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Short Story Anthologies
For a long while, I had trouble feeling enthusiastic about audiobooks. I understood myself as a reader who needed to hold the book in her hands and read the words...
The Other Foundational Reading Skills
Cognition is but one factor in reading achievement, and test scores are but one indicator of how student readers develop. — Peter Afflerbach I didn’t truly become a reader until...
Just Ask Them: Including Students in the Feedback Process
As educators, we put on our curiosity hats. After a year of focusing on using success criteria with students, wonders were swishing around in our minds. Do you think the...
Protecting Choice and Inquiry with Outdoor Learning Walks
As curriculum shifts in our buildings to feeling more structured, we’ve been reflecting a lot on what we want to hold tight to, what we believe kids need regardless of...
More Than Skills and Scripts: Systems That Lift Literacy Up
“In one ear and out the other” would aptly summarize a lot of my school experience. As a student, I did my best to pay attention during literacy instruction. But...
From Middle School to College: Finding a Reading Connection
We know that reading experiences shape the future. Stop and think about your early reading experiences. Likely you can conjure up some memories and trace them to the reading choices...
Leveling Up The Locker Problem
Let’s choose math tasks we put in front of our students with as much care and intentionality as we use to select the books we use for read aloud. —...
Those Pictures You Make: Personalized Tools to Help Students
“Hey, Mrs. Burk, I have to come sit in here.” I looked to the doorway from the rocking chair where I was doing my read aloud to see Taleah, a...
Fostering Independence with Tools
I have heard more than one colleague mention that over time, our anchor charts become “wallpaper.” It is true that when charts hang on our walls for an extended period...
Using Picture Books to Launch Professional Learning Sessions
I have always been a voracious reader. Books were my friends in childhood (Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume), my therapists in my adult years (Separation...
The Right Moment for “I Can” Statements
I spent the last year diving in and getting to know our new resource for teaching math in third grade. There is an expectation that we are using the new...
Lessons from a Bird-Watcher: How to Make Space for Students’ Passions
Kate’s sister, Emily, was visiting and they had just dropped Kate’s kids off at a camp on the bay. They planned to spend the time on a long walk, and...
Tips for Hosting a Student Teacher
Watching my youngest daughter work on her undergraduate degree in education reminded me how important it is to open my classroom door. Hearing her talk about the students and teachers...
Recognizing the Need for Change
What comes to mind when you think about stepping stones? For me, it’s what our family nicknamed Blue Slide Park, a park we frequented as kids that had, you guessed...
Circle Up: Whole-School Read Alouds to Promote Student Wellness
Early in my first year as a librarian I was approached by our school social worker about an idea she had for classroom read alouds centered on wellness themes (kindness,...
Notebooking for Coach Wellness
As literacy coaches, we are charged with leading the learning of others, learning that is often embedded in a mesh of additional factors, including teachers' overall health and wellness, stress...
More Than a Self-Portrait
If you were to visit my classroom on any day of the year and ask me the one thing I want you to spend time with, it would be our...
The Locker Problem: Choosing Tasks and Posing Questions That Elicit Core Mathematical Ideas
Worthwhile mathematics teaching is about helping students to use what they know to reason through problems, strengthening their minds as they grapple with and make sense of increasingly complex mathematics....
Background Knowledge: More than Just Facts
It is impossible to not apply prior knowledge while reading. —Kelly Gallagher The term background knowledge was often heard in many of my college courses. I knew it was important,...
Why High School Students Need Cardboard Castles and Poetry Caves
This past spring my high school students and I built a cave in our classroom. It was made out of cardboard boxes, kraft paper, and a lot of packing tape...
Five Picture Books to Spark Teacher Wellness
How are you…really? Lately, I’ve been asking this question, coined from Jenna Kutcher’s new book, of myself and of the teachers I work with. While we might be tempted to...
