Hi Cathy, I'm sorry I'm so slow getting a response to you. Life's been very hectic, as you know from the teaching at the end of the year perspective. As for supervising EAs, I've found it to be one of the most rewarding parts of my job as our school's Title 1 teacher/Literacy Specialist & supervisor. There are a few things that I think have helped our team to be successful, and I hope this is what you're wanting. If not, maybe this will trigger specific questions I can answer. 1) Hire the right EA. If you have input on personnel, I'd opt for experience as much as possible. I have 3 retired teachers on my team, and they're wonderful. They have the background, the "teacher work ethic," and the love of children. I also have 2 EAs who have worked in Title for many years and one certified teacher (secondary math--but still a teacher) who just wanted part-time because of family...It helps when your EAs don't have to learn the ropes from the ground up. 2) Take time to train your EAs on exactly which programs, progress monitoring tools, and routines you want to use. Make sure he/she can use materials with fidelity. 3) Find a way (and this is a hard one for me, but I found it helps a lot ) to do regular mini-observations on your EA to support her/him and for your peace of mind that the students are getting what they need. This will also help support the EA and give you the opportunity to answer specific questions about practice. This is particularly important if your EA has no prior teaching background. 4) Meet weekly to go over the data he/she has collected on students. You should be the one to enter that data into whatever record-keeping system you use, so you know exactly where each student is working. 5) Build a professional and friendly rapport with the EA. Those weekly meetings give you the opportunity to listen to the EAs insights and feelings about the chilodren he/she teaches, and are usually insightful. 6) If you learn something new/know of available professional development opportunities that would be beneficial, help to facilitate the EA's professional growth. For example, I scheduled a training from our district ELL department on SIOP techniques, which was very beneficial and appreciated. You don't have to do all the training yourself. I hope this helps. One of my favorite reading gurus, Richard Allington, is very against the use of EAs, saying that the least trained people are working with the neediest children. He is undoubtedly correct most of the time. But if you can hire experience, train carefully, and monitor effectively, I think you'll get a lot of bang for your district's buck. :) Terry --- On Mon, 5/28/12, CAG <cag...@myfairpoint.net> wrote:
From: CAG <cag...@myfairpoint.net> Subject: [MOSAIC] question for Terry Decker/supervising ed techs To: "Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group" <mosaic@literacyworkshop.org> Date: Monday, May 28, 2012, 6:06 PM Hi, Terry. I couldn't quite tell what your address was so am emailing you here. You can email me off-list at cag...@myfairpoint.net. I would like to talk about supervising ed techs/EA's/other staff, as I'm supervising 1 ed tech for RTI, and I'm not sure I'm doing it the best it can be done. I'm open to anyone else being in on the conversation as well. Thanks. Cathy <<We have done Walk to Read for 3 years now, and it has made a positive difference in the reading success of the students at my school. Classroom teachers are still using the reading series for whole class instruction and are using literacy workshop too. We have a mandated 90 minutes of reading instruction, and the Walk to Read is 30-35 minutes of that. Our district funded 4 "literacy assistants, who, along with the Title 1 staff, help us to place every child in appropriate materials for their rate and level of instruction. As the Title 1 reading specialist, I supervise the lit EAs and Title staff. Additionally, I pull Tier 3 students for another "dose" of focused instruction in the afternoon. \ We are moving to an RtI-like process next year, which I eagerly <<anticipate. Terry _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
