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Here is where you’ll find all the latest print features from our contributors. If you’d like to browse specifically by grade level, topic, or contributor, you can use the links in the right sidebar.
Latest Content
Alert! Mistakes in Progress
Becca Burk gives the science behind mistakes and growth, and offers suggestions on ways to use mistakes as a means to help students become critical thinkers and problem solvers.
Overcoming Challenges in Writing Workshop with Trauma-Informed Practices
Ruth Ayres shares three mindsets to help teachers prioritize connection over correction when teaching writers.
Young Author Celebrations
Jennifer Court shares the celebrations that propel students to engage in the Young Authors Program.
It’s Time to Admire: Sharing in the Beauty of Students’ Writing
Heather Fisher shares a process to help teachers learn to admire student writers and find the beauty in their work.
Opinion Writing in Primary Grades: Layers of Support
Ruth Metcalfe suggests several layer of supports to uplift young writers as they begin to write their opinions.
Taking a Stance: Supporting Opinions in Primary Writers
Josie Stewart and Hannah Tills expand their view of opinion writing to taking a stance, and are reminded of the power of choice and honoring student passions and interests. At the same time, students are reminded that their voice is heard and their opinions matter.
Eight Phonemic Awareness Activities for Morning Meeting
Lisa Mazinas suggests eight short phonemic awareness games that are quick and engaging word work opportunities.
Energizing Early Readers: The Classroom Library as a Co-Teacher (Booklist)
Ruth Metcalfe shares a fun-loving and inspiring early reader booklist to help boost reading energy in her classroom library.
Five Ways to Teach Fluency
Dana Murphy reminds us of five ways to teach fluency…especially when reading seems laborious.
Rethinking Parent-Teacher Conferences: Centering the Humanity of Students in All Discourses
Stella Villalba offers five compelling tips to making parent-teacher conference conversations more joyful, useful, and hopeful.
Six Tips to Plan a Family Literacy Night
Does planning a family literacy night seem overwhelming? Lisa Mazinas offers six tips to ensure a thoughtful and successful event.
Questioning My Choice for Silence
Stella Villalba questioned her choice for silent writing time when she began listening to students. In this thought-provoking article, Stella gives direction in how to meet the needs of all students—those who need time to talk and those who need a quiet writing space.
Slow Down to Meet the Needs of All Learners
In this era of pressure to perform, Vivian Chen suggests slowing down as an act of intentionality, equity, and meeting the needs of all learners.
Writing from the Heart
Kate Mills and Tara Barnett pour their hearts into teaching writers, but when Tara loses her family dog, she is reminded that writing is the thing that helps us understand what’s most important.
Validating Students
When an excited young reader interrupts the quiet hum of reading workshop, Becca Burk analyzes the important unseen choices students make as learners, and the powerful messages teachers’ responses send.
Centering Students’ Brilliance (Booklist)
Stella Villalba is passionate about centering the beauty, brilliance, and genius of all students in our classrooms. She shares an inclusive booklist to inspire and support other educators in doing the same.
Three Ways to Engage Your Students in Reading and Writing Poetry This Spring
Gretchen Schroeder offers three poetry writing activities to take the pressure off of the writing process by using another poet’s structure and/or words as a starting point. You’ll be amazed by how deep and personal the resulting poems can become. Download a PDF for students to collect lines for a cento poem.
Poetry Surprises
Mandy Robek delights in the surprises that emerge as her students read, write, and share poetry.
Student-Generated Questions to Promote Problem Solving and Modeling with Mathematics
Mallory Messenger shares a process for students to engage and solve a type of intriguing question called Fermi Questions.
Turn and Talk, Then What?
Vivian Chen offers useful tips for seasoned and new teachers when it comes to helping students engage in a turn-and-talk.
Learning to Listen During Turn-and-Talk
Ruth Ayres suggests three ways to help students intentionally listen during conversations such as a turn-and-talk.
Three Ways Student Writers Taught Me How to Use Writing Partnerships
Patty McGee pays attention to how students work as writers to find the teaching points for how to learn to work as writing partners.
Teaching Students to Be Teachers
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share a process for empowering students to be teachers in partnerships and small-group instruction.
Teaching Writers to Hear Feedback
Cathy Mere outlines ways writers can position themselves to hear (and use) feedback.
It’s the Final Countdown: Using Chunking and Timers to Scaffold Reluctant Writers
What do you do when students won’t write during class? Gretchen Schroeder offers a creative, practical, and effective solution.
Choral Counting Routine
Mallory Messenger shares ways Choral Counting provides an opportunity for students to share ideas orally, process language and numbers, and bring out vocabulary within the context of looking for patterns.
Level Two Unlocked: Using the Language of Video Games to Engage Students in the Assessment Experience
Heather Fisher considers the research behind gamified experiences and applies it to a lengthy first-grade phonics assessment. Heather challenges us to gamify assessments to maintain the integrity of the assessment while increasing student engagement.
Helping Writers Self-Correct
What to do with writers who catch errors in isolation but not in their own writing? Cathy Mere suggests three ways to help students self-correct their writing.
Do the Hard Thing
Becca Burk reminds all of us that one of the important parts of being a teacher is helping students believe they are capable. Becca shares three practical ways to uplift student capability.
Moving Beyond Asking Questions
Dana Murphy comes to a lesson about asking questions in a curriculum resource and realizes it is not what her students need. She has designed a lesson to make asking questions more meaningful and useful for her students.
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