Recent Posts
Close Reading with Rainbow Annotation
Rainbow annotating a text is a fantastic way to improve your student’s reading comprehension and retention during close reading. By marking up the pages with colorful notes, they can actively engage with the material and make it more meaningful to them. This is especially important […]
RADD Short Answer Response Toolkit
The RADD short answer response strategy is a successful tool that many teachers use to support their students. In this article, you will learn how to engage your young writers with the help of a RADD Toolkit. (Affiliate links are included in this article, thank […]
End of the Year Student Gifts: Summer Reading Buddies!
Finding a meaningful end of the year student gift can sometimes be a challenge. You want your gift to be educational, useful and not a waste of your money or your students’ time. This summer reading incentive will keep your students reading throughout the summer. […]
Writing Center Set Up and Organization Tips
Writing Center Visuals: The first thing you need to do is make everything visible for your students in your writing center. This includes transition and time order words that your students will use with every writing piece, mini lesson anchor charts, a seasonal vocabulary word […]
Drive-by Writing Conferences
Struggling with having writing conferences with each child every week? Every writer has different needs. Your writing lessons may not address the individual needs of all your writer’s when they are all at different stages of their writing development. Yet, your grade level curriculum forces […]
Differences Between Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
Confused with the terms of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness? Phonology is the study of vocal sounds. There is no print involved in this stage of literacy. It is an “eyes closed” stage in identifying and manipulating the sounds of oral language. Beginning with sentences, words, syllables, onsets, rimes and ending with phonemes.
A Behavior Plan to Meet Diverse Needs with “I can” Statements
Creating an appropriate individual behavior plan for students in need and finding time to document it all has ALWAYS been a struggle for me, even after 20 years of teaching. Yes, it took me that long… With all the demands of teaching. it is easy […]
Phonics Workshop: How to Organize it all
Managing Phonics Workshop supplies can be a challenge. If you are looking for a better way to organize your whole group supplies… if you are anything like me, saving minutes throughout the day is a struggle! Transitions from one lesson to another while gathering and […]
Sight Word Activities with a Word Detective Theme
Which are the best sight word activities to boost fluency? Is it the traditional word wall, a portable word wall, a phonics notebook, a word wallet or a personal word wall? Let’s take a closer look at all our options with a Word Detective theme! […]
Guided Reading Organization Tips for Your Leveled Readers
Ever sit down to plan for your guided reading groups only to find yourself up and out of your seat hunting for a set of leveled readers that are stored in a far corner of your classroom or in a closet… somewhere? I bet there […]