edWebinars
«Back to all edWebinars- This event has passed.
Decodable Texts: Tap Into the Power to Support Beginning Readers
Tuesday, December 3, 2024 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EST
Presented by Elizabeth Franco, Lead Writer and Editor, The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower; Angela Báez, Writer, The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower; and Dr. Lucy Calkins, Robinson Professor of Literacy at Teachers College, Columbia University, Founding Director at The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower, and Senior Author of Units of Study in Writing, Reading, and Phonics
Sponsored by The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower
Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
Decodable texts have enormous potential for supporting beginning readers, and they can also raise questions for teachers. View this edWebinar as we dive into some of the biggest questions we’re asked about decodable texts and receive practical, research-based answers to help you make strategic choices when working with your students.
We begin by reviewing the general phonics scope and sequence you can expect most decodable texts to follow, and you learn ways to monitor your readers’ progress along that continuum. Then, we explain how to use that data to curate individual book baggies that suit each child’s instructional needs and interests. You also watch videos of teachers in action to better understand how to effectively introduce and use decodable texts across your literacy block. We share a small group structure that incorporates isolated phonics review and supports kids to transfer that knowledge to decode in context. Then you learn how you can easily replicate this structure to guide your own lesson planning. We also share ideas for using decodable texts to target key comprehension skills with both fiction and nonfiction texts.
At the end of the session, expect to hear about some of our favorite decodable series, including fiction and nonfiction Jump Rope Readers, and a peek at a brand-new series coming soon! This recorded edWebinar is of interest to elementary teachers, librarians, and school leaders.
About the Presenters
Elizabeth Franco is the Lead Writer and Editor for The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower. She is the co-author of numerous titles across the Units of Study series, including Persuasive Writing of All Kinds: Using Words to Make a Change, a kindergarten opinion-writing unit, and Word Detectives, a first-grade unit supporting foundational skills. She has authored stories across the Jump Rope Readers decodable series, as well as the picture book Ocean Clean-Up Crew, inspired by her own children. Before joining RWP-M, Liz served as a general and special education teacher in New York City and holds a master’s in literacy from Teachers College at Columbia University. Liz has become known for developing lessons and tools that motivate children to work with independence and zeal. She is a believer in the power of learning through play and has a passion for finding ways to make reading and writing both joyful and rigorous.
Angela Báez is a Writer at The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower. Angela’s deep knowledge of phonics and her delight in storytelling come together when she writes books for the Jump Rope Readers series. She’s the author of many of these books—both those that have been published and those that are still in the pipeline—and she works as a developmental editor, supporting other authors with their books, always keeping decodability and text complexity in mind. Angela studies early childhood development, including early literacy assessment and oral language development, and supports teachers in bringing research to practice. She is passionate about the need for all children to see themselves in the books they read and has brought this commitment to all her work as both a classroom teacher and a staff developer with RWP-M.
Dr. Lucy Calkins is the Founding Director of The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower. She’s been on the faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University for over four decades, as both the Co-director of the Literacy Specialist Program and as the Richard Robinson Professor of Children’s Literature. Dr. Calkins has written 50+ books, including the widely adopted Units of Study curriculum. Dr. Calkins began her career as a teacher for elementary, middle, and high school students, then joined Don Graves as a researcher on the National Institute of Education’s first major study of children as writers. That research has been credited with transforming the teaching of writing, bringing writing workshops, which were once the province of college classrooms, into K-8 classrooms. For decades since then, Dr. Calkins has devoted most of her time to leading organizations that aim to support best practices in the teaching of reading and writing.
Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
Join the Teaching Reading and Writing community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view recordings of previous programs to earn CE certificates.
The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower was created out of the pioneering work that Lucy Calkins began over 40 years ago. Inspired by her research, she developed innovative curricula and methods that transformed the way children learned to write. For decades since, she has worked with educators to help students become what she always knew them to be: proficient and enthusiastic writers, readers, and thinkers.
Today, RWP-M remains deeply rooted in this experience, while also holding true to this a spirit of innovation and continuous learning. Lucy Calkins and her team author the Units of Study in Reading, Writing, and Phonics and several series of engaging decodable texts. More than authors of curriculum, at its core, RWP-M is a community of practice, a think tank, and a professional development organization dedicated to transforming the way students learn to read, write, and think.
