Let’s get started!

Our literacy course, The Roadmap to Reading, is packed with resources. With the purchase of the literacy course, you have the option of purchasing the Instructional Toolkits and Informal Assessment kit. These are a must buy, in my opinion, and add so much to the course! They give you a way to implement what you’ve learned, and that’s always what I’m looking for in a Professional Development Course – I want actionable steps, and that’s what the Toolkits help provide.

In addition to the binders Sasha helps you make during the course, I spent a good chunk of my summer organizing all of the materials I had printed and gathered. After a semester of use I’ve got some solid tips for you on how to get materials organized and ready to use. Let’s get started!

Binders

Sasha makes 4 binders throughout the course. I found in the end, I wanted a 5th binder to hold all of my printables and handouts from the course downloads. To do this, you’ll need five 2 inch (or so) binders and four of these dividers (use with the 4 binders Sasha makes) and one of these (use for your course printables). You’ll find the covers and spine labels in the course downloads. Here’s where you can find Sasha talking about how to set up each binder:

• Direct Instruction video can be found in Module 4.3
• Fluency Instruction Binder video can be found in Module 4.6
• Guided Reading Groups Binder video can be found in Module 3.4
• Reading Assessment Binder can be found in Module 1.4’s video.

To make the 5th binder, go through each module and download every.single.thing. Then, put them in your tab dividers. I labeled mine so they would be easy to find and added the module for reference. You’ll find you have around 23 different downloads. I am SO thankful I made this binder, not only does it hold my downloads, I added my notes from the course to the back of the binder and it’s been a great loaction to hold any ‘extras’. 

Here’s a peek at my 5th binder, the materials I used to make it, and some of the handouts I organized with the dividers. Have I told you that orgnization is my love language?

Toolkits

Now that you have your Roadmap to Reading binders and your downloads all organized and ready to go, let’s tackle the toolkits! For this task, I grabbed some hanging files, basic letter sized file folders. Avery file labels, and a few file boxes to hold everything (As a quick aside: I’m a firm believer that if we don’t organized it and take the time to make it functional, our purchase will sit unused. As a teacher who pays for most things out of my own pocket, I don’t want that to happen. I always budget a little extra so I can laminate, file, etc the materials I purchase).

Here’s a quick video on how I set up each toolkit and organized it all. It’sa HUGE amount of material!

Tah-dah!

You did it! You organized it all! If you made it this far, you deserve a treat! I promise you, all of this work is worth it! I use my toolkit every single day in my classroom and I’m so thankful I took the time to organize it so everything would be at my fingertips. There is nothing worse than having a student ready to work with you and needing to print something and get ready. With a little bit of time and a whole bunch of printer ink and paper you’ll be ready to use these amazing resources. Happy Organizing!

I repeated this process for the centers that are included in the toolkits. I cut each center apart and put them in a ziploc bag, then put the bag in the file folder so they were easy to locate. I did the same thing for the informal assessment kit. I am so thankful I took the time to make labels for the file folders – it makes it super easy to locate everything!