How Do We Engage ALL Kids Into Reading?

05/28/2013

About two years ago I was working with a school district with a poverty rate of over 70% in a semi-rural area. The teachers and I were transitioning the middle school literacy curriculum from a more teacher directed traditional paradigm to a student directed, literature circle, and writing workshop paradigm. As I worked with my teacher colleagues, I was fortunate enough to get to know them and their students. One teacher (I’ll call her Ms. Smith) taught the lowest level readers in the 6th grade. As she and I prepared some team lessons I was eager to meet her kids and I was immediately struck by the differences I witnessed in her class and their attitudes toward reading. What over 20 years of literacy teaching experience taught me was to be ready to deal with reluctant and disinterested readers, as this is usually the case with the lowest level readers. Yet this was not the case on the first day and every day that I co-taught with Ms. Smith. Read More

An Excellent Article

05/20/2013

An excellent article that echoes messages from George Hillocks's The Testing Trap (2012) over a decade ago. Isn't it amazing how the decision makers continually focus on the wrong things in education? Instead of debating how to implement large scale assessment, how about discussions around smaller class sizes and more access to technology so that all teachers (not just ELA) can develop student writing skills?

Read More

Literacy Tip of the Day!

05/19/2013

The CCSS w.1 standard focuses on a student's ability to make a claim (or what we used to refer to as a thesis). We use claims all of the time: thesis, postulate, theory, hypothesis and so on.

Read More

Regarding CCSS Reading 10

05/18/2013

Common Core encourages students to read a wide variety of increasingly complex texts independently. One strategy to meet anchor reading standard #10 is to GROUP books. Here's an example of a 6th grade grouping with informational and literary texts. It is grouped around a thematic idea/essential questions and there are books at different Lexile levels in order to meet the diverse reading needs of a typical group of 6th grade students. If you have ideas for additional books, please add in comment section!
Read More

Literacy Tip of the Day!

05/04/2013

How do we teach grammar in the age of CCSS?

There is a substantial body of research that points to the following regarding grammar teaching:

1. Grammar Must Be Taught on Context
   
2. Students Must Learn How to USE and MANIPULATE Language.

Read More

What do the Common Core State Standards Say About Educational Technology?

05/02/2013

I am a member of the last generation of college student who actually pounded out papers on an electric typewriter. When a entered the teaching profession over twenty years ago, the web wasn’t an instant resource and I taught students about note cards and bibliography cards when they researched topics. Those days are long gone (and I am thrilled). Today, our students gather and digest information via the Internet at amazing speed. I often say that they ways in which we read text, write text, use text and how text affects us has completely changed because we are in the Technology/Information Age.
Read More

April 2015 : 2 posts
March 2015 : 0 posts
February 2015 : 0 posts
January 2015 : 0 posts
December 2014 : 1 post
November 2014 : 4 posts
October 2014 : 5 posts
April 2015 : 2 posts
March 2015 : 0 posts
February 2015 : 0 posts
January 2015 : 0 posts
December 2014 : 1 post
November 2014 : 4 posts
April 2015 : 2 posts
March 2015 : 0 posts
February 2015 : 0 posts
January 2015 : 0 posts
December 2014 : 1 post
November 2014 : 4 posts
October 2014 : 5 posts
September 2014 : 7 posts
August 2014 : 3 posts
July 2014 : 0 posts
June 2014 : 2 posts
May 2014 : 0 posts
April 2014 : 1 post
March 2014 : 1 post
February 2014 : 0 posts
January 2014 : 2 posts
December 2013 : 0 posts
November 2013 : 6 posts
October 2013 : 0 posts
September 2013 : 1 post
August 2013 : 0 posts
July 2013 : 5 posts
June 2013 : 5 posts
May 2013 : 6 posts
April 2013 : 2 posts
March 2013 : 9 posts
February 2013 : 4 posts
January 2013 : 8 posts
December 2012 : 2 posts
November 2012 : 12 posts
October 2012 : 6 posts
September 2012 : 3 posts
August 2012 : 0 posts
July 2012 : 4 posts
June 2012 : 3 posts
May 2012 : 3 posts
April 2012 : 8 posts
March 2012 : 4 posts
February 2012 : 3 posts
January 2012 : 8 posts
December 2011 : 0 posts
November 2011 : 7 posts
October 2011 : 5 posts
September 2011 : 2 posts
August 2011 : 1 posts
July 2011 : 15 posts
June 2011 : 16 posts
May 2011 : 0 posts
April 2011 : 2 posts
March 2011 : 8 posts
February 2011 : 3 posts
January 2011 : 7 posts
December 2010 : 3 posts
November 2010 : 12 posts
October 2010 : 10 posts
September 2010 : 10 posts
August 2010 : 0 posts