Happy New Year! I hope your year is off to a wonderful start. While I'm no fan of the snow that blankets my Maine home this time of year, I love the quiet reflection that comes in January when everything slows down a little after the holidays.

For many years a simple sign hung on my home office wall, with these three words:

Action Reflects Belief

I heard the phrase from Heidi Mills at a conference long ago, and I've held the words close ever since. So much of what we do as literacy leaders is about helping colleagues match their beliefs with their classroom practices. Perhaps most important, we bring our schools and districts together around beliefs we all share, and then grapple with the many challenges of translating those beliefs to practices.

The start of the new year is a great time for reflecting on the match between beliefs and practices, so that is our theme this week. We've got a range of features on everything from room arrangement to professional development design. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

From the Choice Literacy Archives, Debbie Miller provides some simple strategies for thinking through with pen and paper how to match beliefs about how children learn to read and write with the arrangement of furniture and materials:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/129.cfm

One of the greatest challenges in matching beliefs and practices is assessment. In the recent Educational Leadership article "Learning to Love Assessment," Carol Ann Tomlinson writes about 10 different "understandings" that can help you find a better match between your beliefs and how you assess learning:

http://tinyurl.com/28qm9q

Join Choice Literacy for our Winter Workshops at the Sand Key Resort in Clearwater, Florida on January 27th, 2008. Workshop topics include literacy coaching and reading assessment with The Sisters and Jennifer Allen:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/454.cfm

For Members Only

Franki Sibberson writes about the challenges of holding true to our beliefs in working with struggling readers, and shares the questions she asks herself as a way of self-monitoring her teaching with strugglers:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/510.cfm

Jennifer Allen runs her first marathon, and finds the good, bad, ugly, and ultimately inspiring experience is a great metaphor for professional development design that endures:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/509.cfm

The Sisters (Joan Moser and Gail Boushey) continue their makeover mania - this time in a middle school teacher's classroom. Their redesign of Erin's student work materials area highlights her belief in more student-centered instruction. If you are questioning the use of commercial posters in your literacy areas, there are suggestions in this time-lapse video for alternatives:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/511.cfm

That's all for this week!