CORI Facilitator's Guide

The CORI Facilitator's Guide was designed with the goal of enabling reading specialists (or other qualified school personnel) to conduct a week-long CORI teacher workshop. This guide is a companion to the CORI Teacher Guides for grades 3, 4, and 5. The CORI Facilitator's Guide is organized in two main sections. Section I describes the theoretical principles supporting Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) and research evidence for these principles. In addition, Section I provides an overview of the central features of CORI instruction. Section II provides the guidance necessary to conduct a CORI workshop and enable teachers to implement CORI instruction. A series of workshop topics are presented in terms of their (a) goals, (b)applications, and (c) resources for use. For example, when the facilitator introduces a reading strategy such as questioning, he or she first introduces the goal of student questioning as a reading comprehension strategy. Next, the facilitator guides workshop participants to engage in an experiential activity where they apply the reading strategy themselves and discuss strategy lessons through interacting with the Teacher Guides. Finally, the Facilitator's Guide offers resources for additional reading on the topic of questioning as a reading strategy.

The workshop topics cover the important cognitive and motivational aspects of CORI, including in-depth training on six reading strategies and five reading engagement practices. Topics also give special attention to the needs of struggling readers, conceptual teaching in science, and appropriate levels of scaffolding during differentiated instruction. Supporting materials for the facilitator include: (a) Power Point presentations, (b) Background explanation sheets which will help the facilitator become familiar with typical workshop responses and enable him/her to troubleshoot issues or questions that may arise during the workshop, (c) The Motivating Reading Comprehension: Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction book which will allow participants to read about actual CORI teacher's use and application of the CORI principles in a variety of settings, and (d) the CORI Teacher Guides for each grade, which provide lessons and scaffolding ideas in order to teach CORI effectively.