News and reflections from experts and practitioners on the latest literacy research, events and daily practice
Welcome to Learning Ally's blog. You've come to the right place if you are an innovative teacher who wants to transform more struggling readers into grade-level achievers.
April 20, 2022 by User
For Immediate Release:
April 20, 2022 - Princeton, NJ – Dr. Terrie Noland, CALP and V.P. of Educator Initiatives for Learning Ally, a national nonprofit education solutions provider, is a 2022 EdTech Digest Global Leadership Award Finalist. Dr. Noland was selected for her outstanding contributions in transforming education through technology to enrich the lives of educators and learners.
Lee Peters, Chief Operating Officer of Learning Ally, said, "Terrie is well deserving of this Global Leadership Award. She is a fervent advocate for literacy. As a former educator, she understands the challenges educators face. Every day, she works diligently to advance evidence-based teaching practices so that more children can read and learn."
Through her podcast, Learning Ally Literacy Leadership, Dr. Noland has built a community of educators who seek to improve reading achievement in their classes and schools. She is a natural motivator who empowers her listeners through relationship building, storytelling, vulnerability, and intentionality. After devoting time each week to her podcast, educators say they view themselves as literacy leaders with new knowledge on best practices, and a renewed mindset for transforming learning.
Victor Rivero, Editor-in-Chief of EdTech Digest said, "As events unfold on the world stage that seem to inch ever closer to a precipice unknown, we are reminded that the leaders and innovators of education technology have always worked on the edge. The future-focused work they do is inspired by the infinite potential of all people to learn and thrive."
In her work with Learning Ally, Dr. Noland leads and mentors K-12 educators drawing on Learning Ally’s unique Whole Child LiteracyTM approach to literacy solutions design. She is also the host of Learning Ally's Spotlight on Dyslexia and Spotlight on Early Literacy virtual conferences, and a keynote speaker on literacy at educational events. Dr Noland has written scholarly articles in publications such as ILA, NAEYC, and Language Magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in Literacy and Educational Leadership from St. John's University, and is a John Maxwell certified speaker, coach, trainer, and member of the President’s Advisory Council.
About Learning Ally
Learning Ally is a leading education nonprofit dedicated to empowering educators with proven solutions that help new and struggling learners reach their potential. Our range of literacy-focused offerings for students in Pre-K to 12th grade and catalog of professional learning allows us to support more than 1.6 million students and 260,000 educators in over 20,000 schools across the United States.
Categories: Awards, Education & Teaching, General, In the news, Press Releases, Teacher Best Practices
April 12, 2022 by User
When you think about 60% of our nation's children struggling to read, what comes to mind? Early childhood literacy? The Science of Reading? Professional development? School leadership? The need for transformational change?
Dr. Terrie Noland recently hosted a panel with education thought leaders to share their thoughts about transformation, literacy, and leadership and what they have learned through research and implementation.
You can listen to this edwebinar on-demand to learn about the eight Cs of literacy leadership, and how to make transformational change "stick" in your classroom, school and district.
Clear vision
Cogs of systems and structures
Community
Collaboration
Coherence
Capacity
Consistency
Courage
Attributes of a Transformational Leader
Literacy leaders share a common vision. They unite their teams, possess great passion and are patient. They recognize the need for ongoing professional development in the Science of Reading. They put effective systems and structures in place to inform the mission. They don't shy away from data or make excuses. These leaders are reliable, vulnerable, honest, benevolent, kind, and transparent. They understand complexity and equity; are willing to pitch, punt, pull and push at the right times. They recognize what curriculum and routines should stay and what should go. They tap into emotions, compensate, celebrate, guide, and promote collective advocacy. They make shifts in their thinking from "teachers" to "instructional leaders," and make long-term, sustainable investments in literacy. What system will you tackle first?
Coherency in teaching literacy at all levels.
Getting the fundamentals of reading right.
Aligning the curriculum at all grade levels.
Using data to drive the mission.
Optimizing scheduling to work for teachers and students.
Ensuring evaluations and assessments are effective.
Putting interventions for Tier II and Tier III in place.
Making the PLN transferable for others.
Join the Movement
Change won’t happen overnight. It takes a village, a vision, commitment, time, and leadership, but the rewards are great! Transformational change happens when strong leaders and teams are "on the hook" for all students to be successful. They drive momentum, build capacity, continue dialogue, and influence practices. They establish new routines and scheduling, and carry forward the vision and plan. They stay for the hard stuff. They connect the dots and know over time the ripple effect is evident -- reading success -- reading at grade-level -- reading enjoyment -- reading independently -- reading for life.
Categories: Audiobook Library, Curriculum & Access, Early Literacy, Education & Teaching, Educators, General, Reading Strategies for K-12, Student Centric Learning, Teacher Best Practices, The Digital Age
April 6, 2022 by User
Learning Ally Takes April to Recognize Invaluable Volunteers
By Michael Manzi
As the adage goes, raising children “takes a village.” It’s no wonder, then, that providing literacy support to over 1.6 million students takes a community of over a thousand volunteers. These volunteers share a commitment to Learning Ally’s mission to solve the literacy crisis in the U.S. and to our unique approach Whole Child Literacy, which prioritizes an understanding of how each child learns. Volunteers at Learning Ally work hands-on, in a variety of roles ranging from the audiobook production process to school outreach and educator engagement, to create a system of support so that students can read, learn and thrive.
Our library of high quality audiobooks ensure student engagement and reading success. Making a quality audiobook takes more than just a session in the studio. Before a project even reaches a microphone, it will already have passed through several waves of preparation. Volunteers help prepare audiobooks for recording, creating essential cheat sheets and outlines for narrators. Our volunteers perform research to provide essential information about characters, allowing the casting department to make sure they are choosing authentic performers who can accurately portray a variety of stories from a variety of cultural experiences. This work ensures that students from diverse backgrounds can hear and see themselves in the characters and in the stories they are reading. Once a book is recorded, it is passed through volunteers for post production and quality assurance.
Thanks to the generosity of partnered corporations who share their time and employees with the cause, Learning Ally is able to train up to 200 new volunteers at once to help the quality assurance process run smoothly. New volunteers from corporate partnerships are given access to an exclusive catalog of un-released projects, ensuring quality control, smoother user experience and accessibility standards are met before the book hits the students’ bookshelves.
As Learning Ally’s mission continues to grow and expand to meet the needs of struggling learners, our volunteer community has grown with us. "Our volunteer program has grown significantly over the past year” according to Maria Lelie, Community and Volunteer Engagement Coordinator. “We're using volunteer support in ways we've never used before; in call campaigns, research, outreach, data entry. As needs in our community have evolved, Learning Ally volunteers have stuck by our side each step of the way, always willing to step up and lend a helping hand."
As the number of students increases and the volunteer community grows, so too does the quality of assistance that Learning Ally can provide. Volunteers play a vital role in supporting this network of students, parents, educators, and administrators. Many volunteers actively source contacts at high priority school districts while others support call campaigns that ensure students have continued access to Learning Ally’s solutions all year long. Volunteers are frequently responsible for welcoming new members to the educator community, and they assist at Learning Ally’s annual conferences by interacting and engaging with attendees who have come to learn more.
This past year, volunteers further engaged schools by sending out more than 40 Valentines to educators around the country. Some volunteers even exercise their creative abilities by creating video trailers of books to excite students, and parents. These trailers provide a sneak preview of a book before it’s downloaded, piquing user’s interest before they even open the book.
With millions of students served, the impact of volunteers is felt and will continue to be felt around the country. Learning Ally extends their deepest appreciation to every person who has shared their time. As April is National Volunteer Appreciation Month, Learning Ally will continue to honor and recognize the hard work of volunteers throughout this month. Check out our Instagram accounts (@volunteernation_learningally and @learning_ally) for weekly spotlights of some exceptional volunteer projects. And if you’re a volunteer with Learning Ally, be sure to attend The Volunteer Appreciation Event on Thursday, April 21st. If you haven't had a chance to volunteer with Learning Ally, but would like to, connect with us on our volunteer web page to see how you can get involved!
Categories: Activities, General, In the news, Volunteerism
This blog highlights a 2022 Literacy Leadership Brief, "Clarifying the Role of School Librarians," published by The International Literacy Association with authors:
Dr. Molly Ness, Coalition for Literacy Equity and V.P. of Academic Content, Learning Ally
Margaret K. Merga, University of Newcastle, Australia
Julia E. Torres, Denver Public Schools, Denver, Colorado
Susan J. Chambre, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York
What Librarians Mean to Me
I had fond memories of my elementary school librarian, Mrs. Ritter. As a third grader, I looked forward to our weekly class trips to the library, where she helped me locate books by my beloved Cynthia Voight, Carolyn Haywood, and Beverly Cleary. In fourth grade, she helped me embrace my inner geek as I joined the school’s audiovisual club - responsible for advancing 1980s film strips and replacing lightbulbs on the overhead projector (insert photo below). In fifth grade, she boosted my knowledge of world geography by launching a schoolwide game of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Mrs. Ritter was just as important in my development as a reader as my classroom teachers. Mrs. Ritter was clearly well-trained and used as a powerful resource in the school. However, this is too often not the case, as there remains confusion on the role of school librarians (a/k/a media specialists or teacher librarians).
As demonstrated in a new brief from the International Literacy Association, school librarians are much more than mere keepers of books – they serve as powerful literacy partners with teachers through collaborative instructional planning and resource curation (Crary, 2019). Librarians play many important roles, including the following:
Curate culturally relevant materials and support students with various learning needs
Stock various texts and genres, such as manga, graphic novels, and novels or picture books addressing current social issues.
Facilitate the use of schoolwide technology and provide tech support
Promote, develop, and foster culturally relevant and responsive environments by curating collections that represent the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the student population
It’s no wonder that students are better readers and writers in schools that value well-trained school librarians; nearly three decades of research shows positive correlations between high-quality library programs and student achievement (Gretes, 2013; Lance & Kachel, 2018; Scholastic, 2016).
Understanding the Role of School Librarians
With their sophisticated knowledge of databases and digital tools, school librarians support teachers’ and students’ information literacy skills. They teach students how to evaluate the accuracy of online content and to develop research and critical thinking skills necessary for assignments and to be responsible global digital citizens. Just as Mrs. Ritter did for me, they help develop students’ identities of themselves as readers; a school librarian sees text through the lens of the student, not via a level, label, or district-approved curriculum. Providing texts that reflect students and their lived realities—Alfred Tatum’s (2010) idea of “enabling texts”— empowers students to see the fullness and richness of their identities on the page.
Advocates for Literacy Equity and Access
At Learning Ally, we are committed to supporting students in need of additional support; so too are school librarians. Qualitative research provides valuable insights on how school librarians draw upon their skills and knowledge to enhance student literacy learning, particularly for those falling behind in reading attainment (Cremin & Swann, 2017; Merga et al., 2021). They are flexible and adaptive to the ever-changing needs of students; during the pandemic, school librarians quickly shifted to e-book platforms, which enabled students to browse book collections online and virtually check out titles. They partnered with community libraries to support access to local and state collections and assisted students in virtual applications for library cards. These innovative approaches demonstrate a deep commitment to foster literacy growth and the joy of reading.
School librarians have the power to transform school communities; they promote cultures of literacy, propel students toward lifelong reading habits, and establish transformative learning spaces rich with print and digital resources. Whereas school libraries of days past might have been quiet study spaces, today they are vibrant learning spaces that often serve as the cornerstone of a school community.
Equitable access to school libraries and librarians is an issue of social justice, as schools in the poorest and most racially diverse communities have the least access to library services (Lance & Kachel, 2018; Pribesh, Gavigan, & Dickinson, 2011). At Learning Ally, we believe that all students deserve the right to a well-funded school library, staffed with full-time certified school librarians committed to meaningful collaboration with educators, and to advance students’ basic rights to read.
Read the entire “Clarifying the Role of School Librarians” Brief by the International Literacy Association.
Categories: Audiobook Library, Education & Teaching, Educators, General, Teacher Best Practices, The Digital Age
April 4, 2022 by User
A former teacher, Heather Wiederstein has spent years designing teaching materials to support our youngest and most vulnerable students. Today, she serves as Vice-President of Solutions Development for Learning Ally, a national education technology nonprofit dedicated to helping struggling learners with reading deficits succeed. Heather's mission to help students who are at-risk read proficiently has led her to work on Learning Ally’s unique approach, Whole Child Literacy™.
Embracing Whole Child Literacy
Whole Child Literacy builds on “whole child” pedagogy and encompasses a variety of factors that impact a child’s ability to learn to read proficiently, including:
Heather says, "Whole Child Literacy takes into account not just the discrete skills that a child needs in order to read, but all the things that impact that child’s learning and development to even allow them to acquire those skills and ability to read. We think about things such as how the environment is impacting them. Have they experienced any ACEs [adverse childhood experiences] or trauma? We take into consideration all of the elements that really create the child as a learner in order to help that child learn to read.”
Early childhood has long recognized that skills, especially in young children, do not develop in a vacuum. “During those years, especially when we are learning foundational skills, our students’ tiny brains are learning all kinds of information at the same time,” says Heather. "The teacher plays an outsized role in facilitating that broad learning -- whether particular academic skills, self-regulation, or resilience. I think a teacher being knowledgeable and just having that awareness of all parts of that child as a learner is critical for their long-term success. Most teachers know that intrinsically, and we are just trying to support that knowledge.”
Building a Complete Picture of a Child as a Learner
An educator embracing Whole Child Literacy builds a complete picture of the child as a learner. “Sure, I know what graphemes this child can read and I know that child’s fluency level. And how are the executive functioning skills for this child?” Heather asks. “How might I build a relationship with this child that becomes protective in his or her own environment? What are some strategies that I can apply to the whole class that not only help manage my class and help me teach my lesson effectively, but also build a community of safety and support that truly enables learning for each child?”
Heather has drawn inspiration from the children she taught for years before moving into educational technology. “It’s the teacher in me. I’m always thinking about those children who sat in my classroom, like Jeremiah, who hated to read; Cara, who loved to read, and Gary, who was extremely gifted, but did not like to read. How could I reach each of them as their educator and find ways to meet them where they were in their learning process. I built a pedagogical point of view from my experiences as an educator, and it is my greatest joy to bring them into the Learning Ally organization.”
Equipping Educators with the Right Tools and Resources
At Learning Ally, Heather and her colleagues are infusing Whole Child Literacy into all of their Solutions development endeavors. Their goal is to equip educators with tools and services to put Whole Child Literacy into action, helping to reduce the large number of students reading below proficiency. “It’s about an educator being able to have a picture of all the sources of data,” Heather explains. “Whole Child Literacy may sound like something new and different, but at its core, I believe teachers have been doing it for years. As teachers, we observe things all day. We assess things informally. All these things that we know about -- how children learn--how we can bring their needs to the forefront -- how we can provide strategies to incorporate into our daily best practices. Having a place where we can pull that all together, culling the resources and strategies that we can tie to that picture of each child, that’s my vision for Whole Child Literacy in today's classrooms.”
Learn more about Learning Ally's Whole Child Literacy
Categories: Curriculum & Access, Early Literacy, Education & Teaching, Student Centric Learning, Teacher Best Practices
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