Unless you've been living under a rock for the past three years, chances are you've heard of Jennifer Serravallo's strategies books. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but it took me a while to get into the JS craze. I remember thinking, "they're probably not for me," because I mainly work with bilingual (Spanish speaking) students. Nonetheless, last spring I decided to place an Amazon order for both her reading and writing strategies books and...wow! Just WOW! I couldn't put them down! Why had I gone so long without Jennifer's sparkly, ... Read More
Classroom Library
Setting up a library is one of the things I miss the most about being in the classroom. I attended a training a few years into my teaching career where the presenter stressed the importance of organizing a classroom library that is (1) tailored to your students' needs and (2) fosters a love of reading. Ever since then, I've lived by the following motto: your classroom library should be the HIGHLIGHT of your room. It needs to be the center of attention, and it should make your students want to be in there all of the time. More importantly, it ... Read More
The Magic of Read Alouds
I've been looking forward to writing this post because I just love doing read alouds! They're so much fun for the students...and also for the teacher, right? I hope you said yes! If you're a K-5 reading teacher, let's start with the basic do's and don'ts. Read aloud to your students daily Read the book or section beforehand Use drama Write out your questions ahead of time WHAT IS A READ ALOUD? A read aloud should be a purposeful activity. It's a separate component, outside of the reading workshop, but it ties in perfectly with ... Read More
I’ve gathered student data, now what?
In a perfect world, every student would understand your whole group mini lesson the first time you taught it. Unfortunately for us, we do not live in a perfect world. Enter student data. It's a topic that can spiral out of control and go in a million directions. In this post, I'll try my best to stay focused on the following two items: how to organize the data based on the standards and how to map out a reteach plan. Let's pretend like you've graded all of your assignments, tests, quizzes, homework and running records, and you still don't ... Read More
THE 5 THINGS YOU NEED TO PULL A SMALL GROUP!
I'll be the first to admit that I used to care more about my whole group lessons than my small groups. Thankfully, I was blessed with a great mentor who taught me that differentiated instruction was/is the most important part of teaching. I know, I know, pulling small groups can be intimidating, but it's important to remember this: it's where real teaching and learning takes place. Before I list the five things every reading teacher needs to conduct a small group, keep in mind that this post is exclusively addressing strategy groups for ... Read More