Catherine Weiss, MetLife Fellow
Catherine Weiss is a Primary Literacy Coordinator supporting students and teachers at an elementary School in northern Virginia.
She has taught for 15 years as a first and second grade teacher, a Reading Recovery teacher, and a Title I Reading teacher.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts from St. Michael’s College and a Master of Education in Curriculum and Development from George Mason University. She also earned a Master of Education with a specialization in Reading from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
She has presented at literacy and teacher research conferences and led professional development on many literacy topics. Her goal is to support teachers in their learning through her own work with children.
Previous Research Includes:
Research Title: What happens when second grade students are involved in setting writing goals for themselves? Research Year: 2008 Research Classification: Curriculum Development,Professional Development Research Summary: This research question was investigated because of a school wide concern about the low number of second grade students meeting end-of-year benchmark in writing. The results indicate that it would be worthwhile to share, with all second grade teachers in the school, this idea of having students analyze their writing and set goals for themselves. It is also important that students regularly review and update their goals throughout the year. Based on the informal observations and anecdotal records, we believe that having the students analyze their writing and set goals for themselves, as opposed to the teacher doing that herself, helped students be more invested in their writing. This, in turn, leads to more quality writing, which means more students meeting benchmark.
Research Title: Punctuation with a Purpose Research Year: 2007 Research Classification: Curriculum Development Research Summary: Literacy Collaborative assessment showed a majority of students in 1st and 2nd grades were not meeting the writing benchmark at the end of the year for several years. We began to suspect a lack of use of proper mechanics was contributing to this and decided to investigate and see if that was the case. We wondered what will happen with student writing when teachers deliberately teach mechanics in the writing workshop focus lessons 20% of the time throughout the year.
