Common Core
Whole Class Novels
From the desk of Carol C… Read an education journal or a book about teaching reading comprehension (no matter the grade level), you will find a myriad of strategies to use with your students. You’ll, also, find a difference of opinion on whether to teach these strategies using the same novel for your entire class…
Read MoreAn Educational Bargain
From the desk of Alice… I recently wrote a post about the anti-workbook classroom. There is another layer to the story. The teacher I mentioned in the post had chosen not to use the workbooks provided to her in order to teach reading to Kindergarteners. Instead, she chose to use rich literacy instruction that engaged…
Read MoreA New Era
From the desk of Alice… As 2013 is arriving, I am sitting at my kitchen table on a work holiday, typing on a wireless laptop and scheduling this blog to post in the future when I am no longer at my computer. My iPhone is nearby with my calendar at my fingertips and I am…
Read MoreThe Anti-Workbook Classroom
From the desk of Alice… I recently had a conversation with someone about instruction in the elementary school. In that particular school system, a program is in place that requires reading workbooks for Kindergarten students. If this happens to be the case in your school or system, I am so sorry. Having our youngest learners…
Read MoreWriting Across the Curriculum
From the desk of Carol C… Writing across the curriculum…it’s a phrase we hear often these days. Any grade level can look through the exemplars and see the level of rigor expected in writing assignments in all areas, not just Language Arts. The first step in helping students attain these expected levels is to make…
Read MoreWriting Poetry
From the desk of Carol C… The Common Core doesn’t directly list writing poetry as one of its standards. So why teach it if it’s not in there? “How do I tell thee? Let me count the ways.” First of all teaching students how to write poetry requires that they understand what poetry is and…
Read MoreStep Into the Classroom
From the desk of Hope… Step into a classroom in which students are preparing to be college and career ready. In this classroom students are merging reading, writing, thinking as they pose problems that are real or problems they foresee in the future. They think about what they want to know more about and subsequently…
Read MoreTips for Teaching Vocabulary
From the desk of Carol C… Have you looked up the word “rigor” in a dictionary recently? Webster’s says: harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgment. It seems that dictionaries, online at least, have not caught up with the definition of rigor in education. What might this be? Rigor is the goal of helping students…
Read MoreCollaborative Learning
From the desk of Kris… My boys were less than thrilled to go back to school a few weeks ago. In fact, one of my sons came home recently and likened school to jail. His words: “School is like a place where they lock you in a room, force you to sit in a seat…
Read MoreCrawling Comes First!
From the desk of Kris… The Common Core Standards have set the bar pretty high for Kindergarten. We know that at the beginning of the year, many Kindergartners cannot read. While that may be true, it does not mean that they can’t understand text or are unable to answer questions about text. As teachers, we…
Read More