Coaching & Staff Development

Sandra provides coaching and staff development services customized to meet the unique needs of school districts, teacher education centers, and private educational institutions on a variety of topics including:

• Bringing the Common Core Standards Into Your Classroom
• Using Informational Texts, Children’s Literature, and Multicultural Books for Instruction
• Differentiated Instruction
• Reading Comprehension, Guided Reading, & Small Group Instruction
• Vocabulary Development & Word Work, Building Background Knowledge, Strengthening Fluency, Mastering Reading Comprehension Strategies
• Content-Area Reading Instruction
• The Integration of Technology and Literacy Instruction
•  Student Motivation
• Teacher Leaders & Team Collaboration

A variety of on-site formats are available and offered as two-hour, four-hour, full day, or multiple-day sessions. Some suggested formats are as follows:

• Informational Overviews on blending Small-Group and Whole-Class Teaching in an Hourglass Model of Instruction, Guided Reading, Differentiated Instruction, Motivation, New Teacher Basics, Conducting Classroom Action Research, National Board Certification and other specialty areas.

• Hands-on Sessions, often used as a follow-up to the Informational Overviews, these sessions are used to assist small groups/teams of participants in a variety of ways: to create or assemble classroom-ready materials for close reading or for differentiated instruction, to prepare instructional unit plans, to construct Motivation Improvement Action Plans, and more.

• Small Group/Individual Mentorships with Classroom Teachers or Specialists. Getting started in meeting the high expectations of the National Standards, differentiated instruction, and/or guided-reading can be tricky, and some teachers may wish for additional guidance. These mentorships are designed to help teachers overcome start-up challenges, analyze student performance, create close-reading and guided-reading lesson plans, and strengthen classroom instruction.

• Small Group/Individual Mentorship with Administrators and Literacy Specialists. Establishing cross-grade level teams, integrating close reading and guided reading in a balanced literacy approach, supporting and encouraging the classroom teacher, and shared experiences from other districts are examples of topics provided in these sessions.

Off-site workshops are also available throughout the school year and over the summer in centralized locations.