Teaching
The Gift of Reading
From the desk of Alice… In this first year of Common Core, I am seeing and hearing many stressed educators trying to make sense of what they need to be doing. Rest assured, one thing we need to continue to do is encourage a love of learning as we dip into this new territory in…
Read MorePublishing
From the desk of Carol C…. Publishing was hard for me for a long time, and I never had it down to a science. I think it had something to do with the way writing was taught when I first started teaching. Assign the topic, students write, students turn in their papers, teachers correct the…
Read MoreGuided Reading by Any Other Name…
From the desk of Carol C…. First let me start with a story that may tell you where I’m coming from on the subject of guided reading. Quite a few years ago I observed a K/1 classroom where the children were learning how to subtract. One child raised her hand to give the answer and…
Read MoreCollaborative Learning
From the desk of Kris… My boys were less than thrilled to go back to school a few weeks ago. In fact, one of my sons came home recently and likened school to jail. His words: “School is like a place where they lock you in a room, force you to sit in a seat…
Read MoreCrawling Comes First!
From the desk of Kris… The Common Core Standards have set the bar pretty high for Kindergarten. We know that at the beginning of the year, many Kindergartners cannot read. While that may be true, it does not mean that they can’t understand text or are unable to answer questions about text. As teachers, we…
Read MoreReading Wide
From the desk of Carol C… Most of us have our favorite reading genre and stick pretty much to it. Some prefer realistic fiction or graphic novels or informational text or biography…the list goes on. It’s fine to have a favorite type of book; however, children who have read or have been read to from…
Read MoreCommon Core is Here
From the desk of Carol C… “The Common Core is here. Now what do we do?” When I first read that quote I thought , “You got that right sister. What are we gonna do?” In no time, well meaning supervisors started giving me suggestions. “Look on Cleveland County’s website. Try the NYC website. Have…
Read MoreNot Your Mother's Book Report-
From the desk of Christie… More than likely we have all in some point had to create a book report. With the shifts in Common Core we will be seeing many changes in the types of assignments our students are asked to complete in school and independently. As parents we will be guiding children through…
Read MoreAre you just walking on the words?
From the desk of Kris… I love this quote by Paolo Friere: “Reading is not walking on words. It’s grasping the soul of them.” When I was a child I walked all over words. I stomped on them and tromped on them and could read anything that was put in front of me. I had…
Read MoreLiteracy Lessons from the List
From the desk of Christie… I am fortunate to have a little one that is bursting with eagerness to learn to read. Although like his mother, he is not so eager when it comes to cleaning. We have found that lists work beautifully for this chore. For a while I have welcomed his help in…
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