joan sedita

Joan Sedita

Literacy, Professional Development
Keys to Literacy

Some people believe that kids in K-2nd are too young to learn the skills like critical thinking, text structure, and sentence development that are necessary to write. Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy, disagrees. She says young kids can learn to express themselves and to grow and revise their ideas through oral language and drawing.

From finding opportunities for students to share ideas, give feedback, and draw together to grow their writing skills to teachers modeling writing and revision, Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy, says that establishing a community of writers helps young students become more engaged and motivated to learn to write.

Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy, talks about the four main stages of writing: thinking, planning, writing, and revising and the fact that the more time and effort students put into the first two stages and the last stage, the better their writing will be.

Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy, explains the two key steps students need to learn in the revision process when writing: thinking critically about what they have written and how they can make improvements and proofreading.

Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy, talks about how research shows that young students improve their writing and alphabet knowledge when they handwrite letters and words while simultaneously learning letter-sound correspondence.

Research shows that learning sentence combining — where students become more adept at manipulating and playing with words in sentences — is far more effective in developing syntactic awareness than is practicing traditional grammar, says Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy.

Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy, talks about how using “mentor texts” — short pieces of literature students can read and reread for specific learning purposes — can help students become better writers.

Brief bio

Joan Sedita is an experienced educator, serving in the roles of teacher, school administrator, teacher trainer, and literacy consultant since 1975. She has provided literacy professional development to thousands of educators and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences. Joan received her Masters in Reading Education from Harvard University in 1980, and her B.A. from Boston College in 1975.

From 1975 until 1998 Joan worked at the Landmark School in Massachusetts, a pioneer school in the development of reading and writing intervention programs. From 1998 to 2007 Joan trained teachers and consulted with schools throughout the country and was involved with a number of literacy projects. She was one of three Lead Trainers in Massachusetts for the Reading First Initiative and consultant to the state’s Secondary Reading Initiative. Joan was a national LETRS author and trainer (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling). During this period, she developed the comprehension and vocabulary training programs that were the basis for Keys to Literacy’s signature programs The Key Comprehension Routine and The Key Vocabulary Routine.

In 2007 she founded Keys to Literacy and is currently the CEO of the company. Joan continues to develop literacy professional development programs, mentors the Keys to Literacy staff and national literacy trainers/consultants, presents at literacy conferences, and consults with state departments of education and districts throughout the country.

Joan is the creator of The Writing Rope framework for writing instruction, and the lead author of the Keys to Literacy professional development materials, online courses, and books. She has authored a number of books including Writing: the Road to Reading Comprehension Module 11 of the LETRS reading training series (2004). She has also authored several book chapters and articles, including the Adolescent Literacy chapter in Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills (J.R. Birsh, Ed., 2011). In 2022, her book The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects was published.

Excerpted from Keys to Literacy .

Books by this author

The Writing Rope

The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects

Joan Sedita
Age Level:
Adult

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