Literacy Action Plan

The Literacy Action Plan:

A Blueprint for Literacy Success

Linda B. Akanbi

Oftentimes at the end of a successful staff development workshop, teachers leave brimming with new ideas to try out in their classrooms. The Reading Endorsement Summer Institutes also provide teachers with many new ideas and strategies for improved literacy instruction and assessment. However, even with the best intentions, sometimes teachers find it challenging to implement the many useful strategies learned during reading workshops and reading institutes. At Kennesaw State University, teachers enrolled in the Summer Reading Institute, as part of the Reading Endorsement program, develop a Literacy Action Plan (LAP) to guide their implementation of strategies learned. The LAP is designed to improve literacy instruction in a teacher’s particular instructional setting, and to guide his or her professional development over the course of the follow-up academic year. It also guides the teaching reflections (which are shared with peers as well as the instructor), the topics for discussion, and the live chats in the online course that follows the Summer Reading Institute. The LAP is in tune with the more recent view of professional development where teachers become the principal agents in promoting their own professional growth, rather than just playing a passive role (Marland, 1995; Glatthorn,1995). The research-based Framework for Professional Development drafted by the National Center on English Learning and Achievement also support it. In addition, the Literacy Action Plan is keyed to the nine reading standards for the PSC-approved Georgia Reading Endorsement, and the three broad strands that subsume these standards. The strands are: (1) understanding readers and the reading process, (2) linking assessment with instruction and (3) instructional strategies. The LAP is organized into the following components:

I. School Description

II. Goal

III. Professional Development Needs

IV. Plan for Reaching Goal

V. Assessing Progress Toward Goal

VI. Working with Colleagues

VII. Community Involvement

VIII. Reflection and Modification

In Part I, teachers introduce us to their instructional setting by providing demographic information about the student population and the school. In Part II, teachers state the literacy goal(s) they want to focus on for the year. Often, these goals are tied to the School Improvement Plan. According to Glatthorn (1995), in self-directed models of teacher development, the teacher typically identifies a significant goal related to his or her professional development, and that goal may derive from many sources, including the School Improvement plan. Examples of goals that teachers in the KSU Reading Endorsement program have selected in the past include increasing comprehension through interaction with text and building background knowledge; improving vocabulary; increasing vocabulary and comprehension using pre-reading strategies; and creating a reader’s workshop that will

(a) build and enhance background knowledge,

(b) improve comprehension by increasing vocabulary using guided reading,

(d) develop 3rd grade readers (in a second grade class), and

(e) move all readers two or more reading level above their initial reading level.

Teachers must also provide a rationale for selecting each goal.

In Part III of the LAP, teachers state what resources and additional research they will need in order to become more knowledgeable about their chosen area of focus. The middle school teacher who chose vocabulary as a focus had this to say under Part III, Professional Development:

“Professionally, I need to be exposed to more research that directly relates vocabulary to reading comprehension. I also need to continue to search for vocabulary strategies that will help me provide guidance to students so that they may expand their vocabulary” (L.B).

This notion fits the framework for professional development set forth by the National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement, which is based both on their conceptual framework and review of the literature. The following statements are part of the framework developed by the Center:

Effective professional development is problem based and involves teachers in activity that has authentic educational change as its goal. Effective professional development is also practice based, focusing on the goals, materials, curriculum and students that are part of the teachers’ daily professional realities.

A dual focus on both conceptual and pedagogical tools enables teachers to deepen their own understandings of the ways they teach while also broadening their repertoire of successful classroom techniques.

Part IV of the Literacy Action Plan describes what instructional strategies and curriculum materials teachers will utilize to achieve their goals, which is also alluded to in the framework above. Below is an excerpt from the first grade teacher who chose increasing comprehension through interaction with text and building background knowledge as her goal:

“Before reading a book to my students, whether in the content area or for pleasure, I will build background knowledge. The anticipation guide, KWL, and discussions are some activities that I will use to help my students build and activate background knowledge. I can also model how I use my understanding of the text and activities completed before and during the text to write about a story” (J.W.)

In Part V, teachers explain how they plan to assess student learning and connect assessment to instruction. The first grade teacher referenced above writes in her LAP:

“A writing sample will be obtained from my students at the beginning of the year and one every week thereafter. I will look at these writing samples as well as anecdotal notes to determine if students are ready to master another strategy or if they need additional support. Along with writing samples and anecdotal notes, dialogue journals will also help drive my instructional decision-making” (J.W.).

In Part VI teachers describe their plan for working with other teachers in their school, including cross-teaming and vertical teaming, to improve the teaching of literacy. This addresses Standards Seven and Eight of the Georgia Reading Endorsement. Teachers explain their plan for involving parents and the community in Part VII of the LAP, and in Part VIII, teachers state how they will operate as reflective practitioners. Teachers posting their reflections online on a periodic basis, and receiving feedback from both peers and instructor, facilitate this process. According to A Framework for Professional Development (online document), successful professional development provides teachers with ongoing opportunities to reflect on their own practices. At the end of the Reading Endorsement program, teachers are required to produce a Power Point presentation to share with their instructor and peers, highlighting the results of their Literacy Action Plan, focusing on the three program strands, and student learning and achievement. Most teachers who complete the program say that they will continue to develop Literacy Action Plans to guide their literacy instruction because they find them to be so helpful in terms of helping them to focus on specific literacy goals, and improve teaching and learning in their classrooms.

Work Cited

Center on English Learning and Achievement. A framework for professional development. (online article). Available: http://cela.albany.edu/research/partnerC4.htm

Glatthorn, A. (1995). “Teacher development.” In L.W. Anderson (Ed.) International Encyclopedia of Teaching and Teacher Education. University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA: Pergamon.

Marland, P. W. (1995). “Implicit theories of teaching.” In L.W. Anderson (Ed.) International Encyclopedia of Teaching and Teacher Education. University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA: Pergamon.