South Carolina Reading Initiative
The South Carolina Reading Initiative is a three-year, intensive staff development effort carried out through study groups of teachers and administrators in participating schools across the state. Led by a literacy coach, teams meet to conduct systematic inquiry into reading research and practice and to discuss related issues and questions that arise in their classrooms. This initiative has seven major goals:
To enhance teacher/administrator knowledge about reading research, theory, and practice.
To encourage reflective practice through continuous examination of beliefs in relation to practice.
To explore with teachers and administrators the knowledge and tools to assess students, create appropriate contexts for them, and instruct them in ways that nurture them as fluent, flexible and engaged readers.
To engage teachers and administrators in personal and collaborative inquiry into reading so they may consider reading as a complex and strategic problem solving process.
To create a network of teachers, principals, and consultants who have a shared knowledge base about the teaching and learning of reading.
To develop structures within individual schools so educators can engage in an independent and ongoing process of positive change.