The Importance Of ELA Reading Agreements

The ELA Reading Agreements artifact I uploaded to demonstrate my proficiency of Standard 2 is a document created as a result of a literacy vision that was created during the 2014-2015 school year and revised in December 2015. Myself along with the Heritage Literacy Leadership Team guided the staff through the process of developing a vision of what literacy instruction should look like at Heritage to ensure we are supporting all students in attaining high achievement. Through this process we decided it was important to have a non-negotiable set of minutes for in every school day that the student spend reading. This decision was the result of a review of research which provide strong evidence that the more time students spend reading the more
reading success they would achieve. Before this vision was finalized all teachers had a chance to provide their feedback. All agreed that increasing the amount of minutes students spent reading during the day was important, but some teachers did not feel like their schedules could be adjusted enough to align with the vision. After some discussion and creative thinking, all teachers supported the implementation of the ELA Reading Agreements. This artifact shows my ability to collaborate with others in developing and implementing a vision. It also shows my ability to use data or research to support the development of a shared vision. Throughout this process, I learned that it is important to stay focused on student learning. I also learned that it is important to constantly revisit a vision and evaluate it to ensure it is supporting student achievement. In this case, we revisited the original document and made adjustments to the ELA Reading Agreement when it was noticed that the students who were reading above grade level were not growing academically.