Target Audience: K–5 Teachers and Interventionists
Getting Started with Literacy Footprints Systems is a professional learning series designed to help participants understand the what, why, and how-to of teaching reading using Literacy Footprints systems. Literacy Footprints systems are designed to support classroom, intervention, English language learners (ELL), and special education teachers in delivering high-quality, research-based reading instruction. Each session will highlight the stages of guided reading within each kit. Additional follow-up options include modeling lessons and/or coaching your teachers during their implementation of the lessons. Book a Professional Learning session now!
LFP.1 Getting Started with Literacy Footprints: K–2nd Grade Kits
This session focuses on teaching Beginner Steps, Emergent, Early, and Transitional readers using Literacy Footprints materials. Each framework follows a three-pronged approach integrating reading, word study, and writing skills and strategies, all aligned with the literacy continuum. Following explicit demonstration of each integral part, participants will engage in active participation leaving confident and ready to teach small-group guided reading lessons. Half- or full-day options available.
LFP.2 Getting Started with Literacy Footprints: 3rd–5th Grade Kits
This session focuses on teaching Transitional and Fluent readers using Literacy Footprints materials. Each framework follows a three-pronged approach integrating reading, word study, and writing skills and strategies, all aligned with the literacy continuum. Following explicit demonstration of each integral part, participants will engage in active participation leaving confident and ready to teach small-group guided reading lessons. Half- or full-day options available.
LFP.3 Getting Started with Literacy Footprints: Intervention Partner Lessons (Intervention Teachers)
The goal of the Literacy Footprints Intervention Partner Kit is to accelerate the progress of students who are not meeting grade-level expectations in literacy. Each framework follows a three-pronged approach integrating reading, word study, and writing skills and strategies, all aligned with the literacy continuum. In this session, teachers will learn ways to improve students’ foundational skills, strategic processing, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency using the Literacy Footprints Intervention Partner materials. Participants will also learn how to work in partnership with classroom teachers to connect instruction in a way that will help struggling readers consolidate new learning. Half- or full-day options available.
LFP.4 Getting Started with Literacy Footprints Assessment Kit: Assessing Students (K–5th Grade)
The Literacy Footprints Guided Reading Assessment Kit is a three-pronged assessment that matches the lesson framework, assessing reading, word study, and writing. In this session, participants will learn how to assess students and analyze the results to make data-driven instructional decisions and more accurately differentiate their small-group reading lessons. Half- or full-day options available.
LFP.5 Digging Deeper: Developing Phonics Skills (K–2nd Grade)
Word study is the component of the guided reading lessons that allows teachers the opportunity to provide explicit instruction for phonics and word-solving skills. By teaching a short word study activity during the guided reading lesson, teachers can provide corrective feedback to students who need more support in learning a skill and teach them how to transfer that newly learned skill to reading and writing. In this workshop, teachers will learn and practice word study procedures that support Emergent, Early, and Transitional readers in developing strong decoding and encoding skills. Half-day session. *Prerequisite Getting Started with Literacy Footprints: K–2nd Grade Kits
LFP.6 Digging Deeper: Developing Phonics Skills (3rd–5th Grade)
Word study is the component of the guided reading lessons that allows teachers the opportunity to provide explicit instruction for phonics and word-solving skills. By teaching a short word study activity during the guided reading lesson, teachers provide corrective feedback to students who need more support in learning a skill and teach them how to transfer that newly learned skill to reading and writing. In this workshop, teachers will learn and practice word study procedures that support Transitional and Fluent readers in developing strong decoding and encoding skills and vocabulary. Half-day session. *Prerequisite Getting Started with Literacy Footprints: 3rd–5th Grade Kits
LFP.7 Digging Deeper into Comprehension Focus (3rd–5th Grade)
Each Literacy Footprints Guided Reading lesson has a comprehension focus that threads through the lesson framework. In Chapter 7 of Jan Richardson’s The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading, 12 comprehension focuses are introduced across 29 teaching modules. In this workshop, participants will take part in a mini-book study while exploring each comprehension focus through the Literacy Footprints lessons. They will learn how to use the progressive steps to differentiate the support provided to students during guided reading lessons. They will leave with a strong understanding of how to lead students toward internalizing the comprehension focus to reach the goal of constructing meaning while reading any given text. Half-day session. *Prerequisite Getting Started with Literacy Footprints: 3rd–5th Grade Kits
LFP.8 Digging Deeper into Guided Writing (K–2nd Grade or 3rd–5th Grade)
The Literacy Footprints lesson framework includes a guided writing lesson. Guided writing provides an opportunity to support students as they write about the book they’ve just read, which in turn increases their comprehension. In this workshop, participants will learn how to analyze students’ writing to address their needs according to target skills. Participants will learn how to provide prompting and assistance during guided writing, including how to give appropriate scaffolding that helps students develop writing skills and craft. Half-day session. *Prerequisite Getting Started with Literacy Footprints: K–2nd Grade Kits or 3rd–5th Grade Kits
LFP.9 Building Strategic Readers: The Art of Prompting for Strategic Action (K–2nd Grade or
3rd–5th Grade)
A key element of guided reading involves close observation of students’ literacy processing behaviors. Learning how to listen and make quick decisions about where to prompt takes time and practice. In this workshop, participants look carefully at what strategic actions are important for students to develop at each reading stage. Additionally, they will learn the importance of using running records as a tool for observing how students are approaching reading. Finally, the participants will delve deeper into how to foster strategic processing as students read and reread a new book, as well as how and what to teach the group following the reading. Half-day session. *Prerequisite Getting Started with Literacy Footprints: K–2nd Grade Kits or 3rd–5th Grade Kits
