Here we go!

Hello, World!  I am so excited about this new direction that I have decided to take with literacy coaching!  I love what I do and can't get enough of seeing amazing things happen everyday in classrooms and I want to bring this opportunity to as many teachers as I can.  Let me introduce myself...My name is Jessica Pelka and I am a literacy coach in the Rice Lake Area School District in Rice Lake, Wisconsin.  I was lucky enough to have had the opportunity to train to be a literacy coach a few years ago under Andrea McCarrier (co-author of INTERACTIVE WRITING along with Gay Su Pinnell) and Tina Henry at Ohio State University. These two ladies are brilliant and I hope that by writing about what I have learned from them, it will help me help others to truly understand how children learn best.   Prior to becoming a literacy coach, I taught kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade.  Luckily, I was coached in the literacy collaborative framework while working as a 1st grade teacher.  This is when my passion for teaching and learning ignited!  I owe so much to my coach, Lynn Shroeder, for helping me to understand how young children learn to read and write. She also helped me to realize that I couldn't do it alone.  As teachers, we all need someone to help us look at education with 'fresh eyes'.  We all need time to think, talk, experiment, wonder, ponder, and vent when it comes to teaching in a way that will make every single child in your classroom successful.  This is hard work...we can't do it alone...and no one should be expected to!

I will be training a group of brand new teachers to our district in a comprehensive, balanced literacy framework that consists of interactive read aloud, guided reading, shared reading, independent reading, shared writing, community/interactive writing, writer's workshop, and independent writing.  I will also be teaching teachers how to use the observation survey by Marie Clay, Benchmark Assessment by Fountas and Pinnell, and the DSA by Kathy Ganske.  Some of these teachers are right out of college, some have a few years of experience, and some have several years of experience.  What I know right now is that we are all going to learn a lot this year.  So, please, join me as I take my learning to a new level and document my journey of helping new teachers in our district become keen observers of children.  These are amazing times in education and we all want what is best for kids.  This is my part in how I'm going to make it happen.