Welcome to the Comox Valley Schools literacy homepage.  We are a district located on the east coast of Vancouver Island nestled in a beautiful temperate rainforest.  I hope the suggestions you find on this site are helpful to you as you contemplate your learners, what they need, and how we can best engage them in this wonderful world of learning.

I respectfully acknowledge that I live, work and play on the Unceded traditional territory of the K’ómoks First Nation. 

Carol Walters

Retired K-7 District Literacy Resource Teacher

Words on Wednesdays, Jan 24

In this video, Alison Walkley shares about how she used the Story Map portion of the District Literacy Assessment to scaffold her students into deep understanding of story elements through familiar shared texts, discussion and story workshop.

Words on Wednesdays, Jan 31

In this session we cover two strategies for building stamina with print and engaging with text for comprehension. These strategies can be valuable for many ages: “Pause, Look, Think” is a useful strategy for building stamina and/or noticing the features of text; “Read, Think, Draw” is a favourite Faye Brownlie strategy for engaging with text to understand story line, or record new information from what we read.

Words on Wednesdays Jan 17

In this video we learn about two strategies from Jennifer Serravallo’s book Reading Strategies 2.0 that pertain to early Literacy forays into print!

Words on Wednesday: February 7

The way we think about our instructional chunks during the week can free us up to design literacy instruction with more intention and more space, and it can even help us find minutes we didn’t think we had.

Words on Wednesday: February 14

We know that oral language is a key component of learning to read–after all, reading is a conversation in your head! Through conversation and discussion, students develop new vocabulary, puzzle through story plot lines, connect to characters and learn to listen to each other. All of these come together to deepen comprehension of text. In this video, we see how Colleen Reimer teaches and uses Turn and Talk effectively in her classroom.

Feb 28: Connecting With Character using Think/Say Bubbles

This strategy from Jennifer Serravallo’s book, Reading Strategies 2.0, helps students deepen their comprehension by developing inferring skills based on what they know about characters in the story. In the process of building understanding of character, this strategy literally “gives voice” to the characters as children read. Lindsay Reynolds, a grade 2/3 teacher, has used this strategy very effectively with her class and this video gives us a real-life glimpse into how it works.

Words on Wednesdays: March 6

Reading with Purpose: setting goals

These two strategies from Jennifer Serravallo help students develop their skills in attention to text and intentions for reading by encouraging self-monitoring. These are important skills in the long-term goal of engagement and motivation. These simple strategies lay the framework for talking about what we do when we are reading and how we want to grow stronger as readers.

WoW for March 13: Story Workshop and Loose Parts with Intermediates

In this video we see how two teachers use a story workshop model with loose parts in intermediate classes. The value of this activity is myriad: it highlights student voice, it places oral language at the centre, it has a high accessibility factor and it contributes to triangulated assessment. It is a highly engaging, powerful tool for students of any age and hopefully this video encourages you to try it out!