This week I am returning to my classroom after a 6-week leave. A broken shoulder sustained hiking in WA kept me at home healing. I was so lucky to be leaving my students with my skilled team and even luckier to have had an amazing guest teacher fill my absence.

During my time away from my classroom, I was able to spend time digging in to Comprehensive Literacy Instruction (CLI), which I have been slowly implementing in my Autism classroom over the last couple years – although this year I refocused much of my energies on literacy instruction. A huge piece that had been missing for me (I realized, towards the end of my Leave) was the time to really read and explore resources around CLI.

Professional Development courses, usually only a few hours long a couple times a year, are not nearly enough time to understand the theory behind the practices outlined in Comprehensive Literacy for All. In between these information-packed sessions (of which I, at least, was only able to really retain about 20%) we are planning lessons, completing paperwork, attending meetings, writing IEPs, communicating with families, prepping materials, and a million other odd things that we do each day without even realizing. That leaves little time for depth in Comprehensive Literacy Instruction.

In my classroom I was frantically implementing every element I could as quickly as I could; a district program supporter even spent a few weeks in my classroom at the beginning of the year helping me set up and structure an Emergent literacy classroom. Even then, I felt ill-prepared to successfully implement the elements of CLI. I believed in CLI; I believed that its framework honored students with complex needs and prioritized accessible learning above all else; and, most importantly I think, I believed that if I could understand it deeply enough, that I could use it to teach all my students to read and write.

When my shoulder injury forced me to take a Leave of Absence, I used it as an opportunity to start reading Comprehensive Literacy for All more closely, read blogs from educators implementing this framework in their own classrooms, apply my learning in real time to the lessons I was planning, and start connecting the literacy blocks to the theories behind them.

Reading about other classrooms moving through the challenges and successes of CLI implementation was especially helpful for me; to see other educators creating engaging lessons, imagining creative solutions, and fostering enriching learning communities. In an effort to continue this community learning and knowledge sharing, and to be accountable to reflection on my practices, I will be sharing my own CLI Implementation journey here.

As I stumble through applying the practices and skills I’m learning in the classroom, I will share lessons I create, planning and organization techniques, resources for supporting implementation, and guidance on collaborating with other staff members (and families!) on CLI implementation.

Thank you for being here in this collaborative space. Please share your own experiences in the comment sections so we can build a learning community.