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Teaming Up To Improve Reading:
Professional Learning Teams

J.B. Thomas Middle School has seen a storm of activity in reading. Teacher teams with names like the “Tsunamis” and “Tornados” have been meeting on a regular basis to study ways to boost reading proficiency at the school, which has a high enrollment of low-income and Hispanic students. The hard work has paid off: At the end of the 2004-2005 school year, J.B. Thomas’s state reading achievement climbed 13 percent. It was the biggest jump in reading scores in the suburban Hillsboro School District, located about a half-hour’s drive west of Portland.

Principal Mario Alba credits the school’s professional learning teams (PLTs) with giving the staff a common goal. “Overall, it’s a very worthwhile program that has everyone going in the same direction,” he says. “It’s given us a focus to get on board and do what we need to do.”

Professional learning teams are small groups of teachers that meet for 60-90 minutes on a weekly or biweekly basis to read and discuss research and best practices. Together, they try out new instructional strategies and share their successes and challenges. They also examine student work to better understand how students learn.

Typically, teachers self-select into groups and establish a yearly goal—a process that J.B. Thomas had followed in the past. However, in 2004, Alba and Assistant Principal Becky Smith assigned faculty to four teams, mixing content areas and grade levels. “Everyone focused on instructional strategies and reading achievement,” says Smith. “The other big change was each team leader had training on the PLT process once a month.” (Training sessions, provided by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, took place during a half-day early release; weekly PLT meetings were scheduled during a 30-minute delayed school start on Wednesday mornings.)

Teacher Diane Appert, who led one team, says the process changes made a “night and day” difference in the PLT experience between this year and last year. “We were more focused and had more guidance,” she reports. “I was really motivated and felt a lot better about the process.” Appert’s team studied a model for teaching vocabulary through Latin and Greek roots and she found that she was able to incorporate that into her mathematics instruction.

John Patron, an ESL teacher, confirms that other teachers discovered—no matter what their subject matter—they could weave in reading strategies. But, Patron admits that getting initial buy-in from those teachers was a challenge. “It was harder to get physical education, art, and other people who didn’t instruct reading content to feel that the PLT’s focus was relevant,” he says. Patron, Smith, and Appert all agreed that sharing research on why PLTs are important would go a long way in convincing faculty members to invest in the process.

“We’re all narrowly focused on our own classroom, but to stop and think 'Is this for the good of the whole school, for all students?’ is really important,” Appert concludes. At J.B. Thomas, PLTs helped teachers expand their view to include all 550 students.