PS Brochure

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you for taking a moment to learn about Learning Without Tears® Professional Services!

Our learning team includes fellow teachers, school leaders, occupational therapists, and parents. We know firsthand that educators are facing new challenges and their time is limited, yet they yearn for accessible and relevant professional learning to re-energize themselves and the students they serve.

Our Professional Services provide dynamic professional development opportunities and implementation support for your teams. We care about your outcomes and collaborate with you to build flexible educator learning plans. We believe in investing jointly in your success to ensure maximum impact on instructional practice and student outcomes.

In these pages, you’ll discover more about our interactive, learner-centric approach. It’s based on decades of Learning Without Tears’ renowned fun, hands-on methods, the Standards for Professional Learning, our lived experience, and a data-informed focus on progressive improvement. We are learners at heart!

Reach out to our knowledgeable, helpful coordinators to begin building your organization’s personalized learning plan—together.

Sincerely,

Juliet Correll VP, Professional Learning & The Learning Team

Flexible Learning Plans

Each Professional Services journey allows participants to select the format and topic that best helps them on their pathway to success. Sessions are designed for cohorts of up to 35 participants.

FORMATS

On-site

Up to a full-day of customized and personalized, hands-on learning

Live Virtual

Half- or full-day interactive learning on an engaging virtual platform

Modular

Shorter, live, virtual sessions with guidance for application and practice between modules

Blended

Asynchronous webinar followed by a live, virtual Q&A session

TOPICS

Reading

A–Z for Mat Man and Me

Phonics, Reading, and Me

Pre-K

Get Set for School Pre-K Curriculum

Readiness & Writing for Pre-K

Handwriting

Handwriting Without Tears Print

Handwriting Without Tears Cursive

Keyboarding

Keyboarding and Digital Literacy

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

A Year at a Glance

Our priority is to co-design the most relevant and effective learning path for your educators to meet them where they are and guide them forward.

Our accessible, yearlong plan begins with a Getting Started learning session to kick off your program implementation followed by a Deeper Dive session and/or Implementation Coaching to support educators in achieving positive student outcomes throughout the year.

SUMMER FALL

Collaborative Goal Setting

Personalized planning meetings that help you establish goals and curate the learning experience to reach success for the current school year and beyond.

Getting Started

Onsite | Virtual | Modular | Blended

Build the foundation for implementation success with the knowledge, strategies, and skills needed for high-quality instruction and practical application.

Planning for Deeper Dive/ Implementation Coaching

In a collaborative meeting with LWT teams and school partners, reflect on previous learning experiences and set learning goals for the upcoming Deeper Dive or Coaching Sessions.

YEAR 1

WINTER

Deeper Dive

Onsite | Virtual | Modular

Enhance effective instruction through reflection, collaboration, and just-in-time new learning.

Implementation Coaching

Onsite | Virtual

Inquiry-based sessions for educators or instructional coaches with goal setting, action planning, and reflection cycles, based on identified educator needs to provide job-embedded support that fosters effective teaching, student learning, and program outcomes.

SPRING

Renewal and Fall Planning

Collaboration between Learning Without Tears® teams and school partners to renew program materials, address additional curriculum needs, and plan your professional services for the fall.

YEAR 2 AND BEYOND

Professional Services for Year 2 and beyond include Refresher sessions that provide program updates and differentiate support for new and returning educators, preparing your teams for a strong start in the new school year.

Helping students become proficient readers and writers takes time and effort. With A–Z for Mat Man and Me, you'll help them build alphabet knowledge by integrating phonics with connected text.

GETTING STARTED

Participants will receive a complete overview of the A–Z for Mat Man and Me program and learn to access and use their teaching resources and classroom materials. Participants will engage in hands-on learning, collaborative discussion, action planning, and reflection.

Learning Outcomes:

• Accelerate letter learning and integrate phonological awareness and phonics skills through systematic and explicit instruction

• Facilitate meaningful conversations to build integral social emotional habits, oral language, and comprehension skills

• Differentiate instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners while highlighting and celebrating diversity through authentic, universal, and engaging stories

• Leverage digital assets to bring alphabet learning to life

DEEPER DIVE

This session is recommended 3–12 months after attendees have completed their Getting Started session. It will include a review of key curricular concepts, a reflection on recent program use, a focus on selected key topics, and it will provide attendees opportunities to ask questions

Select from the following topics to customize a Professional Learning session based on your teachers’ needs:

• Using A–Z for Mat Man and Me in your classroom

• Focused review of digital tools

• Assessment/data analysis support

• Differentiated instruction for English language learners (ELL) students and students with special needs

• Supporting students developmentally

• Learn effective read aloud strategies

• Providing background knowledge and vocabulary

• Maximizing use of the student text

• Teaching reading 101

• Classroom scenarios and case studies

• Encoding and decoding to support students

• Multimodal practice

• Differentiating with modes of reading

• Teaching phonics and word study skills

Phonics, Reading, and Me sequentially and systematically helps students acquire the range of skills they need to become proficient readers. This supplemental program prioritizes phonics skills that can be difficult to learn but truly make a difference for students along the path to reading.

GETTING STARTED

Participants will receive a complete overview of the Phonics, Reading, and Me program and learn to access and use their teaching resources and classroom materials. Participants will engage in hands-on learning, collaborative discussion, action planning, and reflection.

Learning Outcomes:

• Accelerate letter learning and integrate phonological awareness and phonics skills through systematic and explicit instruction

• Facilitate meaningful conversations to build integral social-emotional habits, oral language, and comprehension skills

• Differentiate instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners while highlighting and celebrating diversity through authentic, universal, and engaging stories

• Leverage digital assets to bring alphabet learning to life

DEEPER DIVE

This session is recommended 3-12 months after the Getting Started session, and will include a review on key curricular concepts, reflect on recent program use, learn about selected key topics, and have an opportunity for questions.

Select from the following topics to customize a Professional Learning session based on your teachers’ needs:

• Using Phonics, Reading, and Me in your classroom

• Focused review of digital tools

• Assessment/data analysis support

• Differentiated instruction for ELL students and students with special needs

• Supporting students developmentally

• Learn effective read aloud strategies

• Providing background knowledge and vocabulary

• Maximizing use of the student text

• Teaching reading 101

• Classroom scenarios and case studies

• Encoding and decoding to support students

• Multimodal practice

• Differentiating with modes of reading

• Teaching phonics and word study skills

With the Get Set for School Curriculum for Pre-K, getting students on track for kindergarten readiness is simple. This complete, research-based Pre-K program provides a hands-on curriculum that engages young minds through purposeful play, active engagement, and custom manipulatives.

LWTears.com/GSS

GETTING STARTED

Participants will receive a complete overview of the Get Set for School program and learn to access and use their teaching resources and classroom materials. Participants will engage in hands-on learning, collaborative discussion, action planning, and reflection.

Learning Outcomes:

• Explore research-based, best practices for Pre-K instruction and assessment

• Build and foster rich classroom routines of literacy, emergent writing, numbers & math, and more

• Facilitate play-based instruction for whole and small groups

• Differentiate learning to meet the needs of diverse learners

• Leverage digital assets in the Pre-K Interactive Teaching Tool to bring learning to life and to meet distance learning needs

• Provide direct instruction and model best practices for students

• Plan effective, interactive lessons that encourage student application and generalization of skills

• Facilitate and integrate essential social-emotional learning skills

DEEPER DIVE

This session is recommended 3–12 months after the Getting Started session, and will include a review on key curricular concepts, reflection on recent program use, a focus on selected key topics, and an opportunity for questions.

Select topics to customize a Professional Learning session based on your teachers' needs:

• A day in the life of a Pre-K classroom with discussion of one week’s lessons

• Focused review of the Pre-K Interactive Teaching Tool (PreKITT)

• Assessment

• Alphabet knowledge

• Classroom scenarios

• Name writing

• Small group instruction

• Fine motor skills and grip

• Multisensory activities for learning one or more of the following:

• Readiness to write

• Learning capital letters, numbers, and lowercase letters

• Language and literacy

• Numbers and math

• Oral language

• Science and social studies

READINESS & WRITING

The Readiness & Writing program is one component of the Get Set For School curriculum and has been carefully designed to prepare children for our Handwriting Without Tears® curriculum. Students build pre-writing and emergent writing skills developmentally through engaging, handson, play-based activities.

GETTING STARTED

Participants will receive a complete overview of the Readiness & Writing program and learn to access and use their teaching resources and classroom materials. Participants will also engage in hands-on learning, collaborative discussion, action planning, and reflection.

Learning Outcomes:

• Plan your instruction based on developmental stages for readiness that will foster important sensory motor and social-emotional skills

• Identify playful ways to teach fine motor skills and grip using music and tools for little hands

• Discover our step-by-step approach to effectively teach coloring skills

• Implement purposeful, hands-on, multisensory manipulatives, music, and digital learning to teach size, shape, position in space, and alphabet knowledge to support emergent writing skill development

• Implement purposefully designed materials to help children progress from coloring, to tracing letters and numbers, to writing their names

DEEPER DIVE

This session is recommended 3–12 months after the Getting Started session, and will include a review on key curricular concepts, reflection on recent program use, a focus on selected key topics, and an opportunity for questions.

Select topics to customize a Professional Learning session based on your teachers' needs:

• Focused review of the Pre-K Interactive Teaching Tool (PreKITT)

• Assessment

• Alphabet knowledge

• Classroom scenarios

• Differentiated instruction for English language learners (ELL) students and students with special needs

• Paper-based activities

• Multisensory activities:

• Readiness to write

• Learning capital letters, numbers, and lowercase letters

• Language and literacy

• Numbers and math

• Oral language

• Science and social studies

Good handwriting skills develop as a result of good handwriting instruction. Handwriting Without Tears® provides students with the explicit, direct instruction and purposeful practice they need to master handwriting and develop automaticity. Multisensory activities and manipulatives appeal to all learning styles and provide a hands-on approach to handwriting.

GETTING STARTED

Participants will receive a complete overview of the Print (K–2), and/or Cursive (2–5) program(s) and learn to access and use their teaching resources and classroom materials. Participants will engage in hands-on learning, collaborative discussion, action planning, and reflection.

Learning Outcomes:

Print (K–2):

• Describe the importance of the handwriting process as a means to teach or remediate learning letters, words, and sentences

• Implement purposeful, hands-on, multisensory manipulatives, music, and digital learning resources to teach grip, position concepts, alphabet knowledge, and letter formation

• Examine how double lines lead to student writing success and apply strategies to help students write on any type of lined paper

• Identify at least two additional to support handwriting instruction and intervention, including the Screener of Handwriting Proficiency

Cursive (2–5):

• Plan, implement and teach cursive handwriting using multisensory methods and the student edition

• Support instruction using technology and digital resources

• Learn ways to monitor progress and differentiate instruction

• Promote integration of cursive writing beyond the student edition

DEEPER DIVE

This session is recommended 3–12 months after the Getting Started session, and will include a review on key curricular concepts, reflection on recent program use, a focus on selected key topics, and an opportunity for questions.

Select topics to customize a Professional Learning session based on your teachers' needs:

• Multisensory activities for learning one or more of the following:

o Developing readiness to write

o Learning capital letters and numbers

o Learning lowercase letters

o Learning cursive letters and connections

o Strategies to teach and remediate letter formation, spacing, sizing, and line use

• Paper-based activities beyond the workbook

• Assessment

• Differentiated instruction for ELL students and students with special needs

• Focused review of Interactive Digital Teaching Tool

• Classroom scenarios and case studies

• Building Writers

Keyboarding Without Tears® prepares students with more than just typing skills. They learn general computer readiness skills, responsible online behavior, and online testing skills to help them succeed in the 21st century learning environment. This web-based, grade-level specific curriculum is fun and engaging for K–5 students as they become self-directed, moving through a 36-week developmental progression of activities. Educators can leverage the teacher-led lessons in digital literacy and the award-winning digital citizenship curriculum from Common Sense Education.

GETTING STARTED

LWTears.com/KWT

A curriculum and implementation overview will equip your educators and co-educators with the tools they need to successfully get students started in the KWT program. Educators will preview the 36week scope and sequence across the K–5 grade levels, including the first six weeks of foundational skill-building activities, to experience the engaging, cross-curricular themes through activities that students find familiar and fun. We provide an overview of the features and settings available in the educator dashboard for effective management of both classes and individual students, including enrichment opportunities and the computer-based testing practice modules for students in grades 3-5. Lastly, participants will be introduced to the assessment options and reporting data.

Learning Outcomes:

• Apply best practices using developmentally appropriate keyboarding instruction

• Implement Keyboarding Without Tears® with fidelity in your learning environment

• Leverage the features and settings in +Live Insights

DEEPER DIVE

This session is recommended 3–12 months after the Getting Started session, and will include a review of key curricular concepts, reflection on recent program use, a focus on selected key topics, and an opportunity for questions.

Take your keyboarding instruction to the next level with these topics:

• Customize instruction with pacing options and enrichment opportunities

• Implementation of Digital Citizenship, Tech Readiness, and Reinforcement lessons

• Assessment Accelerator for online testing skill practice

Roxanne did an amazing job discussing and modeling different techniques that we can use in our classroom.

Valerie explained this program very well.

I loved the videos of teachers putting Handwriting Without Tears into practice.

Thank you!

Christina kept us engaged through asking us questions and encouraging us to post in the chat. I enjoyed learning tips from other educators in the break-out sessions.

Federal funding options are available!

Learning Without Tears Professional Services are eligible for federal funding, including Title II and ESSER III.

LWTears.com/funding