Today was the first day of the Saskatchewan Reading Council Literacy Conference. Talk about an information overload. Between two keynotes and two breakout sessions, I don’t know that I will sleep tonight with all of the information racing through my head.

Keynote 1 – Non-Fiction: A Guided Force in Literacy, Presented by Tony Stead

Tony’s keynote was most engaging and full of insightful tips that I will most certainly be able to take into the classroom. The focus of the first part of his presentation was on the Writers Workshop and how it is divided into two parts, first a classroom investigation lasting 1-4 weeks followed by an individual investigation lasting 1-4 weeks. When it comes time for the individual investigation, it is important to give children a restricted topic choice so as to avoid a situation of choice overload. Tony also discussed the importance of students needing to be active as researchers. The one strategy I think I will try to implement in my classroom that I took away from Tony’s presentation is his Did You Know book strategy. In the Did You Know book, students compile facts about assorted topics, or books can be created on more guided topics. Books can also be comprised of visual and textual literacy.

Breakout 1 – Writing Gone Wild, presented by Rebecca Grambo

I had the privilege of introducing Rebecca for her Breakout presentation, and as such I had the chance to speak with her before the presentation. Her passion for her work comes out in everything she says. Her breakout was about how she took her passion for animals and photography and transformed it into works of non-fiction that aren’t boring. Through a narrative-type story, she presents scientific information about her topic to her readers.

Breakout 2 – Making a Difference: Engaging FASD Readers, presented by Dr. Linda Wason-Ellam and Rae Mitten

Having taken a course on Inclusive Education in my last semester of Education, focusing on students with special needs and how to accomodate them in the classroom, I felt this would be an excellent presentation to attend, especially given the fact that FASD was NOT one of the exceptionalities discussed through our course. A lot of misconceptions I had about FASD were cleared through this presentation, and I also gained some good basic knowledge on how to accomodate FASD students in a regular classroom. What I found most interesting about the presentation was that many of the strategies discussed and presented for reading and problem solving in reading is that they are strategies we should be teaching ALL of our students, not just our exceptional students or our FASD students.

Keynote 2 – The Daily Five, presented by The 2 Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser)

For many conference participants, myself included, this was one of the highlights of the conference. I have a copy of the Daily Five, somewhere in my room back home that I have yet to read. It was supposed to come to Regina with me, but somehow it did not make it. This keynote, however, has me all the more excited to read the book and hopefully implement the Daily Five in my classroom in the fall. One of the big things that was said during the presentation but that makes complete sense is that the number of years = the number of minutes (Dr. Ken Wesson). Students cannot stay actively engaged at upper cortex levels for more minutes than they are old. A seven year old student cannot maintain higher brain function for more than seven minutes at a time without losing focus. The Daily Five seems so simple to implement when you see how Joan and Gail go about it in their classrooms, but as a newcomer to the profession, it seems so daunting to implement such expectations in a classroom.

Tomorrow morning Gail and Joan have a second Keynote at breakfast, followed by our 3rd breakout session and the Final Keynote session. After the conference, I move home to Saskatoon, so my update will probably be late getting up, but it will get here eventually!