Recently I attended a PD session on Embracing Your Inner George. Are you thinking the same thing I was when I read the title of the session? huh? Then I read the description: "@gcouros encourages teachers and administrators to empower learners to wonder, to explore, and become forward-thinking leaders. You'll be inspired to respond to …
I feel lucky that, for now, I have a decent size reading room. I share half of a classroom with our school's ELL teacher. It is a great match to have a reading teacher and ELL teacher together. We learn a lot from each other! My room is set up to accommodate the students I see …
In the primary grades, we often draw from multiple resources that we use to teach our students to read and write. Of course, we know the best approaches follow the individual students' needs, so what is a teacher to do for curriculum? And what about Common Core standards? How do they fit with this individualized approach? These days we are under increasing scrutiny to provide evidence that students are receiving standardized instruction. So how do we translate responsive instruction into curriculum?
I struggled for years with balancing my teacher work life with my home life. Here is a quick story about the night (morning really) that I realized I needed to make some changes in my work life. It was a Saturday night and I asked my husband if he would "pretty please" put the kids to bed …
As a Reading Recovery teacher, I use the Observation Survey to help select which students I will be servicing for each round of Reading Recovery. The Observation Survey is not a tool just for Reading Recovery teachers. The Observation Survey is for teachers who want to be "careful observers" of how children learn to read …
Continue reading Clay’s Observation Survey: A Tool to Guide Early Literacy Teaching
Written by Gen A recent trip to the children's section of the public library awakened the memory of something that I feel is one of the most important ideas put forth by Marie Clay: honor a child's attempt. A "wrong" answer can be frustrating for any teacher, especially when you feel you've worked on a particular …
Continue reading Ish: The importance of honoring all attempts
There are many things that I miss about having my own classroom. One of the things I miss the most is planning for my back-to-school read alouds. Read alouds are a great way to build classroom community as your students share the experience with you and each other. I think it's important to establish a daily …
"you must create 100 consecutive positive experiences between yourself and the teacher in order to establish trust and have a strong enough foundation for productive and impactful collaboration"
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