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Testimonials
“This training is well organized and focused. I’ve finally received the direction I’ve been looking for in writing instruction. The trainers are energetic and knowledgeable. This training is interactive and informative.”
“Prior to participating in Core Connections’ professional development, I was not comfortable teaching writing. The materials and strategies provided have made me excited to teach the reading and writing connection. I highly recommend these trainings.”
“The Core Connections training has allowed me to broaden my knowledge of writing across the curriculum and has given me chances to work to improve my students’ writing in a variety of ways. The resources provided have been successful in making my students better writers.”
“Core Connections has positively impacted social studies instruction and has allowed students and teachers to make explicit connections across content areas. Students are hearing the same “language” from their teachers. Teachers are enjoying the ability to engage students with historical thinking skills while working with complex texts, examining sources and arranging evidence so students can express their learning like historians do - through writing.”
“Professional development money spent on Core Connections is a wise choice of professional development for teachers for many reasons. I highly recommend their training!”
“Osceola has continued the partnership with Core Connections to provide professional development with a focus on Common Core English Language Arts Standards and lesson development. The dynamic group of Core Connections consultants delivers on-going, grade specific training with the goal of building teacher knowledge about text dependent response writing. Outcomes include... a cohesive writing curriculum across the grade levels and a customized solution for (Florida Standards) ELA implementation.”
“Core Connections is the most helpful, useful professional development that I’ve personally received. Core Connections now drives all aspects of my school’s writing curriculum across the ELA content area. In my role as instructional coach, it’s exciting to see teachers consistently return from a Core Connections training and feedback session eager to implement and infuse the strategies into their lessons with confidence and to see students respond and their writing improve as a result. The impact the Core Connections consultants and their methods and materials have had on Orange County’s teachers’ and, thus students’, preparedness for the ELA Florida Standards Assessment is immeasurable.”
“Core Connections is an amazing training. Teaching the writing process through multiple texts and using the strategies/tools provided to me has been quite the learning experience. Since I am more confident teaching writing, my students have shown amazing improvement in their overall structure and focus. Honestly speaking, Core Connections education is priceless!”
“It is so nice to attend a workshop with relevant, first-grade specific lessons. I think my entire team is excited to implement these new ideas.”
“Core Connections has changed the way I think about reading and writing. It is more than simply a writing curriculum, it encourages student thinking and shows writers how to organize and express their thoughts in meaningful ways. Our students are not just developing their writing skills, they are developing themselves as learners thanks to Core Connections and their curriculum.”
“My teachers found the information and writing tools to be user friendly and easy to implement. I have worked with Lori Gandolfo for over 13 years. She is a knowledgable curriculum leader who makes it real for the teachers.”
“The Core Connection training is very informative and well organized. The trainers are energetic and knowledgeable about the material. The lessons were relevant and specific to the grade levels attending the workshop. I was able to go back to my classroom and implement their ideas the very next day.”
“Thank you for these valuable resources!!! I continue to hear positive feedback from our teachers who worked with you. They feel energized and empowered about continuing their writing instruction.”
“This training has empowered our teachers to take the reigns and incorporate an integrated writing curriculum. The modeling and pacing practices provided by the experts at Core Connections have inspired us to think win-win when it comes to writing!”
“This training, over the past couple of years, has been invaluable. I began teaching saying “I do not desire to EVER be placed in a ‘writing grade’ and I have now been in “that grade” for several years, growing as a writer AND a teacher of writing. Each training, I leave with the information I need and it is presented in such a way that I can implement it immediately.”
“Ana was the writing facilitator this month for both my 2nd and Kindergarten teams in Osceola County. Both grade levels came back to school raving about the training that was provided to them.”
“The professional development provided by Core Connections is of the highest quality. I’ve been able to implement the strategies learned in my classroom the very next day. I feel that my students were prepared for the state test because of the lessons and strategies shared with me. Each segment of the training builds upon the last, developing the tools and strategies into a bigger picture of overall reading and writing success. The trainings offer opportunities to collaborate with colleagues under the guidance of expert leaders. Core Connections isn’t “sit and get” professional development, it’s a hands-on, helmets-on, buckle-your-seatbelt operation!”
“Core Connections is a driving force behind Citrus County Schools’ success with elementary ELA standards! Not just a program or curriculum, Core Connections offers teachers fail proof strategies to promote reading and writing across all content areas. In our district, the implementation of Core Connections spread like wild fire as teachers realized its positive effects on students’ reading AND writing performance.
As for Core Connections trainings, our teachers are begging for more sessions led by Anastasia Peters! Anastasia models exemplary practices for K-5 writing instruction and provides meaningful, standards-based resources. She shows how easily writing integrates with all content areas, and helps teachers realize their students’ fullest writing potential. By far, her sessions are the most sought after trainings among our elementary teachers. ”
“Our writing scores definitely improved this year! Seven of our fifth graders got a 10! Many more of my kids were 8 and 9. I’m so relieved because writing is my favorite subject, and I knew I have always been a good writing teacher. But, my kids were getting so many level 6, and I didn’t understand what they wanted! I’m so happy we had you train us. I’m going to make sure our new principal knows how much the writing scores improved this year.
Thank you for everything!”
“Core Connections has been a tremendous asset to our writing instruction this school year. Teachers are implementing multiple components with a deeper understanding of why they are teaching them. This understanding is causing a ripple effect on student improvement. Students are able to analyze a prompt and respond using appropriate strategies. Using Core Connections the past few years and continuously meeting, discussing, and implementing the program, student-writing growth is showing significant growth.”
It is my pleasure to eagerly share facts about implementing Core Connections as a strategy-based writing and reading program.
My name is Zoraida Palencia, and I am the ELA coach at Shingle Creek Elementary School in Orlando. I had the pleasure of working with Lori Gandolfo for the past four years. Lori has been an integral part in the role of promoting reading and writing. She has come to our school to provide professional development, build lessons, model, and even conference one-on-one with our students.
Not only has she provided all of the services mentioned above, Mrs. Gandolfo also makes it a priority to build trusting and positive relationships with the teachers at my school. The teachers specifically request her and request for us to continue to use Core Connections as a school. Teachers have said to me, “My students improved because I followed the Core Connections lessons with fidelity.” Of the many programs and resources we’ve used in the past, Core Connections has made a significant difference in the students’ improvement in writing and building teacher capacity.
During the years that we have implemented Core Connections, we have noticed an increase in our students writing skills. We’ve been able to notice students’ organization and elaboration skills improve. We have been able to move students from barely writing a paragraph to writing a full essay in just one year. Core Connections provides effective and easy to use lessons. Lori shares her expertise in full-detail and provides ongoing support and guidance, when needed.
There’s great value in the many services offered by Core Connections. Students that improve their writing are quickly to ask that their work is shared with the “writing lady.” Teachers that follow with fidelity the strategies that are shared during a professional development with Core Connections request feedback from Lori. This year we began implementing mentor sentences. Some teachers implemented this immediately, while others were hesitant. However, when they saw the value and the improvement in writing from others, and the feedback provided by Lori they began implementing mentor sentences. I am happy to share that at our school we’ve been implementing mentor sentences from kindergarten to fifth grade. We’ve noticed a variety of sentences styles in students’ writing.
Teachers’ writing instruction has been transformed by Core Connections. Teachers have a better understanding of the importance of building a strong writing foundation, teachers understand the importance of reading and writing connections, and teachers find value in following the planning steps to a full written essay. Core Connections will be a productive addition in any school or organization. They provide a full cycle in the implementation of their program. Core Connections will offer professional development, coaching visits, and even walkthroughs. The Core Connections representative will offer guidance at any moment to make sure that teachers are implementing what is being discussed during the professional development.
Feel free to contact me at 407-780-9139 or Zoraida.Palencia@ocps.net if anyone would like me to further elaborate on the achievements at my school thanks to Core Connections.
Sincerely,
Zoraida Palencia, ELA Coach, Orange Count Public Schools
Core Connections has been a well and wealth of knowledge for our teachers and students this year. More specifically, Lori Gandolfo’s knowledge, ability to connect with students and teachers of all levels of experience and background, and highly effective teaching skills, demonstrates the utility, ease of use, and high impact of the Core Connections writing strategies.
As a veteran 4th grade teacher turned ELA coach, I was trained early on in my career to teach writing. I thought I had turned over ever writing strategy leaf to help me instruct and guide my students to become cohesive, specific writers, who also enjoyed the process of writing. Being trained in Core Connections my final year in the classroom answered questions I had as a teacher who loved teaching writing, but remained stumped on certain aspects of writing, namely, elaboration. The Core Connection strategies I employed to help teach my students elaboration (i.e., Name One and Define It), were revelatory for me as an instructor and became a “way of writing” in our classroom.
Transitioning to ELA coach allowed me to experience, firsthand, the impact Core Connections had on our teachers and students, across grade levels. From my experience in elementary school, writing has, anecdotally, been the most fear-inducing and dreaded subject for teachers. Most simply don’t feel comfortable nor confident to teach writing, for many reasons. The most significant being a lack of quality professional development. Core Connections crossed age and experience gaps, providing quality introductory professional learning for our new teachers, while providing new strategies to acquire in their instructional toolbox.
Having Lori Gandolfo on our campus for two years has been what every campus and instructor deserves: quality, high impact, demonstrated in real time, professional learning. Lori modeled lessons K-5, led grade level PLC discussions, and planned daily lessons for our students on our campus. Teacher at each grade level (even those that historically have been reluctant to new people and ideas), always walked away with more knowledge, more resources and most importantly, an effective model for how to walk back into their classrooms and teach writing effectively and confidently.
Our fifth-grade team is departmentalized this school year and the ELA teachers decided to employ Core Connection strategies from the start of the school year, not just in prompt driven essay writing, but in response to text writing as well. The blossoming effect that was apparent in our fifth-grade students writing translated to higher reading test scores, especially early in the school year. I attribute this “out the gate” success to our teachers’ commitment to employing Core Connection strategies from the start of the school year and not siloing them to essay writing, but to response to text writing. Students who historically would simply not write, were empowered by quality writing instruction to show what they know and make the connections between text (evidence), original thinking (elaboration), while employing paraphrasing techniques they learned from their teachers via Core Connections.
We are at a near-crisis in public education because we simply do not have enough people in the profession of education. I can’t help but surmise if leaders of our profession had consistently invested in quality professional learning, the unique kind Core Connections offers, if we could have empowered more teachers to stay within this profession and empowered more students to thrive in a hyper-communicative world.
-Emily Edwards, ELA Coach, Volusia County Schools
Having the opportunity to work first hand with Core Connections as a classroom teacher and literacy coach, allowed me the opportunity to see success for both students and teachers. While incorporating their strategies, lessons, and resources, there was an increase in confidence from the educators implementing Core Connections’ strategies. This was mainly due to the fact that the professional develops sessions offered were hands-on, engaging, and modeled direct teaching strategies. When attending a professional development session our teachers were able to try out the instructional approaches, watch model lessons, and plan for upcoming instruction.
Student improvement in writing was remarkable across the board! Students that were reluctant to put their pencils to paper, now had explicit support that guided them through every step of the writing process. Not only did confidence increase, but student writing scores also went up with the support of the materials, feedback, and guidance given by the Core Connections consultants. At training sessions, our teachers brought student writing samples that were looked at carefully, and given direct teacher points for upcoming lessons. With this guidance, teachers were able to support students in the individual areas needing growth.
One of the most amazing aspects of the Core Connections trainings, was the ability to build upon and support teachers’ professional learning growth. Sessions were tailored to meet the needs of the teachers where they were at, during that time period. Teachers felt comfortable asking questions, guiding conversations, and giving feedback regarding their student’s writing. Strategies were clear and evident, building through the grade levels. There was great opportunity for vertical alignment with graphic organizers, language used, strategies, and skills. The modes of instruction stayed consistent from K-5, which allowed students familiarity from grade to grade.
It would be my privilege to recommend Core Connections for any school or district that is looking for writing training unlike any others. Training that includes building trusting relationships and providing explicit support.
Kimberly Hollock, M.Ed Foundations for Futures LLC