Midwest Principals’ Center invites you to a workshop featuring  Cris Tovani

Engaging Our Most Reluctant Readers

May 4, 2023

8:30am – 3:00pm

Your choice of In-Person at Medinah Shrine Center in Addison, IL or Live-Stream on your device

Cris Tovani

Cris Tovani is an internationally known consultant who provides workshops on disciplinary literacy as well as assessment for learning. Her focus is modeling how to integrate literacy strategies into lessons so students can be better readers and writers of disciplinary text.  Having taught students in grades 1-12 for 34 years, Cris continues to study the “knowing-doing gap” by investigating how best practice research can be practically applied in a variety of learning situations.

She was awarded the 2017 Thought Leader award from the International Literacy Association and is the author of five books. Embracing a growth mindset, Cris loves sharing her successes and failures with colleagues as they work to serve students of all ages.  See a short video of Cris 

Engaging Our Most Reluctant Learners

Teachers detest the question, “Why do I have to read this?” But now, more than ever
before, students of all ages want authentic reasons to read, write, and discuss. During
the morning session, Cris Tovani will address how to plan for engagement. Sharing
ideas from her new book, elementary and secondary teachers alike will find different
entry points that will help them hook their most reluctant students. Using her planning
structure of the 6Ts: Topic, Targets, Tasks, Text, Time, and Tending, Cris will show how
she anticipates students’ needs so they read, write, and discuss longer.  During the
afternoon session, Cris will share literacy strategies that help students grades 3-12
recognize and repair comprehension.

In these challenging times, teachers know that even the best reading strategy won’t
work if students are disengaged. Combining what participants learn in the morning with
the literacy strategies provided in the afternoon, teachers will be able to anticipate and
remove roadblocks that cause kids to quit. Teachers will leave with tools to help students
get unstuck and remember what they have read so that when they encounter text that is
complex or uninteresting, they will know how to monitor and repair meaning.

Participants will work toward meeting for the following learning outcomes:

• describe what full engagement looks like;
• plan so that students are engaged in the work of my discipline (reading, writing, discussing, creating, performing, solving, researching…) for more minutes of the class period than I am talking;
• provide reasons for students to read, write, and discuss in my content area;
• model for students how to monitor and repair meaning when reading complex text.

A copy of Cris Tovani’s lastest book, Why Do I Have to Read This? (Stenhouse, 2020) can be purchased with registration and will be sent prior to the workshop.