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Teaching About Words, Grammar, and Mechanics Through Children’s Literature (BOOKLIST)
When I think about my students as learners, I want them to be more than just good spellers. I think that this year, many of my daily word study lessons...
Company-Ready Teaching
Friends who have never been to our house are coming over for dinner. Suddenly, I see my house through new eyes: dust bunnies in the silverware drawer, the paint on...
Breathing New Life into the Writer’s Notebook
By the time they step into our classroom, my sixth graders have kept writer’s notebooks ever since they were in second grade. They arrive knowing that a writer’s notebook is...
Coaching High Fives
I distinctly remember the hot, humid day in August when my family went to celebrate Travers Day at the Saratoga Race Course in New York. It was a beautiful summer...
Navigating Conversations
The thought had been weighing on my mind for a while. I needed to have a conversation with my principal. It is my job as a coach to keep a...
Choosing Books in Verse
Poetry can seem intimidating to some young (and old) readers. So asking a student who isn’t too sure about reading a single poem to read an entire novel written in...
Panels and Pages: Using Graphic Novels in the High School Classroom
My students love graphic novels, and as I’ve made more of an effort to read them myself, so do I. However, I have noticed that there is still a bit...
Getting Started with a Writing Habit: Six Kinds of Notebooking
I am a notebooker. I have stacks of journals that I write in across the days, months, and years. I have Morning Pages notebooks, gratitude journals, daily agendas, affirmation notebooks,...
Dot Images: Taking Time to Reflect Brings Out Mathematical Ideas
“My students just aren’t understanding how to decompose numbers,” Jessie, a kindergarten teacher, admitted at a team meeting. “I ask them to show me how numbers can be broken apart,...
Ready-to-Go Book Talks
It’s the beginning of the school year, and you have several book talks already written in your plan book and ready to go. You are ready to pitch these books...
Prepping a Fieldwork Site: Strategies for Launching Quality Partnerships
What does this space encourage? —James Clear, Atomic Habits Over the past 10 years, the teacher preparation program at my university has devoted a lot of time and energy to...
Teaching = Communication
On a recent walk with a long-time friend, the topic of “math rules” came up. Lydia, a vice president of data analytics for a large corporation with degrees in mathematics...
Giving Kids Time and Space to Show Their Brilliance
We were at a local playground in the Buckeye State last summer, and someone had left a piece of chalk lying on the blacktop. My newly turned three-year-old son took...
Rewriting the Script
For years, I had been following scripts. As a student, I walked the same path each day to the bean-shaped table when my group was called for guided reading. In...
Curating Booklists for Teachers
I love celebrating all occasions with books. Welcoming a new baby? I’ll give you The Wonderful Things You Will Be by Emily Winfield Martin. Celebrating a birthday? You should read...
Twitter Chats and Professional Development
Networking and learning with other educators has always been fun and inspirational for me. I enjoy going to literacy conferences and meeting all kinds of wonderful minds. In the past...
Connection Points: The Sambusa Was the Key
Filsan walked in carrying a pillow of paper towels, the school kind—you know, the light brown color, the scratchy texture that doesn’t actually absorb anything. The smile on her face,...
Building Community Around Food and Poetry
The chef James Beard is quoted as saying, “Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” We must all eat food to live, but food is much more than just...
On Being a Wise Consumer: Three Questions to Filter Ideas
Kate has a not-so-slight obsession with WNBA player Caitlin Clark. In sharing with her class about Caitlin Clark, Kate played a video of the before-game ritual Caitlin has with her...
Same Candy Bar, Different Wrapper: Professional Books That Change Instruction
Kylene Beers, a literacy advocate, author, and educator, passed away this summer. She had a lasting impact on my classroom, and I know many other educators around the world express...
The Coach’s Notebook: How to Capture, Organize, and Analyze Your Data and Responsibilities
Part of my work as a systems coach is documenting my conversations with leaders and teachers around their goals for building more equitable outcomes for students. We use a Google...
