K-5 teachers – earn 30 PD clock hours for free

Illinois Virtual School is offering a free online self-paced Professional Development Course worth 30 PD clock hours. Select your start date and progress at your own pace. You will have two months from your selected start date to complete this course:

Illinois Reading First for Grades Kindergarten through 3rd grade

Examine ways to help children in grades K-3 acquire the knowledge, skills, and experiences they must have to achieve levels of literacy that will enable them to be successful through their school careers and beyond. Free due to ISBE grant.

Create an Illinois Virtual School PD account and enroll at https://pd.ilvirtual.org

Illinois Reading Council Book Club: Register by Oct 15

Join educators from all over the state in an online book club! Choose one or two books!

Read, reflect on, and respond to The Reading Strategies Book and/or The Writing Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo. These seven-week online discussions, beginning October 22, will be your guide to developing skilled readers and writers as you delve deeply into your choice of 5 goals from the texts. Participants who complete all assignments will be eligible to receive 15 PD clock hours for each book club. Each week participants will post ideas about how they can use one of the strategies, than read and respond to three other participants’ posts. Final posts will be completed on December 10.

Required for participation:

Gmail address (free at https://mail.google.com/). The Book Club uses Google Sites which does not work with Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, etc.
Texts: The Reading Strategies Book and/or The Writing Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo. Both texts are available through Heinemann (http://www.heinemann.com).

Register by October 15, 2017 to participate in the book club. Registration is FREE for IRC Members. The cost for non-members is $45, which includes IRC membership for one year. Book club participants also have the opportunity to attend sessions with Jennifer Serravallo at the 2017 IRC Conference. PLEASE NOTE: Conference registration and cost of book is not included.

More Info: http://www.illinoisreadingcouncil.org/conference/joinircbookclub.html