The Lower School at Burke's has recently adopted TC phonics for K-2 students. Our third grade team is also using part of the 2nd grade program with their 3rd graders. I was excited to learn that TC was putting on this workshop for Upper elementary teachers, especially since there has been a lot of speculation that TC would be putting out a phonics curriculum for older students. I attended 3 full days of workshops, online, from Sept 28-30th, 2022.
The workshop had a lot of great information about the importance of phonics and word study. The main focus was the importance of looking at struggling readers and determining what area of phonics or phonemic instruction might be needing specific attention. The workshops taught about these different areas and then had a variety of suggestions to differentiate instruction in order to meet your student's needs. I learned that the 3rd-5th grade TC program is designed as an intervention program, not as a whole class curriculum. This training was not necessarily to say that schools need the TC phonics program but rather that all teachers need to be sure to have some strategic programs they can use.
Big Takeaways/Connections to my goals:
The workshops had great ideas for activities to implement in the classroom. My big takeaway was how important it is for 3rd and 4th grade teachers to do this work with their struggling readers. I was surprised to hear TC say that they felt this work could be done with some students in lieu of their reader's workshop time (that's how important it is!). I left feeling that I need to figure out ways to support teachers in assessing students in these areas and setting up centers for the students that need more work in these areas. One of my goals this year is to help support the adoption of the new phonics program. This workshop gave great ideas on how to work on this goal, while also expanding my thinking to look at phonemic awareness and phonics deficits for specific students.I am excited to share what I have learned with the 3rd and 4th grade teams.
I would recommend this opportunity for any teacher that feels they might not truly understand phonics instruction and phonemic awareness. Often teachers in 3-5th grade have not had a lot of instruction in this area, and this workshop reiterated why it's probably the most important thing you can do for your struggling readers.