Our Vision & Plan

Our nation’s general failure to build Teacher Capacity through authentic professional growth opportunities is a major concern.  Too often teachers in their first year of teaching and beyond lack a sense of confidence and do not arrive with the knowledge and skills required to successfully support students to make academic achievement gains with fundamentals such as reading and writing and communicating.

To address this need, OnPoint provides authentic teacher training where teachers watch an expert teacher model best practices of instruction.  Brian Kissman comes into the teacher’s classroom and does an entire day’s routine and lessons for a balanced literacy approach – guided reading, word study, writer’s workshop, and structured independent reading.   OnPoint anchors this training and establishes a common language with shared understandings through our innovative books and learning materials – Literacy Mats and Phonics Things. 

On the horizon, our goal is to provide this learning and professional growth experience through the OnPoint Portal – where teachers, parents, and students alike can observe the modeling of best practices and at the same time video conference with other participants to build and shape their understanding.