K-12 Education

An area of emphasis for the School and Family Support team at the Center for Literacy Studies (CLS) is improving instruction for K-12 learners.  Our outreach and assistance to teachers and instructional leaders includes designing and maintaining websites, creating specific resources geared toward instruction for a variety of levels, support for statewide professional development, tools to support school-family partnerships, and research and evaluation related to instruction and academic achievement.

Current interests within K-12 Education:

  • Successful implementation of the Common Core State Standards Initiative in schools
  • Support to early grades in Language Arts & Math
  • Early grades STEM education
  • Data-based school improvement and decision-making
  • Effective instruction through research-based teacher training and evaluation
  • School and Family partnerships to strengthen academic outcomes and successful transitions

For more information contact the Center’s School and Family Team.

Click on the links below for examples of our work:

Resources & Websites   |  Professional Development   |   Research & Evaluation

 

Resources & Websites:

READTennessee.org 
Early Grades Reading and Math support based on the TN Common Core Standards.

TN CORE
Official site for the Tennessee Common Core Standards Initiative.

TN SPDG (The Tennessee State Personnel Development Grant)
Support to families and educators of children with special needs, preschool through high school, focused on developing language, mathematics, and literacy skills to ensure academic achievement.

The Tennessee History Project
A Reader’s Theater multimedia project combining technology, history, and literacy development targeting elementary and middle school students.

For more information contact the Center’s School and Family Team.

 

Training & Professional Development:

July 2012 Summer TN CORE Trainings 
Event management for trainings in the TN Common Core Standards supporting 11,000 TN instructors and administrators across 42 state locations.

July 2012 Summer TEAM Trainings
Event management for trainings supporting over 2500 new and continuing TEAM evaluators in over 50 locations across the state.

Other recent Training and Professional Development events

      • Effective Practices Conference, August 2011
      • Tennessee Higher Education Commission – Ready to Learn, June 2011
      • Tennessee Higher Education Commission – Pathways to School Readiness, June 2009

Technical Assistance to Schools
Our School and Family team provides high quality research-based technical assistance and support to schools, districts, community educational agencies, and states in the following areas: school improvement; reading, math, science, and social studies initiatives; grant writing; state and federal reporting.

For more information contact the Center’s School and Family Team.

 

Research & Evaluation:

Reading Scores of Hispanic Students in Tennessee Schools
Report on the positive effects of enhanced literacy and reading interventions, combined with targeted teacher professional development on hispanic students’ reading fluency in 57 elementary schools over 5 year period.

From Structure to Instruction – helping TN high schools to succeed
Presentation detailing a case study in collaboratively using data to turn around three Tennessee ‘High Priority Schools’ (schools consistantly failing to meet annual yearly benchmarks in academic achievement).

Evaluation: Tennessee High School Redesign/School Improvement grants
Independent evaluators for eight Tennessee schools participating in school redesign and improvement efforts, 2009-2011.

Tennessee Reading First Project – Data Reporting support (2005-2010)
Data compilation and analysis for the Tennessee Reading First program annual performance report to the US DOE.

For more information contact the Center’s School and Family Team.