A teacher since 2001, JuneFrances Anderson is a literacy teacher and coach at Oakland Elementary in Denver. JuneFrances discusses coaching and training, and how book collections are benefiting her classroom.
What were your initial expectations about CLI?
I really didn’t know a lot about CLI when I started here at Oakland this year.
How do you feel about CLI after receiving professional development services from them?
I feel that CLI supports best practices in teaching literacy, and offers coaching to the literacy teachers.
How have CLI’s trainings and one-on-one and small group coaching transformed your literacy instruction?
CLI’s trainings have brought attention back to the best practices of teaching literacy, and the important aspects that every literacy classroom and teacher should possess.
CLI’s goal is to create a “sustainable, school-wide culture of literacy that introduces students to the joys of reading, writing, and life-long reading.” What are your expectations as to how this will develop in your classroom?
The students are enjoying all of the new books that CLI has provided – along with my enthusiasm around introducing the new books.
What were your initial takeaways from the Classroom Culture and Environment (CCE) and Independent Read Aloud (IRA) trainings, and how have you implemented (or how will you implement) those lessons and strategies into your planning for the 2016-2017 school year?
So far, I have implemented the “Power of Three” (a hallmark of CLI: Take care of yourself, take care of others, and take care of your classroom and environment) into my classroom community with our morning meetings, and literacy instruction. It has really brought a focus to the students on what they are able to do to support taking care of themselves and our classroom. I had already started my classroom library and having our classroom feel like home. So I appreciated the common language around having an organized classroom and spaces for books and children to work and to read.
What is your literacy goal for yourself and your students during the 2016-2017 school year?
Our literacy goal for this year is to read new and amazing books brought to us by CLI and our new early literacy curriculum. We will learn how to respond to books that we read orally and in writing. My hope is that my 3rd graders will become proficient on grade level readers by the end of the year and will have read a variety of text. We would like to thank CLI for all of your hard work in bringing literature and mentor texts into kindergarten through 3rd grade classrooms. Without this program, we would not have had as many new and exciting books for our classroom.
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