Teaching silent reading voices to struggling readers (or all readers!) is a powerful tool to increase reading comprehension and fluency. As your students approach the upper grades, most reading time is spent reading to self. We teachers always emphasize the importance of letting students choose … [Read more...]
Summarizing Informational Text
Summarizing informational text has several uses for students. It teaches them to determine the most important ideas in a text, ignore unimportant information, and connect the main idea and key details of a text in a logical way. Summarizing also helps improve memory and comprehension of a text … [Read more...]
Test Prep Coloring Pages: Encouragement and Motivation for Test Time
During test prep and test time, our students could use a little encouragement and motivation. This time can be so stressful for students and teachers. I've found that coloring pages with motivational quotes can really help students during the testing season. To ease the stress, I've created these … [Read more...]
Teaching Literary Theme in Upper Elementary
In the upper grades, your students are no longer reading fables with clearly stated morals or lessons. Your students must read a fiction story and determine a theme (message or lesson), which is not explicitly stated. In this post, I will share a step-by-step process to teach theme in the upper … [Read more...]
Setting Fun Writing Expectations to Start Your Year Right
I'm back to share some more tips on how you can stop the stress and anxiety and have your best first week ever! One of the best things you can do at the start of the year is set up strong classroom procedures, routines, and expectations for every part of your room. Make sure your students … [Read more...]
How to Completely Transform Your Teaching with Exit Tickets
Whether they're completed on a piece of paper, a tablet, or a whiteboard, exit tickets are a powerful tool to use in your classroom. What are Exit Tickets? Exit tickets are formative assessments that provide information about your students' learning and understanding of a topic … [Read more...]
Practicing Punctuation During Your Read Aloud Time
Punctuation is one of those funny things. You think that by the time students reach upper-elementary, they will have a firm grasp on basic language rules of punctuation. You hope that your students will come to you knowing how and when to use proper punctuation. However, after reading some of my … [Read more...]
Writing Narrative Endings
I have to be honest. Teaching writing is tough. Each year, I set out to build a community of writers, and it is no easy task. One of the toughest things for my students is writing endings. They always start out with catchy beginnings only to get bogged down and just stop at the end. How many … [Read more...]
How To Convert Your Fake Readers Into Real Readers
I'm here to share some tried and true tips and tricks to convert your fake readers into real readers. To help our fake readers, we have to identify their coping behaviors that are helping them hide the fact that they aren't reading. Here is a list of 10 Ways to Spot a Fake Reader: I … [Read more...]
Must-Have Resources for Reading and Writing Workshop
I'm here to share some of my Must-Have Resources for Reading and Writing Workshop. My top must-haves include: A great classroom library that is organized for your students, easy for them to use, and contains a whole plethora of books is so important. Students need to feel like they have access … [Read more...]
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