Increase Oral Language By Using Wordless Picture BooksPosted by Barb on February 2, 2012
We are a verbal society; so much so that we tend to take the development of oral language for granted. In fact, it is not surprising to observe that the emphasis on developing oral language has been taken a back seat by teachers and parents over the last several years. Think about it…today’s children are [...]
Tips For Parents: Better Ways to Ask The Homework QuestionPosted by Marsha on January 25, 2012
I am so on to my kids. I realize that simply asking if they have any homework is like asking how was school today. I’m setting myself up to receive a vague, one syllable response or grunt. It is not their fault. The problem is we have different ideas about what constitutes homework. My idea [...]
Google Presentations help Teachers and Students collaborate.Posted by Kira on January 18, 2012
I recently did a training for the teachers at my school and taught them how to use GoogleDocs, which I am VERY fond of. In this training, I had them all sign up for a google account, which is free and easy. Then I had them get into groups and prepare a collaborative document. This [...]
Read Alouds For Writing InstructionPosted by Marsha on January 4, 2012
Read alouds are not just beneficial for teaching reading; they are perfect for teaching writing, too. Quality literature, be it picture books or novels, are perfect for modeling craft and target skills we want our students to include in their writing. For example, with similes and metaphors like- “The trees stood still as giant statues. [...]
Progress Monitoring and WritingPosted by Marsha on December 17, 2011
Too often the only time we assess writing is when it is time for a school, district or state writing assessment. These assessments have their place, but the lessons learned from them don’t always lead to immediate instructional changes. It is important that writing teachers learn how to monitor students’ writing progress daily.
In order to [...]
Classroom Management in the newsPosted by Kira on December 7, 2011
Teachers — novice and experienced — tell me that they’ve received little, if any, training re classroom-management/discipline in either ed courses or in-service training. They also tell me that principals often apply a classroom-management-is-the-teacher’s-responsibility approach (explicitly or implicitly), criticize/reprimand teachers who refer insubordinate students to the front office, create procedural hurdles to teacher-imposed discipline (i.e., [...]
