Literacy

Open the doors of opportunity for your students by cultivating their literacy skills.

Open the doors of opportunity for your students by cultivating their literacy skills. As an educator, you play a critical role in advancing your students’ progress. When you instill a passion for reading and writing in your students, you spur their interest and inspire them to become more engaged, excited and committed to the learning process.

Developed by Dr. Katie McKnight, Engaging Learners empowers you to expand your literacy expertise. Our practical strategies and tools, supported by research, enliven your classroom and stimulate learning. Engaging Learners offers flexible solutions to address the spectrum of literacy needs.

Free Resource

Download a free copy of The Archaeologist classroom activity. This learning exercise invites students to observe minute details, take notes on what they observe, and discuss and analyze their findings. It’s a simple, but powerful strategy that increases students’ understanding of content while preparing them to engage in an authentic writing practice. Directions for this activity are written with Literacy & Learning Centers in mind – but all of Dr. Katie McKnight’s activities are easily adapted to any classroom model.

Download Free Resource

Literacy & Learning Centers Professional Learning Launch

In this interactive, 90-minute virtual session, educators will learn about using the literacy centers, stations and rotations model with the “big kids” in grades 4-12. Katie will explore how all content area teachers can help students build literacy skills, develop greater content knowledge, and enhance disciplinary literacy.

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Energize your classroom with the Literacy & Learning Center model. Create an interactive space where students fully engage in learning content knowledge and literacy skills at the same time.

Keynote

A Plan for Success: Merging Literacy and Self-Regulation to Increase Achievement (grades K-12)

Our students’ personal abilities to appropriately manage their affect, behaviors, and cognition (ABCs) are critical for college and career readiness. Self-regulation for learning is the ability to effectively balance the ABCs to pursue worthy academic goals. Join this session to learn a holistic approach to assisting all students (from special education to gifted education) in gaining greater social/emotional well-being, developing scholarly behaviors, and acquiring valuable thinking tools to be successful in school and beyond.

Recently featured on the Teaching Channel.

Format: 60-90-120 minute presentation, Half Day session, or Full Day session

Suggested Companion Book: Cash, R. M. (2016). Self-regulation in the classroom: Helping students learn how to learn. Free Spirit Publishing.

Workshops

Literacy & Learning Centers™
The Intersection of Content Knowledge and Literacy Skills

Dr. Katie McKnight has a 100% success rate in achieving academic gains with her unique, centers-based approach. Elementary schools have long used learning centers, stations and rotations, but middle and high school teachers have unique challenges. So Katie worked with teachers all over the country to develop collaborative learning centers designed specifically for grade 4-12 learners. In this session readers can explore the research that prompted the creation of the LLC model for big kids and learn how to start using it in their own classrooms.

Learn about the four foundational centers that are integral to the model. Find out how to set up additional centers in order to customize the LLC model for any content-area classroom. Learn to create developmentally appropriate tasks that automatically align instruction to standards/skills-based assessment, increase student engagement, and allow you to cover more content and skill-development in less time. Avoid discipline problems with self-directed activities that provide the independence students crave with the guidance they need.

Resources, teacher tips, and sample book lists are included.

Format: Half Day session or Full Day session

The Inclusive Literacy Classroom: What is it Exactly, and How to Build It

Our classrooms are filled with dynamic students with diverse learning needs. In this session you will learn the fundamentals of the inclusive classrooms for developing literacy skills including effective teaching strategies and differentiating instruction.

Format: 60-90-120 minute presentation, Half Day session, or Full Day session

Yes, Differentiating Text CAN Be a Good Practice

We teach diverse readers. In this session, we will focus on how to differentiate reading (in all subjects) for grades K-12. How do you select texts based on choice and complexity to motivate and engage students? Example differentiated book lists will be shared with participants.

Format: 60-120 minute session

Kids Love to Argue, We Need to Let Them (grades 4-12)

Teachers will find out how to prepare students in all content areas to write arguments and support claims with reasoned evidence and gain confidence in teaching a challenging skill that is important for students’ career and college readiness.

Format: Half Day session or Full Day session

Hands on Grammar and Vocabulary

Draw your students into the power of language and help them make the connection between abstract grammatical concepts, academic vocabulary, and concrete writing experiences. Dr. Katie McKnight, renowned author, speaker, and adolescent literacy specialist, shares will share classroom lessons that actively involve multiple intelligences and help students internalize concepts far more readily than traditional worksheets.

Format: 60-90-120 minute presentation, Half Day session, or Full Day session

Suggested Companion Book: Hands on Grammar (Second Edition)

Words, Words, Words: Making Academic Vocabulary Stick

Words matter. Our students must be skilled in the ability to determine and clarify word meanings and phrases that they encounter within the disciplines. When we take a systematic approach to the teaching of vocabulary, student achievement rises. In this session learn about engaging lessons and strategies to strengthen students’ vocabulary muscles!

Format: 60-90-120 minute presentation, Half Day session, or Full Day session

What Created the Knowledge Gap (and what we can do about it)

You know the reality. Over 65% of our students are not reading on level. This is a staggering statistic, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. What practices can educators leverage to close the gap? What does the research really indicate about grade-level text and differentiated reading? In this session, we will burrow into these questions, and you’ll emerge with some concrete answers and vision to create engaged and proficient readers in all disciplines.

Format: Keynote, 60-90 minute session

Disciplinary Literacy for Every Content Area (grades 5-12)

Teachers will explore research-based, classroom-tested strategies for engaging students in rigorous texts that are relevant to a discipline or content area and learn how to develop a classroom environment that supports reading, writing and language development for learning

Format: Half Day session, Full Day session, or two Full Day sessions with coaching and practical application