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Our Journey to Rebalance Literacy Instruction and Refine our MTSS – Part 4: Using Data to Put it all together

Snapshot of data As we worked to improve our Tier 1 literacy instruction discussed in my previous post, we also expanded on our data collection and data analysis procedures.  We recognized that we were missing certain data points that could be helpful in tracking student progress. Most importantly, we needed to be more intentional in…

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Our Journey to Rebalance Literacy Instruction and Refine our MTSS – Part 3: Setting Our Path to increase teacher confidence and skill in literacy instruction

What are our Goals? At the start of the 2020 school year, despite the ongoing difficulty managing the changing COVID landscape, or perhaps because of the urgency to address the literacy needs of our students within that landscape of interrupted learning, we were determined to stay focused and move our work forward. As discussed in…

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Our Journey to Rebalance Literacy Instruction and Refine our MTSS Systems – Part 2, Parallels in Learning Support

In the previous post, I discussed the questions and investigations we explored to consider our literacy progress and instruction. At the same time, and even starting the year before, our ES Learning Support team began to investigate our tiers of support and our referral processes. In this post I will outline that process and in…

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Our Journey to Rebalance our Literacy Instruction and Refine our MTSS Systems – Part 1, Questions and Investigations

Our school is about to start the second year of our focused work in rebalancing our literacy program and refining our Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. In this series of posts, I will outline and document the discussions, decisions, learning, planning, and implementation process. I know many schools are having these conversations and I hope that…

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Neurodiversity is the norm

“It is possible that persons with bits of these traits are more creative, or possibly even geniuses.  If science eliminated these genes, maybe the whole world would be taken over by accountants” (p. 428) In honor of Autism month, I am resharing this post I wrote many years ago on a previous version of this…

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Multilingualism is an Asset

AISJ ES inner courtyard for International Mother Language Day 2021 When moving into my new position as K12 Learning Support Coordinator at the American International School of Johannesburg last year, I created a Whats App group called Laura's EAL Support Team. You know who you are - THANK YOU! I recognized that building a strong…

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The Right to be Disabled

In my last post, I wrote about one of the keynotes from the virtual SENIA 2020 conference, This month, I will return to that inspiration as well. Norman Kunc and Emma Van der Klift spoke about their own experiences navigating school and life with a disability. They made powerful and provocative points that have continued…

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Get ready, Do, Done

Question your maps and models of the universe, both inner and outer, and continually test them against the raw input of reality. Our maps are still maps, approximating the landscape of truth from the territories of the knowable — incomplete representational models that always leave more to map, more to fathom, because the selfsame forces…

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Help! I am Co-Teaching my child at home.

Tales from the Covid-19 Lockdown, remote learning reality If you are like me, and so many others around the world currently, you are trying to continue to do your job remotely over zoom, GoogleMeets, and other virtual platforms, which is strange and challenging enough, on its own. IF, you also happen to be a parent,…

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Building a Culture of Dignity

All human conflict emerges from violations of dignity or perceived violations of dignity.Donna Hicks From Paul Bloomberg's work at AISJ September 2019 We had the great fortune at AISJ of working with Paul Bloomberg from the Core Collaborative this past week. He began his work with us by focusing on building a culture of dignity.…

Neurodiversity is the norm

Tales of La Tortugita

“It is possible that persons with bits of these traits are more creative, or possibly even geniuses. If science eliminated these genes, maybe the whole world would be taken over by accountants” (p. 428)

In honor of Autism month, I am resharing this post I wrote many years ago on a previous version of this blog. As I reread it, it connects so much with the inspiring words of Norman Kunc and the Right to be Disabled that I wrote about in a previous post.

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman In this comprehensive, well researched, thought provoking book on the history, legacy, and current understanding and hopes for Autism, Steve Silberman shatters the myth that there is an epidemic of Autism. By digging deep into case files, scientific and artistic history, and medical records of many individuals previously identified as childhood schizophrenics…

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