The New Jersey Department of Education is proud to present a groundbreaking Foundational Literacy Instruction Professional Development, organized in collaboration with Children's Literacy Initiative. This comprehensive seven-part series is designed to equip educators with the latest tools and strategies for advancing foundational literacy instruction.

Why This Educator Series?

The ability to read and comprehend is a cornerstone of a child's educational journey, and it's crucial for their overall success. Our educator series is dedicated to empowering educators with the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to foster literacy proficiency in K-3 students.

What You Can Expect:

📚 Expert-Led Sessions: Engage with leading experts in the field of literacy education who will share their insights and best practices.

💡 Cutting-Edge Strategies: Learn the latest evidence-based instructional strategies to boost student achievement.

🔄 Interactive Learning: Participate in dynamic discussions and activities to apply what you've learned in real-world settings.

🌟 Resource Sharing: Gain access to valuable resources and materials to build your capacity and knowledge.

🤝 Professional Network: Connect with like-minded educators, share experiences, and build a strong support network.

📝 Professional Development Hours - By attending this series, teachers and educators can earn up to 4 hours of professional development.

Who Should Attend?

• K-3 Educators
• Literacy Coaches
• Curriculum Specialists

By participating in this Foundational Literacy Instruction Professional Development, you'll play a pivotal role in shaping the future of literacy education in your school and community. Together, we can empower young minds and inspire a lifelong love for reading and learning. Secure your spot today. Take a look at the session dates and times below.

This virtual educator series will be held over several weeks, providing you with a flexible schedule to accommodate your professional and personal commitments. All educator sessions below will be offered twice daily, once from 11-11:40 AM and then again from 4-4:40 PM.

Click the button below to register for the series. You can learn more about each session below.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the smallest individual sounds in spoken words. To fully understand language, children need practice around individual phonemes to understand the relationship among words, letters, and sounds. In this session, we will develop and build a common understanding of the components included in phonemic awareness instruction and explore activities that support children to notice, articulate, and manipulate phonemes.

Phonics is the knowledge of how spoken sounds (phonemes) can be represented by written letters (graphemes). Phonics connects phonological awareness—the ability to hear and work with spoken words, word parts, and individual sounds—to written language. Phonics helps children learn how oral language is written as print and how the spelling of words is related to speech sounds. In this session, we will examine what is needed for effective phonics instruction and how we can support children in developing their phonics skills.

Fluency is the ability to read words, phrases, sentences, and connected text accurately, at an appropriate pace, and with expression. Fluency is a bridge between word recognition and comprehension, allowing readers to make meaning for a text “on the run.” In this session, we will learn the elements of fluency, and how to assess a child’s fluency. We will explore ways to support children’s reading fluency through modeling and repeated reading.

Vocabulary refers to the kinds of words and phrases children must know and understand to read increasingly challenging texts with comprehension. Building children's vocabulary is an incredibly important component of literacy instruction. When children know more words, they can comprehend more of what they read, communicate more of what they know, and develop a joy of reading! In this session, we will outline three ways that will help increase children’s vocabulary development. We will also explore some ways we can help build children’s vocabulary.

Reading comprehension is the understanding of interpreting what is read by extracting and constructing meaning from written text. Further, comprehension is a life-long pursuit. However, critical instructional moves support developing readers to build and reinforce a mental frame for navigating all types of text. We will explore three ways of framing comprehension pedagogy, including comprehension-as-outcome, comprehension-as-procedure, and comprehension-as-sensemaking, and what each can look like in practice.

Reading is a complex process involving different skills, processes and strategies. Join us to learn how to support children’s emergent literacy skills and help them grow into readers and writers. In this session, we will provide an overview of the Simple View of Reading and Scarborough’s Reading Rope to understand the components of skilled reading. We will explore ways to support emergent reading development through concepts of print, alphabet knowledge, alphabetic principle, phonology, and orthographic processing.

Phonological awareness is a critical early literacy skill that supports children in recognizing and working with the sounds of spoken language. During this session, we will develop and build a common understanding of what components are included in phonological awareness and why they are important for children's early literacy learning. We will explore practical some ways that we can use phonological awareness activities to help children identify and manipulate sounds in speech.

Sign up for updates and be among the first to know when registration opens. Join us in making a significant impact on literacy education in New Jersey and beyond.

If you have any questions or need further information about this webinar series, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to embarking on this educational journey with you!