Summer Reading: Getting Books in Their Hands

In July of 2015 we did a book study of Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Frazen's "Summer Reading: Closing the Rich/Poor Reading Achievement Gap" .  It was really eye opening to me to look at the achievement gap in relation to the summer.  And my school took some actions to get more books into the hands of our students throughout the year.  A Readbox, stronger "take-home" program, and more listening stations are just some examples.

One Game Board Plus Many Games Equals Stronger Students

As a reading specialist, I get to do things that other teachers may not get to do all the time. I use games to help my students with many of the various skills we focus on. As I wound down my year, I spent my final day with my students celebrating our successes with games. And I used the same board for every single game!

Support with Ice Cream

Ask a student to support their reasons for an answer can sometimes be as fun as dental surgery.  (No offense to all of you wonderful dental surgeons out there--it is an utter fear of mine!!)  Over the years, I have come to realize a few things.  Providing support for an answer can be difficult because it certainly requires a higher level of thinking, it requires language skills, and it may not be an inherent skill for many students.  Formulating an answer to that question..."Why?"...just isn't as easy as we would like it to be for so many; therefore, it may be important for us to provide a visual to help out.

Sowing The Seeds Of Vocabulary (Part One)

Research says children that struggle with comprehension also struggle with vocabulary.  Wouldn't you like to have quick and easy ways to expand your students' vocabulary and also strengthen their overall comprehension? Sowing The Seeds Of Vocabulary (the first in a series) will walk you through understanding and implementing vocabulary in your classroom.  Read this post and your students will thank you profusely. (See what I did there?)

Spring Books that Will Make You Flip

One of the most important requirements of us as teachers is to know kid books. You can not have conversations with your students about books they might like, know what books to use for your lessons, or know where to go for supplemental materials if you don't know what's out there. Plus, there are new authors publishing great stuff all...the...time, right? If you only know what you've used for the past ten years, you might be missing great books that your kids would love. Today, I'd like to explore with you titles that work well this time of year for skill modeling

Graphing Success: Preparing for Those State Assessments

It's that time of year again! Testing season is not far away, and we are all getting ready to help our students prepare for the standardized tests. My job as a reading specialist has shifted a little to help students as they work on those all important test taking strategies. This year, I am trying something different.

The Power of One Word

Earlier this year I was intrigued by a blog post from Tammy over at Forever in First.  She wrote about the book Moo!  After checking it out myself, reading it to my students, watching my students read it over and over, I witnessed the power that one single word (plus punctuation) can have!  And this only led to more books...