NCTE Reading Initiative Print Curriculum

The main component of the the NCTE Reading Initiative professional development program is our print curriculum. The Reading Initiative curriculum is organized into inquiry studies, or units of curriculum focused on particular literacy issues.  Each inquiry study is created around an inquiry cycle model.Here is one visual representation of the inquiry process in which Reading Initiative groups become engaged. The elements are described briefly below. Although they are listed as separate elements, learners recognize that they are often interchangeable or overlapping.

Initiating Engagements & Potential Resources
Shared experiences that help participants reflect on their personal experiences and knowledge as the group predicts the direction of the study, and the set of resources with which the study begins. 

From alternate models of learning, we might call this an introduction.  As orchestrators of an inquiry process, however, our initial meetings with learners both frame the study, as well as help learners recognize what they already know and what they think they want to know.  This is accomplished in many ways: through children’s literature read aloud, through a lived experience together, maybe through the use of a video clip.  This holds true for both the beginning of a particular “chunk” of curriculum, as well as at the beginning of each meeting of a study group.

A set of professional articles and book chapters is included with each inquiry study, as well as video footage of classrooms. 

Engagements
Opportunities to test out and explore multiple perspectives on the language process.

Engagements are the heart of this learning process.  Together you will live many of the reading and writing experiences you will later use with younger learners.  You will participate in literature discussion groups, both with professional readings and with children’s books.  You will write, revise, and edit.  You will watch videos and think about the implications for your own teaching. 

Demonstrations
Examinations of the language construct and the learning process, both theoretical and in practice.

Purposeful demonstrations are most often provided by teachers or parents.  For us as educators, they are referred to by several names:  mini-lessons, strategy lessons, direct teaching, or demonstrations.  Demonstrations highlight a key component of language learning, based on teacher knowledge of what would be supportive of the learning of the group (or of small groups), and the learners go back to work.  From an inquiry perspective, demonstrations are not seen as modeling, or behavior to be replicated; rather, demonstrations provide information or an enactment of that information as one of multiple possibilities.  For instance, you will learn about three models of language learning: subskills, skills, and holistic.  We have found these to be helpful representations of how educators structure language curriculum.  Yet, these are not the sole representations available among all language researchers.  Likewise, you will watch video clips of several students providing tours of their classrooms.  Although elements of each may be alike, there will also be differences.  Demonstrations support learners in creating their own enactments of what has been learned.

Invitations to Inquiry
Applying questions, tools, and methods of inquiry to a specific issue: data collection tools; data analysis.

Frequently an engagement or demonstration will launch learners into an inquiry process, either formally or informally.  For instance, as you learn about the Hypothesis-Test Process, you will use this new way of thinking to watch learners and make hypotheses about the behaviors you see.  This is a challenging process, as many people who watch learners assess judgments—he’s so lazy; she doesn’t like to read; he works so hard.  It becomes an inquiry to state what you see:  Tom came to the word bear in a sentence.  He stopped and looked at me.  When I didn’t provide help, he skipped the word and went on; When Tiffany, a fourth grader, was asked to bring a book to read to me, she selected Brown Bear, Brown Bear; and then create opportunities to test out hypotheses like:  Tiffany does not yet read chapter books; or Tiffany selected the book she reads aloud to her little brother.

Needless to say, an inquiry-based professional development process will offer us all many opportunities to inquire!

Opportunities for Organizing & Sharing
Public displays—charts, Webs, lists, notes—of accumulating ideas, knowledge, and plans

During this learning process, we will be compiling ideas, questions, and new plans.  We encourage you to keep your own professional journal, as well as to contribute to the informal public documents your group creates.  And we also encourage you not to throw these away, no matter how informal or inconsequential they might seem.  Each will provide a partial documentation of the learning process and contribute to our research efforts.

Reflective Action Plan
Activities that help the participants reflect on their current experience and opinions in constructing their understanding of the unit of study and subsequent new practice.

Last, as learners move through the inquiry process, literally or metaphorically, we consider our new learning and reposition ourselves for new action and learning.  We will make some of those plans together:  What does this new knowledge mean for how we organize our curriculum and the physical spaces in our classrooms?  What additional ways will we now assess the learning of our students?  How does that assessment overlap with state standards?  Or, you and your colleagues may talk on your own and develop some plans for tomorrow.  Other ideas you might place on hold.  We recognize that it is this reflective stance that supports those decisions.      

The full RI contract includes one yearlong study or two semester-long studies per year.  Each Reading Initiative study group may use different studies, depending on the context of the site and the experiences of the group members.  Site leaders play a key role in tailoring the curriculum to the questions and needs of each group.

For descriptions of available inquiry studies, click here.

To learn more about all aspects of the NCTE Reading Initiative, visit our website at www.ncte.org/profdev/onsite/readinit.