District Literacy Plan

The expectation of Rochester Public Schools is that all Pre-K teachers teach Minnesota’s Early Learning Standards (Early Childhood Indicators of Progress) using best practices, differentiating instruction to best meet children’s individual needs.

Our expectation is that early literacy instruction provides children with multiple daily experiences with a wide range of texts:

• read-alouds of informational texts, literature, and poetry
• shared reading experiences
• small-group interactions
• experiences with books independently and/or with a partner

In addition to experiences with texts, early literacy instruction needs to focus on children’s oral language and vocabulary development. Many opportunities for children to verbally express their thinking should be part of each day. Teachers should also model academic language and foster word consciousness.

Teachers need to have a robust instructional toolkit to address the varied needs of students in their class. It is not an expectation that all teachers use the same strategies or resources from student to student or classroom to classroom. The only parts of instruction that must be in common are the standards and the use of best practices in early childhood education.

The expectation of Rochester Public Schools is that all teachers teach the Minnesota Academic Standards for English Language Arts (ELA) using best practices, differentiating instruction in a reading workshop framework.

Our expectation is that ELA instruction is comprised of brief, whole-group lessons tied to standards, flexible small-group lessons with students grouped by reading level (i.e. guided reading lessons) or strategy (i.e. strategy lessons), and regular individual conferences.

We expect students to be engaged in reading connected text and writing for a majority of the literacy block. Following best practices, we expect students to be engaged in reading connected text for two-thirds of a small-group lesson, with isolated skill practice comprising only one-third of the lesson.

Teachers need to have a robust instructional toolkit to address the varied needs of students in their class. It is not an expectation that all teachers use the same strategies or resources from student to student or classroom to classroom. The only parts of instruction that must be in common are the standards and the reading workshop framework.

• Creative Curriculum by Teaching Strategies
• Read 180 by Scholastic
• System 44 by Scholastic
• Language! by Voyager Learning
• Project Read by Language Circle
• My Sidewalks by Scott Foresman
• Early Success by Houghton Mifflin
• Soar to Success by Houghton Mifflin
• William and Mary by Kendall Hunt
• Jacob’s Ladder by Prufrock Press
• Imagine Learning by Imagine Learning, Inc.
• Minnesota Reading Corps

• Creative Curriculum by Teaching Strategies
• Read 180 by Scholastic
• System 44 by Scholastic
• Language! by Voyager Learning
• Project Read by Language Circle
• Avenues by National Geographic
• Inside by National Geographic
• Edge by National Geographic
• Imagine Learning by Imagine Learning, Inc.