When and Where: SALT Institutes may be offered across the CRLP network in the summer and throughout the academic year. Program scheduling is flexible, but it is preferable to schedule the days over a period of time to allow for sufficient implementation, processing, and reflection.
Standards, Content, and Grade Level: Designed for Secondary (7-12) English/Language Arts teachers and other content area teachers striving to make academic content-area text more accessible to all their students, particularly English learners. Institute content is aligned with the ELA and ELD standards for these grades.
Program Description: SALT Institutes were developed to provide secondary teachers with tools and instructional strategies designed to help them incorporate academic language development and reading comprehension strategies into their daily curriculum in order to increase student content literacy and provide access to and use of academic language. Participants learn how to use content-specific assessments and strategies to make academic content-area text more accessible to all their students, particularly English learners. The program consists of five modules. The first module includes theory and research and a number of text analysis and lesson planning tools. The additional four modules are organized by strategies for vocabulary, writing, comprehension, and functional language. Each of the strategy modules represents 10 hours of professional development. After the first module, schools or districts may contract for an additional one to four modules, or 10-40 hours of professional development.
Additional Information: This program promotes a cycle that provides teachers with the tools and strategies to analyze their subject-specific text, analyze the instructional demands of their text, plan their content lessons based on this text analysis, and strategically select and use research-based instructional strategies in their content lessons. The development of these skills is a shared responsibility and the instruction that supports students’ language and literacy development will, in fact, enhance their content instruction, be it in math, social science, or science. Participants learn to plan and differentiate instruction based on the diverse learning needs of the full range of learners in their classrooms and how to effectively use SBE-adopted, standards-aligned instructional materials.
Funding: This is a fee-for-service professional development program. Possible sources of funding for schools and districts include:
§ AB466/SB472 (80-hour follow-up practicum)
§ NCLB – Title I, II, III
To find out how you can bring SALT Institutes to your school or district, contact the CRLP Statewide Office at (858) 534-1600.
California Reading and Literature Project