Ron Williamson and Barbara Blackburn have advice that can help school leaders stay attuned to today’s constantly changing school environment, recognize the stress of external factors, and use strategies that encourage teachers’ intrinsic motivation and sense of self-efficacy.
You’ve spent the school year teaching students skills and strategies and covering the curriculum, giving your best to all your classes. Now as the year winds down, the time has come to let the students take over. See how Kathie Palmieri’s middle grades kids share learning.
Literacy mavens Brenda Krupp, Lynne Dorfman and Aileen Hower are more than excited about the possibilities of summer reading this year. Check out their many ideas for choice-based summer programs, including book swaps, virtual author visits, online clubs and more. Plan now!
Writing a decade ago, Jody Passanisi and Shara Peters wondered if online learning could replace physical school. Now as they evaluate the costs to students of pandemic driven education, the teachers turned school leaders have their answer: Content in a human vacuum can’t sustain itself.
As Kathie Palmieri implemented the vocab ideas in Marilee Sprenger’s The Essential 25, she found her 5th graders showed greater confidence in their daily work and demonstrated increased word knowledge in their reading, writing and test-taking. She highly recommends the book.
A strengths-based approach to teaching multilinguals means understanding what students bring to schools. We can use dialogue journals to invite students to have a conversation with us about their strengths. Tan Huynh shares how he implements the weekly exchange of notes.
Close Reading the Media / Factchecking
by Frank Baker · Published 05/11/2022 · Last modified 05/12/2022
How do we help students question and verify what they read? It’s not that hard to check things out, writes media literacy expert Frank Baker, but teachers tell him many students today “won’t take the time to do even a cursory investigation.” Baker offers some teaching ideas.
Some students may not have school work high on their priority list after two years of watching their normal adolescent world fall apart. Right now they may be focused on surviving, writes school psychologist Katelyn Oellerich. “We need to be focused on helping them do that.”
To help kids capture the benefits of summer reading, ELA educator Kasey Short shares what you can do before summer break begins: communicate with families, motivate readers, provide book choices, increase access to books, and link students to public library summer programs.
Book Reviews / I Will Screw This Up / Teaching ELLs
by Dina Strasser · Published 04/26/2022 · Last modified 08/23/2022
In The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide (2nd Edition) teacher-authors Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski provide an accessible compendium of deep practical knowledge intended for the most part for MS and HS ELLs and teachers, writes ENL educator Dina Strasser.
