The CLI Model Classroom Program

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CLI's first-grade model classroom in Philadelphia's Meade Elementary School.
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About CLI Model Classrooms

Model classrooms are eye-openers: by showing what is possible, they dramatically raise teacher expectations, producing better performance from teacher and student alike.

CLI establishes model classrooms for our training program. Teachers receiving CLI coaching have the opportunity to observe successful classrooms and exemplary teaching practices in action, and can use this experience to hone their own practice. Teachers report that these visits help them to grow both in skill level and motivation as they see for themselves what is possible in classrooms like their own.

CLI model classrooms are located in schools in low-income neighborhoods with student populations typical to the area. These classrooms are evidence of the remarkable success of rich literacy environments, exemplary teaching, and high expectations for students. CLI provides the teacher with training that is both intensive and sustained over time, and furnishes the classroom with large numbers of quality children's books and literacy materials. The result is nothing short of transformational: a classroom where students thrive in an environment of support and challenge.

CLI currently maintains 48 model classrooms in 5 states. Click here for a full list.

Books, books, books!
The library corner in the kindergarten CLI model classroom in Newark's Oliver St. School.
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Urban Teacher Preparation Project

CLI's Urban Teacher Preparation Project, supported by funds from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, uses the CLI model classrooms in Newark, NJ, to introduce pre-service teachers from three local colleges - Kean, Montclair, and Rutgers -- to highly successful urban classrooms.

The CLI model classrooms serve as a resource to the pre-service teachers in effective literacy instructional practices and the resulting high student achievement. The goal is to provide the pre-service teachers with the opportunity to observe and participate in highly effective urban classrooms with the hope that this experience will impart the competence and confidence needed to choose a teaching job in an urban district.

Teachers should increase their instructional knowledge by visiting successful teachers in action, getting exemplary instruction from which to model their own practices.*

The project gives pre-service teachers the opportunity to visit a model classroom with a CLI trainer. This is an experience that opens students' eyes to the high intellectual potential of urban elementary students in classrooms with teachers who provide effective instruction through engaging and purposeful lessons. Pre-service teachers also attend presentations by CLI model classroom teachers and participate in CLI workshops on campus. Additionally, each of the 14 model classrooms will have a student teacher or junior practicum placement during the 2003-04 school year.

The expectation is that this will spark increased interest among college students in placement in a CLI model classroom, and that such placements will lead students to decide to pursue a teaching career in Newark.

Teacher qualification accounts for over 90% of the variation of achievement
in schools with students from similar backgrounds.*

*	National Commission on Teaching and America's Future What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future September 1996

Photo Gallery
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In this first-grade CLI model classroom in Newark's Ann St. School, books are displayed in the book racks, and grouped by reading level in the bins on the windowsill and by subject in the bins on the floor.

Third graders in CLI's model classroom in Philadelphia's Pratt Elementary School read about different countries, study maps, and write about what they learn.

CLI's first-grade model classroom in Newark's McKinley School.

A Message Time Plus® lesson at a CLI kindergarten model classroom in Philadelphia.

List of CLI Model Classrooms
51 in 6 states
October 2007

ILLINOIS Chicago Pre-Kindergarten (coaching lab sites) Goudy Elementary, Erin Stanfill Dolittle Elementary, Angela Wooten Goldblatt Elementary, Beverly Funchess MASSACHUSETTS Boston Pre-Kindergarten Mason School, Maria Mendes Ruth Darling Center, Mary Geoghegan (observation site) NEW JERSEY Newark Kindergarten Abington Ave School, Lenore Furman Ann Street School, Lidia DaGraca Chancellor Annex, Ke'Lee Brown Mount Vernon School, Regina Wingo First Grade Mount Vernon School, Graciela Gomes Oliver Street School, Mariarosa DaCosta Newton Street School, Danielle Mastrogiovanni Second Grade Abington Avenue School, Marissa Belasco Orange Kindergarten Forest Street School, Adriana Brochero- Hernandez First Grade Forest Street School, Natasha Pared Plainfield Second Grade Barlow Elementary, Louisa Ruela NEW YORK White Plains First Grade Mamaroneck Avenue School, Paula Knuckles	PENNSYLVANIA Bristol Pre-Kindergarten Bristol Board of Education Building, Mary Lou Tantum Levittown First/Second Grade Mix Penn Valley Elementary, Heather Lieb Norristown First Grade Gotwals Elementary, Chris Porco Gotwals Elementary, Erica Prettyman Second Grade Gotwals Elementary, Patti Spellman-Gandolfo Philadelphia Pre-Kindergarten Community Education Alliance of West Philadelphia at the Family Charter School, Jennifer MacNamara Head Start Learning Tree; North Presbyterian Center, Mary Shah Kindergarten Allen M. Stearne School, Carolyn Kivenias Bayard Taylor School, Gladys Navarro- Berriós (Bilingual) Belmont Academy, Sonja Neilson Clara Barton Elementary, Amanda Gindin Clara Barton Elementary, Jackie Anderson General George C. Meade School, Brenda Tucker Patterson George Sharswood School, Michele Hurst George Washington School, Jennifer Pakola Isaac Sheppard School, Christina Genetti- Grosh John B. Kelly School, Stacy Dougherty John Welsh School, Kathy Konicki Joseph Catharine School, Nicole Traore Kearny Elementary, Ellen Ginsberg Solis-Cohen School, Mary Bell Cote Thomas Mifflin School, Noelle Messina Thurgood Marshall School, Donna Thomas Duckrey Elementary, Cynthia Moultrie First Grade Clara Barton Elementary, Elaine Cubbage Clara Barton Elementary, Alison Walters St. Francis de Sales School, Denise Metz Paul Lawrence Dunbar School, Toya Andrews Second Grade Isaac Sheppard School, Colleen Lutz Anna B. Pratt Elementary, Diane Bloom Gotwals Elementary, Patti Gandolfo Ferguson Elementaryl, Robin Finklestein Third Grade Anna B. Pratt Elementary, Kathy Conklin Penn Alexander Elementary, Kate Sharp General George C. Meade School, Donielle Rigler DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Pre-Kindergarten LaSalle Elementary School, Jennifer Allen ECDC#2, Janice Ford Carver Terrace, Phyllis Nichols

Most recently, some of our model classrooms have become coaching lab sites where professional developers can practice, observe, and reflect together on their coaching and that of their colleagues.

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The CLI Model Classroom Program:
About CLI Model Classrooms • Urban Teacher Preparation Project • Photo Gallery • List of CLI Model Classrooms CLI Home • About CLI • Professional Development •Blueprint for Early Literacy • Importance of Investing in Literacy
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