Making Up for Lost Time: Why LETRS Professional Learning Is Imperative for Literacy Acceleration
Though educators across the country routinely participate in professional development, many are less than satisfied with their experiences (Garcia & Weiss, 2019). The reason for this may be that most professional development seminars or workshops are one-size-fits-all (NCTE, 2019) and don’t specifically address teachers’ individual needs. Professional learning, on the other hand, is customized to a teacher’s specific classroom context. With everything that’s happened in education since the pandemic started, it is clear teachers need better support. From navigating rapidly changing learning environments to learning new technologies to continuing to care for every student, teachers have had to juggle too much on their own. Now that schools are finding their footing, professional learning is exactly the kind of support teachers need to make up for lost instructional time and accelerate learning. Success across the curriculum depends on having strong reading skills. That means effective professional learning is especially important for literacy or language arts instructors who need to know how to teach the science of reading through Structured Literacy. Yet only 51% of teaching institutions provide adequate instruction in the science of reading (NCTQ, 2020), leaving many teachers underprepared to provide targeted literacy instruction that supports the diverse needs of their learners. LETRS can help.
