Staff Development with The Comprehension Toolkits: Implementing and Sustaining Comprehension Instruction Across the Curriculum

Stephanie Harvey has spent her career teaching and learning about reading and writing. After fifteen years of public school teaching, both in regular education and special education classrooms, Stephanie worked for twelve years as a staff developer for the Denver based Public Education and Business Coalition (PEBC), a partnership of leaders from education and business, who support innovation in public schools. Insatiably curious about student thinking, she is a teacher first and foremost and currently serves as a private literacy consultant to schools and school districts. In that role, she conducts keynote speeches, presentations, workshops, demonstration lessons, coaching sessions and ongoing consultation to teachers, reading specialists, literacy coaches, principals and district administrators. With a focus on K-12 literacy, her specialties include comprehension instruction, inquiry-based learning, content area reading and writing, nonfiction literacy, and the role of passion, wonder and engagement in teaching and learning. Stephanie has written many articles, books and resources; her Heinemann publications include the title Comprehension and Collaboration which she co-authored with Smokey Daniels, and The Comprehension Toolkit series which is an in-depth Curricular Resource for comprehension instruction co-authored with Anne Goudvis. Click here to read recent Heinemann Blogs from Steph. Connect with Steph at @StephHarvey49 » Listen to an interview with Stephanie Harvey on Education Talk Radio - 2/29/2012 (30:35)

Anne Goudvis has taught students in grades K-6 over the years, beginning her teaching career in urban schools on the south side of Chicago. She spent many years as a staff developer in the Denver area, working in culturally and linguistically diverse schools. Currently, Anne works with schools and districts around the country to implement progressive literacy practices and comprehension across the curriculum. She is the coauthor with Stephanie Harvey of Strategies That Work and The Comprehension Toolkit series, along with resources including Scaffolding the Comprehension Toolkits for English Language Learners. A history buff, she and Stephanie also coauthored the Short Nonfiction for Teaching American History series, which includes strategies for teaching historical literacy and student articles about often overlooked voices and people in history. With Inquiry Illuminated, Anne, Steph, and Brad Burhow show how curiosity and student agency thrive as kids engage in Researcher's Workshop across the curriculum.

Angela Schroden has worked for Hillsborough County Public Schools for fifteen years where she began her career as a classroom teacher in both 2nd and 5th grades. Angela also served as a literacy coach for four years where she provided daily support (coaching, modeling, planning, demonstration lessons, etc.) to K - 5 teachers in all areas of literacy, content, and pedagogy and as assistant principal for a Title I elementary school. Angela then moved to the district level where she joined the Elementary Language Arts team. As a District Resource Teacher for elementary reading she supported 144 elementary schools (Title I and non-Title I) in implementing balanced literacy, reader's and writer's workshop, small-group instruction, the gradual release of responsibility, the Comprehension Toolkit, and intervention. Angela's school support included teaching, coaching, observation, and training. During her time at the district level Angela created and delivered dozens of staff development modules, district-wide planning tools and curricula - such as, assessment planning tools, data conferencing guides - as well as hundreds of literacy lessons. Based on her work implementing The Comprehension Toolkit in Hillsborough County, Angela coauthored a book with Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis titled Staff Development with The Comprehension Toolkits: Implementing and Sustaining Comprehension Instruction Across the Curriculum (Heinemann 2012). Most recently, Angela earned her Ed.D. from USF in Educational Leadership. Her research focused on leadership content knowledge, where she examined the relationship between principals' perceived reading knowledge and the leadership decisions they make to support reading instruction.