2026 Course Descriptions

Writing Course: How Do I Begin? A Guide to Implementing Engaging and Inspired Writing Instruction

Intended for K-2 and 3-6 teachers who are unfamiliar or inexperienced with writing instruction, as well as teachers who wish to revisit foundational principles and practices.

Session 1 Writing – A Day of Teaching Writing is designed to give teachers in each grade level band (K-2 and 3-6) essential information and practical support for implementing a day of writing instruction. Matt will focus on:

• The why and how of Mentor Texts.
• The importance of Choice of Topic and especially Choice of Genre.
• Whole and small group Instruction in Writing.
• Key principles and practices for Conferring with individual students.
• Issues of Time and the daily structure of writing instruction.

Session 2 Writing – Projecting Genre, Craft, and Process Units of Study – An important decision teachers make is which mini lesson makes sense tomorrow, based on what happened today. Projecting a unit provides teachers with the support to make responsive decisions while the unit unfolds. In this session we will learn the process for designing a unit by actually projecting a unit. We will learn how to:

• Use published texts to generate teaching possibilities.
• Use our own writing to generate process teaching possibilities.
• Determine primary and secondary Goals.
• Project a sequence of mini lessons that work logically towards important goals.
• Make responsive decisions as the unit unfolds.

These summer sessions will be live, interactive, and responsive to participants’ questions and teaching contexts.

---

Reading Course – How Do I Begin? A Guide to Implementing Engaging and Inspired Reading Instruction

Intended for K-2 and 3-6 teachers who are unfamiliar or inexperienced with reading instruction, as well as teachers who wish to revisit foundational principles and practices.

Session 1 Reading – A Day of Teaching Readers: What’s Essential When Everything is Important?: This course is designed to support classroom teachers (K-2 and 3-6) to create robust learning opportunities and nurturing classroom environments that enable children to develop into engaged, strong, and intentional readers.  Kathy will share easy-to-implement ideas for best practices that work no matter the curriculum, units, or approaches to teaching reading that are implemented in your setting. Some of the content Kathy will focus on includes:

• WHY a consideration for nurturing children’s reading lives is an essential partner to developing their reading skills 
• HOW to implement opportunities for reading choice – both open and managed – to increase reading engagement in any curriculum or grade
• WHAT components are essential to create well-rounded, engaging, and instructive experiences for your readers, with consideration for time constraints and other daily content area demands
• AND pro-tips, management hacks, and resources for both nurturing readers’ lives while building their reading strength

Session 2 Reading: Meet the needs of All Readers With Effective, Engaging Instruction – Our classrooms are like wildflower gardens of readers, so beautifully diverse with all the varied needs, strengths, interests, languages, and learning dispositions. This session will build on the work in Session 1 by bringing us closer to what research and best practice suggest for differentiating instruction and supporting readers across the vast continuum.  Kathy will share ideas for differentiation that are implementable in any context or unit. In this session, Kathy will cover: 

• Ideas for projecting units or modifying existing ones so they are tailored to the children with whom you are working, while also aligning with standards
• Strategies and best practices for differentiation through one-to-one conferences and small group instruction
• Plans for using a variety of resources across the year that serve readers while complementing your unit or curriculum, including decodable texts, leveled texts, informational texts, and other genres
• Suggestions for keeping track, staying sane, and holding on to joy in spite of all of the pressures and expectations

These summer sessions will be live, interactive, and responsive to participants’ questions and teaching contexts.

---

PreK Writing and Reading Course: Support, Nudge, and Extend Young Children’s Literacies and Language Composition

Intended for teachers of early years, early childhood, pre-K, and preschool-aged children

Pre-K Session 1 Writing – PreK children are capable of amazing thinking if we are comfortable with their approximations of writing. In this session we will focus on key beliefs and actions that support very young writers, including:

• The importance of Book Making as a form of compositional writing
• The crucial role of illustration in children’s meaning making
• Supporting early attempts of approximated transcription
• The role of choice of topic and genre
• Supporting Composition Development by examining composition dimensions.
• Strategies for Conferring with young writers.

PreK Session 1 Reading – Pre-K children can do developmentally appropriate and foundational reading of books before they can decode the words. In this session we will focus on key beliefs and actions that support very young readers, including:

• The importance of reading-focused read alouds throughout the day, and what they look like
• The use of illustrations and visual images to engage and inspire oral language comprehension and composition
• Ways to support and nudge children’s interactions with text through conversation and conferences
• Techniques for supporting children’s independence and agency as readers and learners
• The critical work of helping children develop reading identities and learning dispositions
• Ideas for creating invitations, opportunities, and experiences to play with text

---