Top 10: System Tools
In this Top 10 List, we suggest system resources that can help drive system thinking in conjunction with the tools and resources on this site. For literacy leaders, opening up time to build, nurture and expand your system is critical. Daily issues, crises, and individual initiatives will be coming from thousands of directions all the time. The whole world needs to be helping you. So hopefully these resources will be helpful to you if you are not already aware of below.
Number One: NIRN
Understanding what is at the core of implementation science is a key to systems thinking. Educators should establish mindset that they are managing a set of coordinated and interdependent processes that must be studied and improved constantly. NIRN is a great resource and has extensive research and tools to help you with that mindset.
Number Two: The Courage to Lead
This resource (gated) by Laura Stewart and the 95 Percent Group lays out a lot of the concepts we push in this site, driving stage improvement and bringing things together to help literacy leaders understand what they are trying to accomplish and where they are in their system development.
Number Three: Amplify Change Management Playbook
This is a fantastic resource to see the journey and sub-steps literacy leaders will often take to build a system. I wish the checklist methodology would go faster for all literacy leaders, but keeping this document at hand and reviewing periodically will help in system building.
Number Four: LETRS for Administrators
Every literacy educator needs a transformative experience to truly know how to build a system and do all the myriad of things necessary to deliver on the promise of the science of reading. While the full LETRS for Admin training takes up to two years, you will get access to all content ungated at the onset which allows proactive users to use tools from units 4 and 5 (which focus on systems) early in the course.
Number Five: Pathways to Literacy Leadership
Another tremendous option for a transformative literacy leadership experience is the AIM Institute for Learning and Research and the Pathways to Literacy Leadership. The course is shorter than LETRS for Administrators and professional learning communities can be built around the content to achieve transformation goals.
Number Six: Solution Tree
Speaking of professional learning communities, Solution Tree has been the leader in helping people build and understand professional learning communities since 1998. I feel similarly about PLC’s as I do about structured literacy; we need to understand that they are just so very important and shouldn’t ever been seen as a fad. So we need to constantly refine them until we get them right.
Number Seven: The Reading League
We didn’t put this one first because you might want to work your way up to their elements that influence systems. But The Reading League has so many aspects to help move your system forward from the Compass to Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines and of course one of the most important conferences annually.
Number Eight: Books on Systems Thinking
Besides Thinking in Systems mentioned here, there are a few other books that you may want to check out if you are looking for a deeper, more theoretical dive into systems thinking like the Systems Thinking Playbook or Systems Thinking Basics. Since doing everything can be too much, also check out De-Implementation, which discusses simplifying your system as you build it.
Number Nine: Additional Implementation Science Stuff
For the big implementation science geeks, besides NIRN, you may want to check out some additional IS resources: U of Washington, Harvard, the Sustain Collaborative.
Number Ten: Structured Literacy Systems Group
This group is new but they really do care about your outcomes as much as you do. :) Schedule a free 30 minute consultation with them if it makes sense to see if they can help.