Mosaic Background

Our district is adopting Balanced Literacy.  See my earlier post.Our school has decided to have a Book Club to get us started. 
We are reading Mosaic of Thought.
We had our first gathering yesterday.  Our main discussion focused on the background of the Comprehension Strategies.
Here are some points and questions from our discussion.
Aha! thoughts:
-Just knowing the words is not enough.  (We have been giving a fluency measure as our main data source. Why?)
-Thinking, thinking, thinking- Let's encourage it. 
-Comprehension should be "caught not taught"

What do we need to start doing/thinking:
-Model thinking more explicitly
-Use "turn and talk" with a purpose
-Re-read books and encourage kids to re-read more often

What do we need to stop doing:
-Using the outdated basal! (Hurray!)
-Stop using large quantities of worksheets (Yes, some of the teachers in our building live for worksheets!) Food for thought: It says in the book, No student ever asks when they are going to get their worksheets back!
-Reading texts that don't spark interest in the students. (No boring books!)

Now on to questions:
-How will we assess the skills? (Since we do need grades at some point.)
-How to structure intervention time? (Do you have this at your school?  We use support staff and teachers to do reading/ math interventions and enrichment.)
-How can we become consistent? (We have little to no consistency now, while using the basal.)

Please leave a comment if you have an answer or thought on any of the above ideas.
Our building would really appreciate as much input as possible as we embrace a new way of teaching. 

EmilyK & Antoinette

Mosaic Book Club

So Antoinette and I work in a school that is a little "old school".  Over the 5 years that I have worked there the expectation was to use the Basal.  (A basal that was published before 2004, by the way.)  To some of us it is almost like a four letter word.  Many of us have been "editing" out parts we didn't think were benficial for the kids, and supplementing with "better" ideas.
Well, luckily our district has decided to join the modern age and embrace balanced literacy.  The district is so large that some schools were already doing balanced literacy and others of us were still "old school."  In an effort to be ahead for next year, our building is reading Mosaic of Thought.  (At this moment I know many of you are gasping at the fact that this book will be "new" to my coworkers.)
I read it back in college, but never had the chance to use it.  My first district used Success For All.  Then I moved to my current district. 
I am one of the people driving the discussion of the book with my coworkers.
I would love your help!
 We are meeting every Tuesday starting next week.  I am planning to post on Wednesdays, about the discussion and hoping you more experienced in the ideas may be able to clarify questions.
For the first week we are discussing the background behind Mosaic (huge ideas for myself and my coworkers) and schema.
Hopefully Wednesday you will stop by and check out the discussion.

EmilyK