Teachers often use running records when mandated by their school and once data is entered, are often unsure how this accuracy and comprehension data can help guide their reading, writing, and word study instruction.  Sarah specializes in working with teams of teachers on how to administer and analyze running records so they become a useful and valuable source of formative assessment data.  Sarah helps all educators use running records more often and with more purpose in order to move student reading and spelling forward.  

Many schools around the world are adopting the reading and writing workshop units of study because workshop works!  Sarah provides a workshop bootcamp to help educators understand the basics of workshop.  This session is best combined with labsites, so that teachers can put into practice the things they are learning.  Sarah will guide teachers in applying their learning with their own students!  

As schools and teachers move past their first and second years of workshop teaching, they are ready for most sophisticated moves such as conferring, small group instruction, student self assessment and making the lessons in the units of study their own.  Sarah uses a gradual release model as she helps teachers practice these moves in labsites with students. 

There are key components of workshop that allow it to be effective for teachers and students.  Sarah provides professional development sessions on the following:Mastering the Mini Lesson - Sarah will guide teachers in how to keep their instruction brief, effective and lean so that students have ample time to practice what they are being taught and so teachers have time to differentiate instruction during the workshop. (Online or in person)Conferring - Sarah will guide teachers and learning assistants in understanding why conferring is important and what the structure of conferences looks like.  Sarah will help teachers learn how certain tools (data collection templates, mentor texts, micro progressions, mirrored writing) can help make conferring even more impactful (Online or in person)Small Group Instruction - Using triangulation of data (observations, conversations, products), Sarah will help teachers understand how patterns in class and group data can be used to create flexible, targeted small group instruction. (Online or in person)Routines - Getting workshop up and running is a shared endeavor between teachers and students.  Sarah will help teachers make workshop, its parts and purposes clear to students so that this shared endeavor is manageable and clear for everyone in a classroom (in person)Classroom Libraries - Setting up the learning environment, especially the classroom library is important to the success of reading and writing workshop.  Sarah will help teachers and administrators understand the contents and ways to set up an effective and inviting classroom library that students will use (in person)

Sarah provides interactive sessions for parents/caregivers to help them understand the why, what, and how of reading and writing workshop.  These sessions are usually about 90 minutes, with plenty of time for parents/caregivers to ask questions and talk one on one with Sarah.

Sarah Donaldson and Ryan Persaud work together to provide this engaging, interactive and highly informative and timely session for parents/caregivers.  Screen time and device usage are popular topics as parents/caregivers struggle to balance and understand how to best nurture their child’s literacy development as games, apps and social media influence their children.  

Are you starting the year online and feel unsure about how to start assessing your students’ reading accuracy and comprehension?  Warmly pre assessing students’ reading accuracy and comprehension can help you find strengths and areas for improvement to start the year off teaching to the needs of each student!

As teachers and students moved online, so did parents.  It is important to remember that most parents/guardians are not educators themselves.  How can we make them feel included and valued?