Top 10: Classroom Walkthroughs
In this Top 10 List, we recommend Classroom Walkthroughs (Walkthru? Hyphenated? We can’t decide) tools that can guide you in this process. We STRONGLY recommend that you develop walkthroughs specific to your organization based on heavy collaboration with your teachers and leaders, and using core Science of Reading documentation as the background. The goal should not be an elaborate tool, but a simple, layered pathway to understanding the current status of classroom literacy instruction and, more importantly, identifying areas to support teachers.
Number One: REL School Leader’s Walkthrough
Designed in conjunction with FCRR and FSU, these walkthroughs provide a pre-meeting guide, a walkthrough checklist and post-meeting guide as well. These are very comprehensive and deeply aligned with structured literacy principles. These are aligned with FL BEST standards by grade but can still be a good source for any district to model their own.
Number Two: CSDE/CAPPS Look-fors
Connecticut State Department of Education provides these look-fors that are comprehensive like REL, but organized around general instructional effectiveness and the big six ideas of reading (oral language included).
Number Three: VA Walk-through practice guide
VADOE provides this comprehensive guide as well as post-conference guiding questions. The tool itself, pages 11-13, is fairly simple but effective in getting a quick insight into structured literacy teaching practice and identifying teacher support needs.
Number Four: LETRS for Administrators ALF
The Administrator’s Literacy Framework tool (gated in course) is a walkthrough type tool for a school or district to see what is in place for a system. If you are going through this course or someone in your district has access, this is a great tool as a school/system walkthrough!
Number Five: Literacy DC Guidance and Walkthroughs
Literacy DC provides this guidance, as well as digital and printable walkthroughs.
Number Six: Teachers Pay Teachers
If you want to start from semi-scratch, you can search TPT and find some templates that may be useful to you. Of course, marrying those templates up with one or more of the sources above AND all structured literacy principles will be key.
Number 7-9
If we are honest, we think the structured literacy world has a LONG way to go in developing mechanisms to understand instructional practice AND MORE IMPORTANTLY build agile support systems to help teachers nurture their craft on a minute by minute basis. Here are some additional places working in this area: Literacy Look-fors, CA Resource Bank
Number Ten: SLSG Pilot Survey/Walkthrough Process
If you are interested in piloting a process using a combination of teacher surveys and layered observations, please let us know!