Karen Vaites Profile picture
Apr 19 5 tweets 4 min read
“You can see it in our data.”

Last summer, @TNedu trained more than 10,000 elementary teachers in early reading foundations.

The trainings received mad-good reviews, with ~97% of educators saying it would affect how they taught reading. 👏

Fast forward three seasons:
Please take a minute to watch this video to see what “we see it in our data” means in another Tennessee district.

This kind of student progress wasn’t happening in @LebanonSSD before the @TNedu Early Reading Training. Now it is. 👏👏👏
#Reading360
Now, @TNedu is gearing up for another summer of Early Reading Training for elementary T’s.

AND they’re pioneering something we haven’t seen in any other state:

Literacy Training for teachers in secondary grades! I will be watching this closely to see teacher feedback.
In an ideal world, we would have no need for upper grade teachers to hear about literacy foundations, alongside the key pillars for upper grade literacy.

But we know we have many children who made it past third grade without learning foundational skills.

In GA:
Kudos to @TNedu for what continues to be the most comprehensive literacy investment in the country:

– High-quality curriculum statewide
– Teacher training (now K-12!)
– Decodable readers for families & parent literacy nights
– Public TV programs (I ❤️ Starting With Sounds!)
+++

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More from @karenvaites

Apr 20
The Early Intervention program is serving 30% more infants and toddlers than it served in 2019 – a worrisome sign of COVID era impacts on children’s development.

By @KaraArundel:
k12dive.com/news/white-hou…
This program operates on the school year cycle, if my memory serves. It serves children age 0-2.

Enrollment dropped in 2020-21, “likely due to fewer well-child pediatrician visits during the first year of the pandemic.”

The key detail on recent trends (based on a survey): Image
This worrisome study got very little media attention.

I don’t think we are talking enough about infant and toddler development right now.

theguardian.com/world/2021/aug…
Read 5 tweets
Apr 19
Everyone who was supposed to stand up for children stood by thru COVID as American children suffered through irrational policies.

Everyone.

People who literally tweet “How are the children” to chide educators for overfocus on adults stayed silent about US school closures.
In fact, the nation’s pediatricians wrote OpEds (hundreds in this thread), and @AmerAcadPeds ignored them.
Read 10 tweets
Apr 18
“In the two-plus years since the district adopted structured literacy, some students’ scores on district reading assessments, given three times a year, are rising more quickly.”

@dahliabazzaz on the shift to structured literacy in WA schools. 👏

seattletimes.com/education-lab/…
I appreciated this thread on the story:
The only troubling thing is this dichotomy versus whole language. @dahliabazzaz

Schools in WA state that don’t teach structured literacy are teaching Balanced Literacy; none would say they teach whole language. Only journalists describe it this way.

Cc: @Joy_Resmovits Image
Read 12 tweets
Apr 14
Cheers to this mom who fought for *seven years* to get a Georgia district to train its teachers on how kids learn to read.

And now, it’s happening! 👏🎉
Seven years. 😳

Moms are fierce.

Please also let this serve as your daily reminder that most parent advocacy has nothing to do with culture wars in America.
Also, for anyone asking, “Is this training really that important?”

Well, entire states are providing Early Reading Training to teachers: TN, TX, MS.

Here’s a thread full of TN educators talking about how much it mattered to their success improving reading outcomes.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 9
I love this @gtoppo piece on education journalism in the pandemic era, and co-sign his suggestion for more parent-need centered journalism.

A few story ideas, for your consideration.
@thegrade_ @alexanderrusso
kappanonline.org/toppo-making-e…
Much-needed coverage:

What should parents do when their child is behind as a reader and the school tells the parent not to worry, he or she will catch up?

Spoiler: schools are very bad at catching kids up when they are below grade level. Like, atrocious.
Underprivileged families need this coverage the most! Not only do less privileged parents hesitate more to challenge schools...

Privileged parents solve the problem privately. This is just one of many parents naming that reality.

Read 10 tweets
Apr 7
Hey @C_Sommerfeldt, why does your coverage characterize this as an anti-mask protest when actually it seems like more of an anti-vaxxine mandate protest?

nydailynews.com/news/politics/… ImageImage
I wasn’t at the protest, nor do I know anyone who was. (Which is telling, because I know a lot of leaders in the movement to restore normalcy for children).

But this video suggests that this was more about vaccine mandates than toddler masking, @C_Sommerfeldt. See:
The only signs I can spot:

“End vaxx mandates for workers”

“Medical choice is a human right.”

“Don’t step on my <unreadable>”

Nothing about masking toddlers. Image
Read 4 tweets

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