Comprehensible Input Research & Creation!

District Lead: Silvia McClamrock, Julie Dashley

Strategic Plan:  Individual Student Growth

"The study of language usually focuses on Spanish and other World Languages while separating English being taught to speakers of other languages. However, the two fields are slowly merging. Right now, our approach as a district is ahead of many others but it is still lacking. At the elementary level, the Spanish and English teachers are lucky to have strong backgrounds in language acquisition. There is an opportunity for us to be forward thinking and learn from best practices in teaching Spanish, as exemplified in “The Big Book of Comprehensible Input,” and teaching English, as shown in “Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners.” This cadre provides the Fort Thomas School District a unique opportunity to further explore the national trends of language acquisition as it applies to all languages; and in the process foster comprehensible and inclusive instructional strategies that benefit students no matter their native language or what languages they have acquired or continue to acquire. 

As Bryce Hedstrom states in “The Big CI Book”, we will base our professional development on, “Strategies that simplify and make comprehensible input instruction work for you”. After this cadre study, we will be able to practice these successful CI strategies including stories, in our classrooms, with confidence. Our goal is to read and process his advice together and immediately implement it and then reflect on our experiences together for our next meeting. This is the beauty of the cadre continuing throughout the year instead of in a large chunk at the beginning and the end. 

To be honest, we are all excited about working together again and are all passionate about Comprehensible Input, creation and student growth! We truly want our programs to continuously improve. During this cadre, we will work together to learn and create resources that will best serve our students.