One of the features that sets our family workshop materials apart from other literacy organizations is that they are both ready-to-use and fully personalizable.
Family workshop materials are ready to use.
We know teachers and school leaders are busy. That’s why we’ve created high-quality family workshop materials anchored in research-based literacy instruction and linked to literacy standards. Time and time again, teachers tell us family workshops materials help them explain exactly what they want families to know about supporting reading at home. However, no matter how good workshop materials are, it is the teacher that really makes them come alive! They do that through personalization.
Why is personalization so important?
Teachers know their students, families, and learning communities! We hire Springboard teachers from within a school community because we value this on-the-ground knowledge and expertise. As teachers facilitate the workshops and model, encourage families to share with one another, and provide time for practice, they naturally personalize the experience for families. But we go a step further and make the family workshop slide decks fully editable so teachers can personalize the workshop even more, if they choose.
What are some ways to personalize?
If you’ve taught in a Springboard program, you may have already personalized a family workshop slide deck. If you’re wondering how to get started, consider these options:
-Add in images that reflect your personality. One teacher in the Bay Area sprinkles memojis throughout the family workshop presentation and challenges his students to find him on each slide. Another teacher changed the font of all the examples to be pink—her signature color. Still another teacher inserted a stretch break slide right before practice time so the families could get the wiggles out right before they sat down to practice. These small tweaks can make your family workshops reflect your school community.
-Add in examples from texts in your classroom. An easy and accessible way to personalize the decks is to swap out the existing examples and model sentences for sentences from the texts in your classroom. By using the text already in your classroom library, you are giving families a valuable glimpse into the classroom and reinforcing what the children are already doing in your class.
-Add in translated text. We provide family workshop materials in English and Spanish. There is plenty of room in the design of the slides that you can combine the English and Spanish into a bilingual version OR insert another language.
-Add additional slides with site specific information. Many teachers insert additional slides to go over important logistical details with families. Families appreciate this clear communication.
We love to see the way Springboard teachers personalize the workshops! Send your ideas to familyworkshops@springboardcollaborative.org and you might see them featured in an upcoming blog or social media post.