Professional Learning and Capacity Building Include:

Multidisciplinary Teams

• The York Region District School Board allocates time for speech-language pathologists to model oral language strategies for teachers. SLPs are heavily involved in providing professional learning for teachers regarding phonological awareness and oral language. For one example, SLPs model the "read aloud" process, focusing on phonological awareness—e.g., first reading the selection right through, then picking out a few phonics tasks based directly on whole class needs. They might add a kinesthetic element to the lessons—e.g., segmenting syllables by patting the child's wrist, elbow, shoulder, head. The SLPs model a tiered approach for teachers, demonstrating how to move from whole class to small groupings, using the same text. They developed a chart to address any level of the hierarchy of oral language learning. The chart supports teachers in choosing appropriate texts and tasks for that level. The approach is very effective because the board is using a multi-disciplinary team within a tiered approach to provide collaboration opportunities for student observation, data collection, and the collaborative development of effective strategies and interventions. [Evaluation Report, p. 20]