HLI Aims High and Helps Teachers Track Progress All
Along the Way
We understand the importance of setting high, but realistic, curricular goals and guide teachers to do the same. We explain how to monitor student growth using formal and informal assessments, especially as a means to guide instruction. This includes knowing how to interpret student errors and give positive corrective feedback, so teaching becomes both diagnostic and prescriptive. Teachers learn how to use assessment tools to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all students.

Teachers, Not Reading Programs, Teach Children to Read

HLI Strives to Make Teachers “Method Proof” Masters of Comprehensive Literacy Practices
There is no perfect reading program or product. We can help teachers work with any core reading curriculum or even work without one. Curricula come and go, so we believe that it is our responsibility to make teachers ‘method-proof’.

We understand how adults learn and know it is important to go beyond merely introducing concepts. Through classroom support, modeling and coaching, we help teachers master how to teach all five core components of reading. Method-proof, master teachers will be able to integrate what they have learned about literacy with district mandates for using a prescribed curriculum. They will know how to deliver effective, comprehensive instruction within designated literacy blocks. HLI-trained teachers will know a variety of instructional materials, techniques, and activities well so that every student’s needs may be met.

“Research on effective school change has found that it takes an average of 20 to 25 times of trying a new method or technique before it becomes natural.”

Joyce, Bruce and Showers, 1988

The Voice of Evidence Delivered with the
Voice of Experience

HLI Engages Adult and Child Learners Alike

Since 2000, we have been bridging the gap between research and practice in the classroom. We have trained hundreds of elementary, pre-k, special education, speech and language, and ELL teachers in more than 75 schools. Like any good instructor, we continually apply our classroom experiences, incorporate the latest quality research, and monitor our success to deliver state-of-the-art professional development.

Teaching Reading is Rocket Science

HLI Professional Development is Empowering!

Many teachers become disillusioned, frustrated, and overwhelmed when they realize that their prior training didn’t adequately prepare them for the crucial, complex challenge of teaching reading. Teachers who receive professional development and support from a Haskins mentor feel empowered. Here’s what some have to say:

“I cannot begin to describe what an impact MRIn* has had on my life. Professionally I have grown in my ability to deliver instruction and my knowledge of reading development. I now have a renewed sense of energy
and motivation. I know that I have the knowledge and ability to teach every
first grader to read.”
*Mastering Reading Instruction (MRIn) was a Haskins research study

“I received minimal training throughout my college career. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to be part of this project. I feel confident that because of this PD I can teach each student to read.”

“I feel I learned more from our Haskins Mentor than I did in all my graduate courses.”

“I always thought my students could make more progress. After working with Haskins this year, I feel empowered.”

Administrative Support, Adequate Time and
Classroom Access are Key

HLI Can Help your Teachers and Students Succeed,
if You Work with Us

When we launched our first professional development demonstration project, Early Reading Success, we thought, perhaps naively, that high quality instruction and classroom support alone would affect change. But experience has taught us that content and coaching are insufficient, without commitment. We take our work very seriously and expect our partners to do so, too.

We have learned that our most successful schools commit to at least two years of HLI professional development—Year 1 for phonemic awareness and phonics instruction and fluency, and Year 2 for vocabulary and text comprehension.

We now know that our most successful teachers are completely supported by principals who do whatever is necessary to schedule professional development time, attend meetings, understand what HLI is all about, learn firsthand how things are going in the classroom, and find the funds to purchase recommended materials and supplies.

We seek to partner with leaders who understand there are no quick fixes, but are commited to the belief that no child will be left behind only when no teacher is left behind.