Ongoing Training

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Support from RRCNA

RRCNA supports the development of professional learning opportunities for Reading Recovery teachers, teacher leaders, and trainers.

As a membership association, the Council works closely with trainers and teacher leaders to supplement and extend the existing system of professional development offerings through conferences and institutes, web-based learning, journals, and products and publications.

Ongoing professional development is at the heart of Reading Recovery's success and is specified in the standards and guidelines for the United States and Canada.

Reading Recovery Teachers

Reading Recovery teachers design and deliver daily lessons tailored to the specific needs of each individual child. They make moment-to-moment teaching decisions based on the evidence of each child’s responses during the individual teaching sessions. Ongoing professional development enables teachers to design optimal learning opportunities for children with diverse needs and ensures that the hardest-to-teach children have the most-skilled teachers. Without ongoing learning and interaction with other professionals, the effectiveness of the intervention is likely to be compromised.

The ongoing learning of Reading Recovery teachers is supported in several ways. Trained teachers…

continue to teach a minimum of four Reading Recovery children and learn from the students’ idiosyncratic routes to literacy learning.
participate in a minimum of six professional learning sessions each year with a teacher leader and colleagues. At least four of the sessions provide opportunities to observe and discuss live teaching sessions (eight sessions with a minimum of six teaching sessions in Canada).
learn from teacher leader and colleague visits that involve lesson observations and collaborative discussion of teaching decisions.
attend conferences and institutes.
interact and collaborate with colleagues, administrators, and school teams in their own schools.

Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders

Reading Recovery teacher leaders teach children, train Reading Recovery teachers, and provide oversight for Reading Recovery implementation within the schools. To fulfill this complex role, teacher leaders engage in extended learning opportunities after the initial year of professional development. Ongoing professional development for teacher leaders is designed to ensure that they are knowledgeable about Reading Recovery teaching practice and theory and are able to facilitate teachers’ growth and development. In addition, teacher leaders must be able to evaluate and communicate the effectiveness of the teaching, advocate for the intervention, explore related research, and provide guidance for implementation decisions in and across schools.

The ongoing learning of Reading Recovery teacher leaders is supported in several ways. Teacher leaders…

continue to learn from the children they teach and from their work with Reading Recovery teachers.
participate in professional development days provided by regional university/institute trainers. Emphases include refining their knowledge of teaching children, working with teachers, and implementing Reading Recovery locally. Teacher leaders also learn about new research and educational factors that may have an impact on early literacy intervention.
receive on-site visits from a university trainer.
participate in a national Teacher Leader Institute (Teacher Leader Forum in Canada) annually to ensure current knowledge about all aspects of their roles.
attend a regional conference or national conference or institute each year.
continue to learn about teamwork and collaboration so they can effectively integrate Reading Recovery into their schools’ comprehensive plan for literacy learning.

Reading Recovery Trainers

Reading Recovery trainers provide the organizing structures for Reading Recovery in the United States and Canada. They provide the initial and ongoing professional development for teacher leaders, support the implementations of Reading Recovery within their network of affiliated sites, develop new implementations, monitor and interpret student outcome data, review and conduct research, maintain the integrity of Reading Recovery within their network of sites, and advocate for Reading Recovery within their state or region.

In order to fulfill their complex responsibilities for the oversight of Reading Recovery, trainers are engaged in numerous professional development venues. Reading Recovery trainers…

continue to learn from the children they teach and from their work with Reading Recovery teacher leaders and teachers.
meet with their colleagues in the North American Trainers Group for extended professional development at least twice each year.
work within committee structures to study and share new learning about teaching, professional development, implementation, and research.
engage in collaborative learning with their international colleagues through the International Reading Recovery Trainers Organization.
work with academics and educational leaders outside Reading Recovery to maintain an up-to-date perspective of research and practice across the disciplines and across the educational enterprise.