Inside: Teaching writing DOESN’T have to be complicated! With these simple strategies, you can improve students’ writing without having to work so hard. M rs. Braun? I turned around to an outstretched notebook in a kid’s hands. “I don’t know what to do next,” said the student. I leaned closer to decipher the…
Everything you needed to know about teaching phonics, you learned in college….right? Wrong! My professors were great, but there really wasn’t a course dedicated to teaching phonics. Once you have your own classroom it doesn’t take long to realize that the phrase “sound it out” will only get your students so far. Don’t worry! I’ve…
Research and best practices for teaching vocabulary in the elementary classroom. I’m back this week linking up with #TeacherMom for her Building Back to School series. This week we’re talking about language tools. I’ve done some digging to see what research tells us about teaching vocabulary. Here’s what I found: A Strong Vocabulary Is…
You know, staff meetings bring out a lot of things in people…not all of them good. I distinctly remember one line that was said at a staff meeting that brought out some panic in me. But let me back up to say that I (and I bet probably you, too) got into teaching to have…
Student Engagement Do you feel like you have to practically put on a circus to achieve student engagement with your lessons? Before you bring out the lions, tigers, and bears, take a step back and see if one of these small changes might be the missing piece in your student engagement puzzle. Make It “Doable”…
If you asked the average person off the street what they would say to help someone struggling with a tricky word, I bet a lot of the responses would be, “Tell them to sound it out!” And then the average person off the street would say, “What kind of question is that, anyway!” : )…
Unraveling Response to Intervention I set out to unravel and get to the heart of Response to Intervention (RTI) like I’ve done before with close reading. I was surprised to read on the RTI Network’s website that, “there is no single, thoroughly researched and widely practiced ‘model’ of the RTI process.” Of course, that would…
Ideas for teaching low reading groups for maximum effectiveness My stomach tightened a little as I pulled out my small group data sheet. I had been working with a group of some of the lower readers pulled from each class in my grade level. I was taking care of the other teachers’ babies and…
What is close reading? If you look around Pinterest at anchor charts about close reading, it gets really overwhelming really fast! It seems like it’s about every reading strategy you’ve ever seen all put together at the same time. How the heck do you craft a lesson around that? It’s time to take the rocket…
Freebie! One of the keys to teaching reading comprehension is showing kids how proficient readers think about text. Teachers have to find a way to make their thinking visible. One way is with graphic organizers. Here is a free set: The first one is filled in with the steps for growing…