this updated link to access the meetings.  Literacy Q & A

We have added another make up session for the Literacy Launch for anyone who still needs to attend the training. The new dates are September 27th and 29th and these dates are now available in JPLS.

We have two additional dates for Heggerty and MSRC training scheduled for September 7th and 14th for anyone still needing this training. The classes are available for sign up on JPLS.

We are expecting the additional Really Great Reading teacher manuals and student workbooks to arrive this Friday by 7:00 pm. We will send them out to schools next week as long as they arrive on time. The student workboards are still on backorder.

Each school should have received or should be receiving shortly, a shipment of phonics decodable readers from High Noon Books/Academic Therapies Publications. These were mentioned during Literacy Launch training. These books are perfect for upper-grade students who are working on building decoding skills. These books should be stored in a central location where all teachers can have access to them. The set of books will include 8 different series with a total of 86 books. The series are listed below:

Magic Belt Series (12 books)
Alba Series (12 books)
Totem Series (12 books)
Talisman Series One (10 books)
Rescue Series (10 books)
Titan's Gauntlets Series (10 books)
Talisman Series Two (10 books)
Amber Guardians Series (10 books)

We have a few schools who have not responded to the Google form that was sent out by Sara Henderson regarding the need for Think Central for literacy. If we do not hear from schools by September 7th we will assume that you do not need Think Central subscriptions for your school. This will not affect math subscriptions to Think Central. The link to the Google form can be accessed through this Google Form for Think Central link.

USBE has requested that teachers participate in a brief survey. This survey will be sent out to teachers through Canvas and participation in the survey is encouraged.

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