I’ve lost count of the times teachers are asked about the fidelity of guided reading in their classrooms during a data meeting when students’ achievement (or the lack of) is being discussed. There are other components of a balanced approach to language arts instruction and I’m confused as to why they are so easily forgotten. …
Each of us is small, all by ourselves, but we are big, when we stick together. —Deborah Wiles, Revolution Sunny says it so well in Revolution, Deborah Wiles’s documentary novel about Freedom Summer. I’ve been in education for three decades (and counting) and have, at times, felt achingly small. Not so anymore. As I’ve watched …
Dear Sir, Thank you for the unforgettable lesson in early American history. I came to your fifth grade class to support your new teacher, and instead I got schooled that day. When I discovered that day’s lesson was about the early slave trade in our original colonies, I was concerned. I, a white woman, looked …
I’ll never forget walking my daughter to school on her first day as a kindergarten student. We lived in Austria at the time and the public kindergarten she was to attend was only a few blocks from our home. I felt especially anxious because Paige didn’t speak German and the kids in her class didn’t …
Last week I visited a campus for a scheduled day-long session. I was early so the instructional coach and I chatted about her life outside school, books she’s currently reading, a recent training opportunity she’d had. When I asked Evelyn how she felt about the day ahead of us, she shared where she felt the …
Years ago, I was part of a group trained in my district to be a Curriculum Facilitator. That’s a fancy title for the person who represented their campus at district curriculum writing meetings. My title meant that I wrote curriculum with a team of other teachers based on input from the teachers I represented from …
I recently met with an exceptional group of first grade teachers for a follow-up session to a training on a new assessment system their district is implementing this year. The previous meeting had been a quick training on the basics of how to administer the assessment. They had asked some insightful questions in the initial …
And in schools all over America, students are forced to “learn” in a way that befits deficit model thinking. We make sure that students are doubled and tripled up in the subjects they are worst at. It is as if the sole purpose of schooling for many kids is just to make sure that they …
Teachers and parents are often frustrated with kids when they don’t do more reading on their own. We talk a lot about the importance of choice,too. But do we do enough to facilitate choice for our students so they’re genuinely invested in the books they’ve chosen? In their new book, Game Changer! Book Access For …
If we want students to fully comprehend nonfiction text, we must provide powerful instruction in the types of text structures authors typically use. In the past I gave a gentle nod to the text structure unit, but lately I’m rethinking my mild indifference. Non-fiction text structures guide the reader in knowing how an author organizes …
