Partnerships
We have worked with state education agencies, national nonprofit organizations, charter school boards, and school districts nationwide to support evidence-based literacy practices connected with the science of reading.
Our Partners
We are proudly featured in The Innovative Models Exchange’s inaugural set of designs. The free, searchable library’s purpose is to share innovative approaches to learning.
The Research Partnership for Professional Learning (RPPL) brings together professional learning organizations committed to excellence, such as The Literacy Architects, and researchers who study professional development and its effect on student learning outcomes. RPPL aims to identify professional learning practices that benefit students’ academic growth and well-being, especially regarding students from historically marginalized groups.
We are a proud member of the Learning Solutions portfolio at NewSchools Venture Fund! Read more about this exciting announcement here.
TORSH has recently partnered with The Literacy Architects to develop the TORSH Talent Literacy Program. Through this partnership, we are providing weekly PLCs, small group coaching, and individual coaching to teachers who want to implement literacy routines that are aligned to the science of reading.The program’s resources are tailored for maximum impact, supporting teachers with the application of instructional practices to meet the literacy needs of their students.
Approved Vendor Status
We are approved by the following state education agencies:
- Louisiana Department of Education (for their Supporting Early Learning & Literacy (SELL) initiative)
- Maryland Department of Education (Maryland LEADS grant initiative)
- Oregon Department of Education (as a Dyslexia Training opportunity under OAR 581-002-1805)
- Texas Education Agency (Community Partnerships and SSI grant initiative)
Past Projects
We believe in teacher-driven professional learning. While we offer many professional learning opportunities to meet districts’ various needs, we are also willing to customize our services. Check out some examples of past projects below!
Sixth Grade Hybrid PD on Fluency and Advanced Decoding
We provided 6th-grade teachers in the Dallas ISD with a customized version of our hybrid synchronous and self-paced PD series. The PD focused on the science of teaching reading, the components of fluency, evidence-based fluency strategies, morphology, and syllable types and division patterns.
Statewide Support for Principals and ELA Teachers on the Science of Reading and Teaching With Grade-level Texts
We supported the Texas Education Agency’s Student Success Initiative for several years, working with 12 grantee districts – including Dallas, Austin, and Houston ISDs. We presented at several statewide conferences on the science of reading, building background knowledge through text sets, K-2 foundational literacy, and integrating reading, writing, and discussion with grade-level texts. To help schools navigate distance learning in 2020, TEA also made our three distance learning courses available to their grantee districts for all teachers to access.
“Seema and The Literacy Architects assisted me as a literacy consultant with the TEA SSI/Community Partnerships initiative. She participated at several state-level conferences by presenting literacy information in breakout sessions, and she provided instructional strategies and resources through webinars. She is a valuable professional with the expertise to engage school leaders and teachers with change and improvement efforts. Her work with the school districts that I supported yielded improved literacy practices and outcomes for children. I highly recommend her to support school districts with effective literacy practices.”
Dr. Harold Wright, State Director of Community Partnerships
Early Literacy Self-paced Courses for
DCPS and DC Charter Educators
We partnered with OSSE to make our early literacy courses on phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge, and emergent writing available to DCPS and DC charter school teachers, paraprofessionals, and instructional coaches. Over 97% of participants said they would recommend our courses to a friend, and the average increase of knowledge from pre-test to post-test was 28.5 percentage points.
Distance Learning Support for
DC Charter School Educators
At the start of the pandemic, we partnered with the National Charter School Institute to provide synchronous PD sessions to DC charter schools on best practices for remote ELA instruction. Topics included flipped learning, close reading, tools for foundational reading, and small group literacy instruction in the distance setting. Through this partnership, DC charter schools also received access to our self-paced courses on distance learning strategies.
Customized Science of Reading
Self-paced Courses
We partnered with the DC Public Education Fund to create customized self-paced courses for K–2 teachers in DCPS on the science of reading. We used the Canvas learning management system to design engaging asynchronous courses with animated videos, readings, discussion prompts, and quizzes. Course topics included The Brain and Reading, Fluency, Morphology, Syllable Types, The Science of Reading, and History & Phonology of the English Language.
Curriculum Development for
Literacy Tutors
Reading Partners is a nonprofit organization that provides one-on-one tutoring for struggling readers across the country. We worked with their national leadership team to make improvements to their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade tutoring curriculum.
We started by creating a scope and sequence of skills and standards that the tutors would address in their lessons. Then, we refined their book lists to increase the diversity of characters and alignment with grade-level social studies and science topics. Finally, we wrote scripted lessons for each text, complete with rigorous text-dependent questions, writing prompts, and prompts for tutors to address incorrect responses. Additionally, we wrote a series of scripted phonics lessons for a subset of tutors to use with their students.
Early Literacy Professional Development
for PreK Teachers
We worked with PreK teachers across PSJA ISD during the summer of 2020. We adapted our learning cycle format for the distance setting, and teachers engaged in synchronous PD sessions, work sessions, and homework. As a culminating project, we helped teachers create videos for parents and caregivers describing simple, early literacy activities that could be done at home to develop pre-literacy skills such as phonemic awareness and letter-sound knowledge.
