Teaching & Learning Alliance-Supporting Academic Leaders and Coaches

Welcome to Teaching and Learning Alliance

Through a dynamic partnership model, we support the development of exemplary educators, visionary school leaders, and high-achieving students.

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For Leaders

We are the partner to help you lead through instructional change.

For Coaches

Coaches are the catalyst for change in our classrooms.

For Teachers

Good teaching has the greatest impact on student learning outcomes.

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Resources for Success

Keep Collaborating: Why, What & How of Looking at Student Work

Books For Teachers Lesson Ideas Reading

Writing your own Decodables

Education For Teachers

Preparing your Hearts, Minds & Classrooms for Back to School

For Coaches For Teachers Tech Tools

Digital Tools for Instructional Coaching: What Will We Keep Moving Forward?

@teachlearnorg Instagram Feed

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May 11

📊 Are you creating and using microprogressions in your coaching or teaching?

✅ Here are three sample that were made after looking at student writing in second, first and kindergarten.

💙 We love these tools because they help build our own teacher toolkit, support student ownership and transfer. They are adaptable and usable in conferences, small groups and even whole group lessons.

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May 2

🤓 Looking out at a sea of blank faces? Here’s a quick tip. 💡

🙋🏽‍♀️ Instead of asking the class “Who remembers?” or “Who can tell me?”
✅ Try TASKING the class “Tell me about _____ or even better “Turn to your neighbor and share with them about _______”

💙 This gives an opportunity for all kids to participate rather than a select few.
Simple shifts in language can make a big impact on student learning.💥

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Apr 29

✅ We have been working in many schools and classrooms helping teachers understand how to bring the science of reading into their instruction in simple but powerful ways. 💥

💙 So grateful to continue growing our own practices and we support teachers and students.

💡We made this overly simple view of #thesixshifts to help us and thought it might support you too! Let us know - how are you incorporating the shifts in your teaching ? 🤓

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Apr 13

📣 University Faculty: You're invited to a Free Webinar: Foundations of Reading: Lessons Learned

🗓 Join us on May 17th from 7pm - 8:30pm EST. This webinar is designed to support university faculty with:

🖊 Open Response: tips & strategies
📝 Multiple Choice: anticipating and recognizing test-bias

Link in bio

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Apr 5

📆It’s April, which means test-taking time in schools. Have you noticed how things have shifted in classrooms?

We are revisiting this text from Ellen Oliver Keene about the pillars of engagement. We summarize them like this:

🤔 Curiosity
💕 Connection
🌍Community
🎨Creativity

⏰ This time of year can feel challenging for students and teachers alike. We invite you to pause with us and think about these four big categories. We might not be able to change the circumstances around the test, but we might ask:

✨ Where is there a time for children can ask questions and explore?
📖 How can we continue to promote story telling across the day?
🙃 Where are their opportunities for classroom play ?
💫 How can we provide creative moments of messiness in the midst of the intense structure ?

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Mar 25

😎Are you playing Wordle with your students yet?

🔠 This Phonics Friday, our very own Stephanie Maze-Hsu is sharing with us her take on the popular game as she has adjusted it for k-3 students with :

🌟CVC words,
💫CVCe words,
✨four letter words with consonant blends & digraphs.

📄Feel free to make a copy of this jam board to use in your own classroom. Link in bio !

Let us know how it goes! 💙

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Mar 16

🔋 Looking at Student Work is so powerful. We used a Thin Slicing Protocol (adapted from @tcrwp) with groups of teachers teams and then used the information that we gathered to create a sequence of short strategy groups for kids. 👩‍👦‍👦

😎One example is that we looked at first graders Non Fiction writing with the sense of “Detail”

📝 We sorted kids writing into piles and then noticed and named what the students who were successful WERE doing.

Using those observations we made a trajectory of skills.

1. Drawing details ✍️
2. Labeling details 🏷
3. Using specific content vocabulary 📝
4. Twin sentences to say more 👯‍♂️

Then we went into the classroom and pulled a small group and saw immediate transfer! 💙

Are you looking at student work with your colleagues? What protocols do you use to help you? Want to find ours? Check out our blog post here: https://tinyurl.com/4sfdp5ts

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Mar 2

📚It’s Read Across America today!

💙 Wherever you are, we hope you take time to grab a great title and read.
❓Not sure where to start. Check out our suggested titles.

https://linktr.ee/teachlearnorg

Tag us @teachinglearningalliance and let us know :
1. What you’re reading 📖
2. Where you’re reading 🏡
3. Who you’re reading with 👧🏽

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Mar 1

🎉 Today we celebrate the start of Women’s History Month.

👩🏽‍🏫 Teaching is a profession of intelligent, compassionate and powerhouse women (76% of teachers are women).

🌎 You are not just teaching history (or literacy or math or science) but you are making history as you shape the lives of the children around you.

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Feb 28

6️⃣ Six syllable types. Do you know them all?
✅Use VELCRO - to help those types stick

🪧When teaching students how to read a deep knowledge of these six types is powerful in helping to find the parts in words that students know.

💙Want to learn more? Keep following along.

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Dec 20

❄️ It's the most wonderful time of the year. ❄️

📘 This school year has not been what many of us expected. Yet, our school leaders, teachers, students and families have demonstrated such commitment and compassion. Partnering with you is one of our greatest joys.

🎁 Wishing you and yours a healthy and happy holiday season.

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Oct 25

🎉 Creating micro-progression is a powerful way to look at student work

💻In our latest blog post we unpack the why, what and how of looking at student work, including a brief update on making micro-progressions to support the thin-slicing protocol. 📘

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Oct 14

😷Working in schools still feels different this year. But so thankful to be in person supporting coaches and teachers as we implement best literacy practices for kids. 💙

📸Here are a few snapshots of the work in Braintree Public Schools from today.

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Sep 23

💡There’s a big buzz around decodable readers and how to effectively use them to support students’ application of phonetic principles.

➡️ Swipe to learn a pretty simple process for how you can create your own decodable in small group instruction to support kids learning goals.

💙Are you using decodable in your small group instruction?

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Sep 8

🎉You're invited! Join us on September 22nd from 7-8pm EST.

This free webinar is designed to help you understand the shifts from the Foundations of Reading Test #90 to the Foundations of Reading Test #190.

Participants will:

✅Gain a deeper understanding of the new content in FOR #190
❓Ask questions about the shifts
😎Learn Jen Yaeger's insights on supporting a range of learners
🏆Have a chance to win two free enrollments to the FOR Workshop Series!

🔗Register here: https://bit.ly/3tniON4

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Aug 13

👋🏽 Hello South Shore Coaches & Reading Specialists!

✅ Spots are already filling up fast for our South Shore Collaborative Coaching Institute presented by Connie Jacquays. RSVP by September 1st so you can hold your spot.

📧 If you are interested email lynn.schade@teachinglearningalliance.org

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Jul 29

😎What a wonderful day with our friends down in Fort Bend, Texas for an in person summer institute.

✅ We learned, we laughed, we grew in our understanding of early literacy. We even did some dancing. 🕺🏿

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Jul 13

😎 It’s Teaching Text Tuesday! Have you seen this lovely book “Papi Drives a Motorcycle” by Isabel Quintero ? The illustrations are incredible and the story is so uplifting. Here are a few ways we could see this being used as a mentor text:

📘Reading: Follow a character through a setting. Notice how the setting impacts the character. Character relationships impact each other.
📝Writing: Rule of three for suspense “the sun, the sun, the bright orange sun” Punctuation as power! Notice the difference it makes.
🗣Language: Alliteration “carburetor & carino” “drill and dedication”
🔤Vocabulary : Using context clues for Spanish phrases. Tier 2 words about riding “accelerator, boulevard, compressor, engine

✅ How would you use it in your classroom? 💙

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Jul 8

😎 Our ongoing summer learning today is diving deeper into dyslexia.

✅ Here are some simple but helpful tips for supporting students with dyslexia:

1. 📘High Interest Decodables - If you are going to add to your classroom library this summer, we’d highly recommend looking for decodable that can be included to support
2. 🔤Systematic, Sequential, Multi-Sensory Phonics - Including the auditory, visual, and kinesthetic approach really helps kids to hold onto their learning, making those neural pathways stronger. We have found @educatorkathleen page packed with great ideas for multi-sensory word work.
3. 📊Writing with Graph Paper - This tip is the simplest, but having the individual boxes actually supports students in writing their individual letters and their corresponding sounds.

We hope these support your ongoing learning this summer, too! 💙

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Jul 7

💙📚Summer book club on @thesixshifts. We are learning so much together. What professional books are on your list ? What should we add to ours?