Homegrown Institutes offer an immersive, 4-5 day professional development experience tailored to the specific goals and priorities of your school or district. These multi-day workshops are designed to foster deep collaboration and practical learning around the teaching of reading, writing, and phonics, empowering educators to enhance literacy instruction.
Collaborative, Flexible, and Customized Professional Development
Each Homegrown Institute is developed in close collaboration with school leaders to ensure alignment with school or district priorities. This flexibility allows the content, pacing, and format to be tailored to the unique needs of your educators, students, and overall literacy goals.
Flexible Scheduling: Homegrown Institutes typically span four days (Monday-Thursday), with an optional fifth day for targeted topics or literacy leadership support.
Community of Learning: Institutes bring together as few as 12 or as many as 800 educators to engage in a shared study of literacy practices, fostering a community of learners focused on enhancing reading, writing, or phonics instruction.
Small Group, Personalized Support
To maximize the effectiveness of these institutes, RWP-M employs a low staff-to-participant ratio:
1 Staff Developer for Every 30 Participants: This ensures that each teacher receives individualized attention, guidance, and support to apply new strategies in their classroom.
Choose from a Range of Topics to Meet Your School's Needs
Homegrown Institutes are designed to be responsive to the needs and interests of your educators. Frequently requested topics include:
The Essentials of Teaching Writing or Reading: Gain foundational knowledge and hands-on strategies to implement high-quality writing or reading workshops, aligned with the Units of Study curriculum.
Small Groups and Toolkits to Accelerate Growth: Learn how to effectively use small groups and create toolkits to enhance student growth in reading or writing. Focus on responsive teaching techniques that drive accelerated progress.
Rebalancing Balanced Literacy: Integrating the Science of Reading into K-2 Reading Workshop: Explore how to incorporate the latest research and practices from the science of reading into balanced literacy, supporting early reading development in K-2 classrooms.
Using (and Writing) Decodable Texts to Support Early Readers: Learn how to utilize and create decodable texts to scaffold instruction and support the needs of beginning readers, promoting phonics skills and reading fluency.
Foundational Reading in the Upper-Grades: Develop strategies to reinforce foundational reading skills such as phonics, comprehension, and fluency in the upper grades to ensure continued literacy development.
Book Clubs to Support Analytical Reading and Writing About Reading: Discover how to structure and lead book clubs that promote analytical thinking, collaborative discussion, and advanced writing about reading.
Optional Fifth Day: Focused on Special Topics or Literacy Leadership
The optional fifth day of a Homegrown Institute can be customized to address a specific area of interest or to provide specialized support for literacy leaders, such as principals, assistant principals, and literacy coaches. This allows for deeper exploration of topics that will further enhance the impact of your literacy instruction.
Location and Cost
Location: Available both on-site and virtual, offering a flexible and accessible professional development experience.
Cost: Pricing varies based on the length and specific needs of the institute. Contact RWP-M for customized pricing and scheduling options.
Early Reservation Recommended
Due to high demand, many districts request Homegrown Institutes, and availability may be limited. To secure your preferred dates and topics, we recommend reaching out to schedule your Homegrown Institute as early as possible.
Contact Us to Bring a Homegrown Institute to Your School or District
Empower your educators to become experts in literacy instruction by hosting a Homegrown Institute. Contact The Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower to plan a customized multi-day professional development experience that aligns with your school or district's goals for literacy achievement.