08/25/2026
🌟WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE “LITERATE” IN MIDDLE SCHOOL AND BEYOND?🌟
Georgia serves nearly 1.8 million students across almost 160 public school districts.
Building the competence, knowledge, and skills that prepare our students for what comes next is no small task.
Recently, I had the privilege of addressing GAEL New Curriculum Directors as they began the new school year.
I invited them to consider an important developmental progression:
📕 READY TO READ.
📕 READY TO LEARN.
📕READY TO TAKE ON THE WORLD.
Because literacy in middle school and beyond requires much more than the ability to read.
A student may be able to read the assignment.
But can they manage themselves well enough to act on what they know?
Can they:
⭐️🍎⭐️ Set their own goals?�⭐️🍎⭐️ Make plans to achieve them?�⭐️🍎⭐️ Get started and overcome procrastination?�⭐️🍎⭐️ Manage deadlines and multiple assignments?�⭐️🍎⭐️ Explore options, solve problems, and adapt?�⭐️🍎⭐️ Handle frustration and disappointment?�⭐️🍎⭐️ Ask for help, accept feedback, and collaborate?�⭐️🍎⭐️ Monitor progress, evaluate outcomes, and course-correct?
These are not simply “study skills.
These are Executive Function skills that make independent learning possible.
We invest tremendous energy in helping children become capable readers.
As they mature, we must be equally intentional about helping them become capable managers of their learning AND managers of themselves as learners.
I call this: ❤️🌟SELF-MANAGEMENT LITERACY🌟❤️
The ability to understand yourself as a learner and intentionally manage your attention, time, emotions, effort, strategies, and actions in pursuit of a goal.
Because ultimately, education must prepare students not only to comprehend what is in front of them, but to independently decide what to do next.
💫To learn.
💫To adapt.
💫To solve problems.
💫To manage themselves.
💫To contribute.
Let’s build SELF-MANAGEMENT LITERACY with the same intentionality that we build academic literacy.
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