Pacific Resources for Education and Learning
Enhancing community well-being through partnerships in education
Services
Reading & Literacy
PREL provides a range of products and services in the areas of reading and literacy development across the grades for multilanguage and multicultural communities. Our services include high-quality technical assistance to schools using face-to-face workshops and institutes, as well as via technology, such as webinars and distance learning. Sessions focus on reading and literacy within language arts and across the curriculum in subject areas such as mathematics, science, art, and social studies. Reading and writing are approached from a multiliteracy perspective to include visual and technical modes of communication that support linguistically and culturally diverse learners in the Pacific.
Workshops
Assessing Reading in the Multimodal Classroom
Audience: Grades K–3 and 4–8 Teachers, Curriculum Specialists
Learn how to assess reading in the multimodal classroom—a classroom enriched with print, visuals/images, artifacts, sounds, and gestures students read to make sense of their world. Use a variety of activities that offer information about comprehension students make and the reading processes they engage in. Learn to be a better observer of students reading. Learn to design and interpret reading performance tasks in which students can demonstrate what they know and can do. Learn to engage students in reflective conversations that result in their own self-assessment of reading. Explore how to apply this information to improve everyday classroom practices.
Comprehension, Culture, Curriculum and Bilingual Kids
Audience: Teachers
Learn how to use both traditional and school-based stories—orally, visually, and in print—to extend children’s knowledge across the curriculum while learning how the local language and English work to make meaning (comprehension). Explore similarities and differences between stories and languages to deepen children’s comprehension of narrative, while building on, and valuing, the cultural knowledge and practices brought to the classroom.
Creating Local Language Materials for Early Readers
Audience: Teachers, Literacy Specialists
Developing materials in the students’ vernacular facilitates literacy growth in the early grades. Learn to create materials purposefully, understand how students develop as readers, understand the characteristics of texts, and explore issues regarding learning to read in the local language and English.
Creating Books in iMovie, MovieMaker, or PowerPoint
Audience: Teachers, Curriculum Specialists, ESL Specialists, Technology Specialists
Using multimedia tools, learn the process of making a bilingual book. This standards-based unit includes the planning of the story and development of a storyboard—linking critical language arts and organizational skills.
Image to Word – Word to Image
Audience: K-12 Teachers
By integrating art, language arts, and technology with content areas, participants learn to create personally and culturally relevant images for students to stimulate their reading, build their vocabulary, and improve their comprehension and descriptive writing. Observational drawing is used to develop academic and foundational vocabulary. This process results in rich, descriptive images and words that help the student detect patterns, draw using observational visual research, use new descriptive vocabulary, and combine unrelated ideas into something new.
Picturing Science
Audience: K-12 Teachers
Participants learn to combine image and word by utilizing digital camera photography, science research, writing, and art. Focus is on the scientific inquiry process and ways in which to use methods of art criticism to help describe, observe, and form hypotheses. Observational drawing is used to develop academic and foundational vocabulary. This process offers students opportunities to express what they know and have learned in a content area using alternative methods. The end product is a Web-based student showcase of written and artistic work. http://www.prel.org/picturingscience/index.asp
Reading in the Early Grades
Audience: K–3 Teachers, Reading Specialists
Participants explore the processes that build skills and foster a desire to read among young learners. They learn practical and effective strategies to use in the classroom in the five areas of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. Workshops focusing specifically on a single strategy are also available. Poetry and read alouds are used to demonstrate effective practices in early reading.
Reading in the Middle Years
Audience – Grades 4-8 Teachers, Reading Specialists
Participants explore concepts and strategies that support striving readers, including English language learners (ELLs), across the curriculum. Special attention is given to vocabulary and key comprehension strategies for informational texts found in science and social studies classrooms.
Reading Aloud With Your Children
Audience: Parents
Learn new ways to read aloud to your children and create a safe environment for them. Parents will experience first-hand practice and receive tips to make reading aloud a pleasurable experience. This workshop uses the PREL-developed Reading Aloud to Children Facilitator’s materials.
Writing in the Early Grades
Audience: PreK-3 Teachers, Language Arts Specialists
Participants explore the developmental stages of young writers and different techniques to improve their writing skills. Participants also learn how to create new and exciting lessons aligned to the Hawai‘i Content & Performance Standards III (HCPS III). Assessments are correlated to each lesson, enabling participants to analyze student samples to inform their instruction.
Online Reading Course Reading Framework K–3 – Part 1: Collaboration, Assessment, and Instructional Practices
Audience: K–3 Teachers, Pre-Service Teachers
Participate in this online distance delivery course designed to help teachers address the unique beginning reading needs of lower elementary students. The 4-credit course is based on best practices in the teaching of early literacy in English. Part 1 includes four modules: Building a Community of Learners, Understanding Literacy Development, Assessing Early Readers, and Using a Variety of Literacy Approaches. http://www.prel.org/readingframework/index.htm
Online Reading Course Reading Framework K–3 – Part 2: Guided Reading, Comprehension, and Community Involvement
Audience: K–3 Teachers, Pre-Service Teachers
Participate in this online distance delivery course designed to help teachers address the unique beginning reading needs of lower elementary students. The 4-credit course is based on best practices in the teaching of early literacy in English. Part 2 includes three modules: Guided Reading, Comprehension, and Community Involvement.
http://www.prel.org/readingframework/mod4/information.htm
Training Tutors of Striving Readers
Audience: K–3 Teachers, Paraprofessionals
Learn to perform diagnostic reading assessments, and plan and implement lessons to meet the needs of your students. PREL trainers work with the tutors and their students through a series of meetings.
Programs
Assistance for the Comprehensive
Educational Development Mindanao (ASCEND Mindanao)
JUMP Into Reading for
Meaning (JUMP)
Nā Hoa Ho`ōla
(NHH)
Pacific Center for the Arts and
Humanities in Education (PCAHE)
Pacific Comprehensive Center
(PCC)
Parent Information and
Resource Center-Federated States of Micronesia (PIRC FSM)
Parent Information and
Resource Center-Republic of the Marshall Islands (PIRC
RMI)
Regional Educational Laboratory
Pacific (REL Pacific)
Territories & Freely
Associated States Education Grant Program (T&FASEGP)
Websites
earlyreading.info
Pacific Comprehensive Center (PCC)
Pacific Early Literacy Resource Kit
Pacific Language Early Readers
Picturing Science
Teaching Educators about Micronesian Students (TEAMS)
Telling Stories: Using Drama and Multimedia With ESL Students
Products
Booklets:
A Focus on Comprehension (Research Based Practices in Early Reading Series)
A Focus on Fluency (Research Based Practices in Early Reading Series)
A Focus on Professional Development (Research Based Practices in Early Reading Series)
A Focus on Vocabulary (Research Based Practices in Early Reading Series)
Assessing Reading Fluency
Early Literacy and Assessment for Learning (K–3) Series
Books:
Coral Reef Alphabet Book for American Samoa
Island Alphabet Books
Magazines:
Pacific Educator 2003 Vol. 2(1)—Core Literacies
Pacific Educator 2004 Vol. 3(3)—English Language Learners
Pacific Educator 2005 Vol. 4(2)—Professional Development
Papers:
Effect of Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) on Reading Achievement: A Meta-Analysis
First and Second Language Literacy: From Research to Practice
Image to Word - Word to Image: Literally a Vision
Literacy in Indigenous Communities
Look and See: Using the Visual Environment as Access to Literacy
Lost in Translation: From English to Pacific Languages in Early Reading Assessment
Measuring the Effectiveness of Professional Development in Early Literacy: Lessons Learned
Middle Grades: Putting All Students on Track for College
Reading Instruction for Older Struggling Readers
The Language Question in Pacific Education: The Case of the Republic of the Marshall Islands
Multimedia
CDs:
Pacific Early Literacy Resource Kit
Pacific Language Early Readers
Reading Aloud to Children—English/Marshallese
DVDs:
Teaching Reading in the Vernacular
Contact PREL
Pacific Resources for Education and Learning
Phone:
(808) 441-1300
U.S. Toll-free Phone:
(800) 377-4773
AskPREL
Phone:
(808) 441-1300
U.S. Toll-free Phone:
(800) 377-4773
AskPREL
Focus Series
Service Request
For further information about PREL services, or to explore a solution customized to suit your needs, please contact us directly through our Service Request Form.