Denver, Here I Come!

This weekend I'm taking off with a couple of colleagues for a week in Denver, Colorado to attend the Spring Thinking Strategies Institute. I am beyond ecstatic at this opportunity to learn more about the thinking strategies our Literacy Team has been so focused on over the last two years. Coming from a Reading First background, this was all new to me upon my move to Florida. I must say I welcomed it with open arms! It has been an eye-opening experience to learn and understand what strong readers do, and being able to pass this information on to my kiddos is so rewarding.

At the institute, we will have the pleasure of meeting Ellin Oliver Keene, author of Mosaic of Thought and To Understand, the crux of our Literacy Team's vision. We will have the opportunity to observe a PEBC Lab classroom where teachers emphasize comprehension learning and focus on the thinking strategies we've been introducing in our own classrooms. We'll come away with a deeper understanding of comprehension strategies and instruction as well as how comprehension is related to other essential elements of a literacy block.

I am as kiddy as a school girl thinking about all that I will learn next week along side fellow teachers who value the work we've been doing within our Literacy Team. I am looking forward to sharing the insights from the week with you and my colleagues. Stay tuned, because I'm sure all of my following posts will be Denver related!

Are any of you also attending?