The Learning Communities Guide to Improving Reading Instruction

"This is an important book. The themes of attending to individual needs, providing assessment-driven instruction, and creating long-term, focused professional development plans are solid and consistent throughout."
Gay Ivey, Graduate Program Coordinator, Reading Education Program
James Madison University

"This book does a wonderful job of bridging the chasm that often exists between the separate worlds of higher education and K-12 educators. It applies powerful research findings and nontechnical, jargon-free advice for classroom teachers."
From the Foreword by Richard DuFour and Rebecca DuFour

Create professional learning communities to improve reading instruction and students′ performance!

After observing over 300 classrooms, authors Valerie Hastings Gregory and M. Jan Rozzelle provide the perfect framework, knowledge, and tools necessary to help create a community of literacy coaches, leaders, and teachers to improve reading across schools. Demonstrating the critical link between adult learning and student learning that makes professional learning communities our best hope for improving reading and comprehension for today′s students, this rich developmental resource provides solid information, powerful research findings, specific, pragmatic and proven strategies that teachers can apply immediately in the classroom.

Key features and benefits for implementation include:

• Reflective survey of "look-fors" to identify strengths and weaknesses
• How-to and when-to guidelines for strategies
• A learning communities model for professional development for reading instruction, providing the groundwork for effective and lasting improvement
• Valuable tables, charts, planning guides, and reproducibles to facilitate discussion, reflection, and goal setting

The Learning Communities Guide to Improving Reading Instruction will help educators identify and apply new approaches, improve and add to their instructional repertoire, and ultimately benefit their students′ reading performance so no child or teacher is "left behind."

Valerie Hastings Gregory has devoted much of her professional life to shaping professional learning communities in schools. She has promoted effective professional develop-ment as a school building, central office, and Virginia Department of Education administrator for elementary education and gifted education. Valerie is an educational consul-tant for assessment, curriculum, instruction, and leadership at Fogarty and Associates, Pearson Professional Development,  QLD Learning, and the School Leadership Institute for the College of William and Mary. Valerie received her doctorate in Educational Policy Planning and Leadership from the College of William and Mary, where she extensively studied conditions for transfer of professional development to classroom practice. While a doctoral student, Valerie received the Outstanding Doctoral Student Award from the National Association for Education of the Gifted. In addition to this book, Valerie is the author of two other books, Conditions That Support Transfer for Change and Problem-Based Learning in Social Studies

In her position as Director of the William and Mary School Leadership Institute, Jan Rozzelle Nikas directs multiple school reform partnerships with Virginia public school dis-tricts. One partnership with five rural school districts has focused on improving leading and learning in 15 schools for the past 4 years, particularly in the area of literacy. Prior to her position at the university, Jan served a large suburban school district as reading coordinator of professional development, curriculum, and instruction for 52 schools. Her research interests focus on what works in improving literacy teaching and learning, and leadership development of principals and teachers. Jan is a past president of the Virginia State Reading Association (VSRA) and recipient of the Reading Teacher of the Year Award from VSRA. Jan also received the Collaborative Leadership Award and was awarded the Frances B. & Robert O. Nelson Memorial Scholarship for Character, Commitment, and Achievement