…inspiring Ghanaian teachers PRESENTS THE EDUCATORS’ NETWORK 2ND LITERACY FORUM An intensive, wide-ranging series of workshops designed for educators who are seeking to improve students’ reading and writing skills. under the theme, THE READING-WRITING CONNECTION: BOOSTING CHILDREN’S LITERACY SKILLS Saturday 24th November 2012 8:00 am – 5:30 pm at Lincoln Community School, Abelenkpe P.O. Box OS 1952, Accra Email: [email protected] …inspiring Ghanaian teachers THE PURPOSE OF THE EDUCATORS NETWORK LITERACY FORUMS Effective educators are life-long learners. Of all the factors that contribute to student learning, recent research shows that classroom instruction is the most crucial. This places teachers as the most important influence on student performance. For this reason, teachers must be given frequent opportunities to develop new instructional skills and methodologies, and share their knowledge of best practice with other teachers. It is imperative that such opportunities are provided to encourage the refining of skills, inquiry into practice and incorporation of new methods in classroom settings. To create these opportunities, The Educators’ Network (TEN) was established as a teacher initiative to provide professional development opportunities for teachers in Ghana. Through this initiative, TEN hopes to grow a professional learning community among educators in Ghana. BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE EDUCATORS’ NETWORK TEN was founded by a group of Ghanaian international educators led by Letitia Naami Oddoye, who are passionate about teaching and have had the benefit of exposure to diverse educational curricula and standards. Each of these educators has over ten years of experience in teaching and exposure to international seminars and conferences. They are all highly experienced, internationally trained and qualified teachers from the Lincoln Community School, in Accra, Ghana. Their collective teaching experiences range from pre-school to secondary school levels. These teachers share a desire to contribute to the pool of knowledge in the teaching profession in Ghana and their ultimate goal is to improve learning among Ghanaian students. THE TEN MISSION TEN’s mission is to provide Ghanaian teachers in local and private schools with training in research-based literacy and instructional pedagogy. Our aim is to improve the standard of teacher instruction in Ghanaian schools and ultimately heighten student achievement scores at all levels. P.O. Box OS 1952, Accra Email: [email protected] …inspiring Ghanaian teachers A LETTER TO EDUCATORS ”Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.” Henry David Thoreau Dear Ghanaian Educators, THE READING-WRITING CONNECTION: BOOSTING CHILDREN’S LITERACY SKILLS The Educators' Network is excited to announce that registration is open for the 2nd TEN Literacy Forum, titled 'The Reading-Writing Connection: Boosting Children's Literacy Skills'. A total of eleven workshops have been provided under this theme for teachers of grade levels spanning Early Childhood through Secondary school. We are honoured to have Dr. Mrs. Margaret Nkrumah and Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo as guest speakers for the 2nd TEN Literacy Forum. Dr. Mrs. Nkrumah is currently the Vice-President of SOS Kinderdorf International (KDI), and the acclaimed former principal of SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College in Tema, Ghana. Prof. Aidoo is a renowned Ghanaian professor, playwright and author of Dilemma of a Ghost and The Girl Who Can & Other Stories among many others. Included in this packet is the following information: • All-new workshop description and profiles of our Workshop Facilitators • The Forum Program Schedule • Details on how to register and pay for participation in the Forum We leave you with a thought as you select your workshops: teachers can be most effective in helping students become better readers, writers and thinkers when they weave integrated reading and writing activities into their literacy instruction. TEN hopes that these workshops enhance your teaching experiences and enrich your students. Please feel free to contact us for more information. We hope to see you at The Educators’ Network 2nd Literacy Forum. The Educators' Network ...inspiring Ghanaian teachers. Accra, Ghana www.theeducatorsnetwork.net P.O. Box OS 1952, Accra Email: [email protected] …inspiring Ghanaian teachers NOVEMBER 2012 WORKSHOPS Reading Response - Demonstrating Understanding Beyond the Obvious (Grades 1-3) Presenters: Juliette Awua-Kyerematen & Elizabeth Osei This workshop will focus on; What a text says: What a text does: What a text means. During this workshop participants will discover how to explore and interpret text from various perspectives. As shared by Sharon Taberski, “children also need to engage in real reading, writing and talking experiences, and within that context, expand their oral language and vocabulary, develop accurate fluent reading, acquire and use background knowledge, and sustain reading-writing connections.” As teachers and learners our goal for this workshop will be to formulate our own questions from texts, and to our classrooms to nurture inquisitive learners. Everyday Literacy: How to use Everyday Classroom Routines to Teach Reading and Writing (Grades Pre K–K) Presenters: Rebecca Narnor & Winifred Atta-Mensah In this workshop participants will learn how to capitalize on opportunities for reading and writing throughout the Pre Kindergarten/Kindergarten day. All classroom routines can be embedded with rich experiences, so that young children learn emergent literacy skills along with the desire to use them. Let’s explore the journey of early literacy together! Using the Writing Cycle to Inspire Student Writers (Grades 3-5) Presenters: Naami Oddoye & Sylvia Ampofo Traditionally, students have been taught writing via the technical aspects of grammar, punctuation, spelling and other conventions. In recent years research has shown that this rote approach fails to engage and inspire student learning, and the content of writing has been proven to be more of an intuitive process (Hicks, 1993; Hillocks, 1986). It is no surprise then that many students suffer a mental block when required to write. In this workshop participants will discover how to use the writing cycle to train confident and independent writers who are able to express themselves freely through creative, unique and fluent written essays. Writing and Reading within Social Studies and Science (Grades 3-5) Presenter: Rosie Upson Have you ever wondered how you could teach reading and writing through your science and social studies lessons? Through this hands-on workshop, learn how to develop a fully integrated program in which students learn not only content but also skills to help deepen their understanding. Learn and practice reading skills for decoding non-fiction texts in Social Studies and Science. Use skimming and scanning, note taking and summarizing skills to help unpack a piece of non-fiction text. Uncover the structure of a non-fiction report and use non-fiction reading skills to help write a report. P.O. Box OS 1952, Accra Email: [email protected] …inspiring Ghanaian teachers Writing as a Response to the Reading Experience (Grades 6-8) Presenter: Shula Glymin One way to generate richer writing abilities in the classroom is to relate the writing activity directly to text that has been read in class. This can be done through various reading response activities and teaching strategies, which will be shared in this workshop. Daily Reading and Writing Connections in the Early Elementary Classroom (Grades 1-2) Presenters: Gloria Quarmine & Belinda D. Hammond In our daily lives there are lots of opportunities for reading and writing. Students who read and write daily are being prepared for real life. In this workshop, teachers will walk away with strategies that will help them plan, teach and enjoy reading and writing moments with their students. They will also understand the connection between reading and writing in the early elementary classroom. Children as Authors (Grades 2-4) Presenter: Sage McCormack This workshop explores how all children can become authors in the classroom. While making the link between reading and writing, teachers will learn how to facilitate the engagement of children in the craft of writing by encouraging them to identify their favorite authors, discuss why they love certain books and transfer this knowledge into the writing process. Using a student-centered, balanced literacy approach to writing, teachers will be encouraged to acknowledge that all of their children are authors. Using Low Cost/No Cost Resources to Boost Literacy Skills (Grades K-3) Presenter: Jane Zohoungbogbo Do you ever think that you could provide more stimulating and interesting literacy lessons if only you had some fantastic and /or expensive resources? It is possible to deliver enriching and meaningful literacy lessons using everyday objects and your surroundings. In this hands-on workshop teachers will have the opportunity to share their ideas and begin to develop resources that may be useful to them. Interactive Strategies for Teaching Student Writing in Response to Literature (Grades 6 - 10) Presenters: Carolyn Mason Parker and Tricia Wagner Students who engage in frequent discussions about what they read are more motivated and