Use Schoolwide Goals to Anchor the School's Comprehensive Reading Plan

Key Concepts

  1. A schoolwide reading plan is important and serves multiple specific purposes.
    Strong reading goals are only the beginning. To assure that they are met, school leaders must create a cohesive plan that specifies how the goals will be addressed. But having a plan is not sufficient, either. Your schoolwide reading plan can be the public document outlining your commitment to reading instruction in K-3. It describes the goals you set for children and what you will do as a school to make sure children reach the goals you have set. Such a plan can serve multiple specific purposes, including:

      • A blueprint you turn to regularly as you plan reading instruction and address day-to-day issues that arise

      • A description of what your school does for reading instruction K-3 that you share with others in and out of education

      • A commitment you make to parents with children in your school, and to the children themselves

  2. The schoolwide reading plan should be explicit and comprehensive.
    The plan will be most helpful to all audiences if it is explicit and comprehensive. To that end, it is recommended the plan contain two parts:

    (1) An introduction that conveys to parents that every adult in their child’s school is serious about reading instruction, works toward the same goals, uses the same approaches based on rigorous research, and will do whatever it takes to make sure every child learns to read. It tells parents what your goals are and what the school is going to do to make sure each child reaches those goals.

    (2) Details about how you will accomplish the tasks identified in your plan’s introduction. One approach is to organize these details around each key component in the Oregon Literacy Framework:

      • Goals

      • Assessment

      • Instruction

      • Leadership

      • Professional Development

      • Commitment

    As a resource and activity, instructions and templates for creating a schoolwide reading plan are provided. The templates contain lists of prompts for each component to generate discussion around details of implementing a schoolwide reading plan. The lists are not exhaustive. Use the prompts as a starting point, but feel free to add other details that perhaps were not included so as to provide a complete description of your literacy plan. We also outline contents of Part 1 (Introduction) and Part 2 (Component Details) in the video resource, Schoolwide Reading Plan.

  3. In creating the plan, align all controlled resources with the school’s reading goals such that the program assures that the goals are met.
    There are many variables outside of school which affect students adversely, but over which we have limited control. Yet there are many variables within the school setting that can facilitate student success and over which we do have control. We must bring to bear on student achievement all the resources and other variables we control that can help students succeed. Leaders must align all programs, systems, and resources they control with the school’s reading goals. By establishing strong reading goals and aligning all efforts and resources with them, schools can achieve improved reading outcomes for all students. A schoolwide reading plan is one tool by which to systematically consider and align all needs and resources.

Professional Development Presentation

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The School Reading Plan describes schoolwide reading goals for students, and it specifies what the school is going to do to help students reach these goals. In essence, the plan is a blueprint of the school’s reading program, providing sufficient detail for thorough understanding of how reading instruction is provided at the school. A public document, the School Reading Plan is a way for the school to showcase the quality of the services it provides.

Apply the Concepts

Practice Activities

These practice activities are designed for group or individual study.
1. Aligning reading goals and assessment
NOTE: If a schoolwide reading plan exists (even in draft form), incorporate it into your discussion. Ultimately, the plan should reflect the contents of these types of discussions.

1) In small groups, review the school’s primary reading goal and associated formative goals for each grade (or draft goals if they do not yet exist).

2) In small groups, discuss (1) the school’s current assessment approach (i.e., which measures are used when and how are the results used?)

3) In small groups, determine the extent to which the existing assessment approach is aligned with (and informs) the school’s goals. Discuss ideas for eliminating unnecessary assessments, using new assessments, or changing the schedule to ensure assessments are aligned with goals.

4) In a large group, share ideas for aligning the school’s assessments and goals.

    2. Draft your school’s plan to accomplish literacy goals
    Note: Prior to this activity, ensure the school (or working groups) have drafted or finalized goals for each grade level that are tied to the school’s primary reading goal and have already discussed how assessment will be used to further those goals.

    1) Assign each small group to one or more sections (components) of the schoolwide reading plan. In those small groups, draft the details of the plan.

    2) As a large group, compile ideas from each section, then discuss continuity, consistency, and alignment throughout the document. Either return to small groups to make resulting changes or make changes as a large group. Make concrete plans to share the document with other educators, administrators, and other stakeholders and revise until it is complete.

      3. Draft the introduction to your schoolwide reading plan
      Independently, draft (or review or revise) the introduction to your schoolwide reading plan. Use the attached file as a guide.
      4. Develop an action plan
      As noted on Page C-4 of the Oregon K-12 Literacy Framework, action plans are used as a means of correcting course when the schoolwide reading plan is not sufficiently meeting the needs of subgroups of students. (Grade-level teams draft a proposed action and submit it to the School Leadership Team for review and incorporation into an action plan.) Having an easy-to-use, at-a-glance form increases the chance your school will create and follow-through on action plans.

      1) Using the School Reading Plan Template in the Resources section, the one shown on Page C-4 of the Oregon K-12 Literacy Framework, or a similar one of your own creation, work as a small group to detail 2-3 “actions” you could take to address current areas of weakness in your school’s reading program.

      2) Examine your actions. Are they specific enough to complete? Would you expect them to have a measurable effect in an appropriate timespan? If either answer is “no,” revise your actions.

      3) Discuss what made this task easy or difficult.

        Resources

        These resources provide a more in-depth look at the topic.
        1. Schoolwide Reading Plan Kit
        These three documents provide instructions, a sample, and a blank template for schools wishing to create a schoolwide reading plan.

        Links

        These links provide access to outside resources on this topic.