I delivered my first Xtreme Reading Institute in
Springfield, MA in the summer of 2009.
The Springfield School District had implemented Xtreme Reading as part
of the Striving Readers Project for three years, and the institute that I
conducted in 2009 was designed to provide professional development to newly
assigned Xtreme Reading teachers.
The format of the institute was a five-day summer session. Day 1 focused on launching the course
with Xpect to ACHIEVE. The next
two days involved introducing the word level strategies along with Possible
Selves, and the last two days concentrated on the comprehension
strategies. Although the five days
contained a massive amount of information, teachers had the opportunity to meet
with Xtreme Reading coaches on a monthly basis to extend discussions and to
problem solve when needed. Over
the years, I modified the format of the sessions I deliver. I soon switched from a five-day summer
session to a shorter summer session paired with an additional session in the
fall. Another shift happened
recently when I began offering virtual Xtreme Reading professional development
sessions by staggering eight shorter sessions over the course of a school year
and combining live synchronous sessions with additional asynchronous
activities.
I have also presented Xtreme Reading to other SIM
Professional Developers. In 2015
and again in 2016, I conducted Xtreme Reading preconference sessions at the
annual SIM conference in Lawrence.
The following year, I presented the history of SIM during a kaleidoscope
session. In 2019 I conducted a summer Xtreme Reading Institute in Lawrence, and
later that summer, I presented a half-day Xtreme Reading session at the SIM
conference for SIM Professional Developers supporting SIM in their districts. During this time, plans to form an
Xtreme Reading Cadre were discussed.
As I move forward, I hope to continue to refine my delivery
of the Xtreme Reading curriculum to others. It is always gratifying to collaborate with SIM Professional
Developers as they begin to support Xtreme Reading, and it is “xtremely”
rewarding to support teachers who work every day to help struggling students
become readers. It’s great to be a
small part of that.
