Back to School Professional Development: Creating a Print-Rich Environment

This 76-slide PowerPoint presentation can be used for your own professional development, or Instructional Coaches and Reading Specialists can use this for a 1-2 hour PD presentation for your elementary teachers during an in-service day or PLC.

This material focuses on ways to create a print-rich environment and how this environment supports literacy growth in children learning to read. This is the perfect presentation for the beginning of the school year since teachers are in the midst of setting up their classrooms and thinking about how they will organize their literacy centers, word walls, and other important classroom details. The presentation includes suggestions for word walls, help walls, literacy centers or stations, anchor charts, digital literacy, and more. All are important parts of a balanced literacy classroom. All enrich and support student literacy growth in a deep and meaningful way.

I am a literacy coach at my K-4 elementary school, and I did this presentation with my teachers a few years ago. I've repeated it every year since then with my new teachers and teachers that may need extra support in this area. I've updated it to include the most current resources that have just come out in the past year or two.

You will receive 3 files (in a zip file) with this purchase. The 1st file is the 76 slide PowerPoint mentioned above. This includes my own notes (embedded in the presentation). You can see the notes if you are not in presentation mode. These notes can be printed on "notes" pages, which are found in your printer settings. Before presenting, I usually print these notes out and use them to follow along with my slides. Since the photos, quotes, and illustrations speak for themselves on some slides, not every slide has notes included with it. You could also add your own notes to this presentation to make it your own.

This resource comes complete with an abundance of strategies, examples, photos, resource recommendations, and suggested reads. It will save you hours of preparation time. You will find it to be a valuable resource that you can use with your entire staff (including PE, art, and music teachers) and reuse with novice teachers each year. I've found it to be extremely helpful and have received extremely positive feedback from my teachers about it.

The 2nd file is the same presentation saved into a PDF file. This is to save the integrity of any fonts that are used that may not be on your computer. The computer will substitute in a different font, which could result in a change to the formatting. The PDF will keep the presentation the way it was designed and can also be used to do your presentation (there is a presentation mode in Adobe). The 3rd file is a PDF of the notes pages for your printing needs. You have my permission to use this with your staff and give them copies of the slides. I hope that it helps you as much as it has helped me!
Please send a note to my inbox if you have any trouble with any part of this file, and I will gladly help you or fix any errors. Thank you for considering this product!
Jennifer McCann
Literacy Coach
Nashville, TN