Instructor guide to LETRS Reading and Spelling Program. LETRS is a professional development course that empowers teachers to understand the what, why and how of literacy instruction, based on the most current scientific research.
One of the best professional development trainings I’ve ever done — started it in 259 14(!) years ago and finally got the opportunity to restart/complete it. Absolute essential that our teachers start getting the background knowledge they need to truly be effective teachers of literacy. Highly recommend anyone in education participate in LETRS 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I learned so much about teaching language, reading and writing. I can’t wait to use what I have learned as I coach teachers. This is a resource that I will continue to use again and again!
As a secondary educator, I found volume one much more useful to me compared to this second volume. The information surrounding foundational literacy was new to me. I have found it invaluable this school year as I have worked with high school students who have been denied access to formal educations in their home countries and are at the beginning of their literacy journey. (Yes! High school students!).
However, this second volume did not provide me with any new learning or novel approaches to teaching literacy. Further, the first unit (unit 5) left me VERY unimpressed. The opening to me felt like a classic example taken from a book on cultural linguistics of lingualism. I felt offended by the notion that someone who reads can have a high quality or more sophisticated interaction with the world around them. This type of self-importance placed on reading by educators is lacking nuance, context, and complexity. It was very disappointing after the strong start I experienced from volume one.
That said... if I were a new public educator with limited to no experience, this second volume gives tools and information that are both practical and sound based on my 20 years as a writing teacher.
This training has been eye opening and has helped be to better help my students learn to read and better their reading skills! I’ve learned so much about how the human brain learns to read (we shouldn’t be able to read; our brains literally weren’t meant to be able to read and we’ve had to adapt over the years because of written language), why reading is difficult for some students and how I can help those students for whom reading is more difficult!
I learned SO MUCH! I highly recommend this book to ALL EDUCATORS. It's not just knowledge for primary teachers. All teaching professionals, including paraprofessionals, should understand the foundations of literacy learning.
This volume was not the heavy lift of Volume I. If you’ve been teaching for a number of years, this is probably more reaffirming than informational. A reminder versus more information.