A Message from Dr. McLaughlin

Showcase of Schools Pearsontown Tour Dates

Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 9:30am and 5:30pm

Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:30am

Pearsontown’s Theme for 2011-2012, “Nothing but Your Best”

Dear Pearsontown Parents:

We are looking forward to cultivating your child’s best and giving you our best during second quarter.  We will be particularly focusing on improving your child’s literacy skills (one of our six goals for 2011-2012 school year). Your child may already be an excellent reader, but it is still important to learn about characterization, main idea, making inferences and predictions, author’s purpose, etc…  One component of the Balanced Literacy Framework is Guided Reading.

Guided Reading is defined by gurus Fountas and Pinnell (2001) as “small group instruction for students who read the same text.  Students usually read silently though you might ask individual students to read orally at regular intervals and talk with them individually about the book.  You also explicitly teach effective strategies for processing a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts.”  During Guided Reading, teachers take anecdotal notes. 

Teachers are also spending time planning collaboratively.  The purpose is for teachers to share best practices with one another and to calibrate their pacing and instructional focus.  As you are aware the State provides a State curriculum (North Carolina Standard Course of Study) and Durham Public Schools provides a curriculum (pacing) calendar.  The Pacing Calendar ensures that the entire curriculum for a particular grade level is covered during a given school year which is why class schedules are posted and we are focused on effectively utilizing instructional time.

Teachers are also working to “unpack the curriculum” in order to become more familiar with the State Standards and to share strategies with each other about how to best communicate the Standards to students. 

You may also notice “I Can” statements when you visit classrooms.  “I Can” statements are written in “kid friendly” language as a visual reminder to students about the focus of a specific subject area ie. Literacy or Math.   “I Can” statements also help students to describe what they are learning. 

I have been increasing the amount of time that I have been spending in classrooms (classroom walkthroughs) and noticing the great work your children are producing.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns at (919) 560-3964.

Sincerely,

Dionne McLaughlin, Ed.D