Tuesday, December 15, 2015


Well! I hope Thanksgiving was great! Now, we are on to the Winter Break. Want to help encourage students to write over vacation? I am sending home a hardcover white book with plain white pages and a list of suggested writing topics. Check it out. If you don't have a white book, don't worry. A journal would work just as well! Feel free to adapt this and make it work for you.


Ideas to Write About During Vacation


imagesbuddy.com
  • the best gift you got
  • the best gift you gave
  • decorations in your house
  • the most unexpected place your elf was
  • what you did with your family
  • a family tradition
  • a book you read
  • a movie you watched
  • a game you played
  • a trip you took
  • what you were most looking forward to doing on vacation
  • what are you excited about doing when you come back to school
  • your hopes or wishes for the new year



Saturday, November 14, 2015


Looking for a creative way to get your students to be a character in a story or to encourage the home-school connection?

This website lets you "create" a book using a child as the main character! Check it out. It isn't free, but it is fun! Happy creating! Happy reading!

www.putmeinthestory.com


Sourcebooks




Thursday, October 15, 2015



Hello! Big news on the blog front. I recruited the technology trainer in my district and she helped me post some rubrics under the writing tab. Check them out. There is more to come. We have all 3 genres for all grades 1-5. Happy searching!!




Thursday, September 3, 2015


Oh my gosh! WHERE does the time go?? I can't believe we are back at school already. I hope you are having a great start to your school year. If you haven't started yet, I hope you are enjoying the last days of vacation.





I'm just sad that I didn't have more time to add to the blog. I will try to. I promise!!

Some new things on our agenda this year:

  • The DRA 2+
  • The Daily 5
  • Reworking the Treasures unit assessments

And a new item on my personal agenda:
  • Wilson 

One more thing: Yea for Tom Brady! That is the right call. Go Pats!!
 

Image result for patriots



Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Hello!!

Happy Summer!! We made it!! I can't believe it!! I hope you are enjoying it and not working too hard. 

The big news on this front is that I am now officially certified in Wilson. I didn't think I'd actually make it through. I even asked my instructor about dropping out. She basically said no--and good thing! Perseverance really does pay off. If you get the chance, I highly recommend taking it. I learned so much about the structure of our language. It really is worth it. I felt that I never had a strong foundation in how to teach phonics and this of course was the answer. 



If any of you are going to go through the Level 1 certification, or if you are thinking about it, please feel free to ask me any questions. I will be glad to help.




Saturday, June 6, 2015


Oh my gosh! Where does the time go? I have so much I want to post and so little time! I hope to get my act together this summer, but I am teaching summer school, so who knows! Ha!

I did attend a conference with Irene Fountas as one of the keynote speakers. She was amazing. She was so inspirational and had a lot of good advice about how we think about and teach literacy. Some of the big take-aways for me were:


  • a SHARED ownership for each student (in other words: Johnny isn't just the classroom teacher's responsibility or the special educator's responsibility, rather he is everyone's responsibility)
  • remembering to make literacy a joyful experience for students
  • services need to be cohesive 
  • evaluate the effects of what we are doing
  • the expertise of the teacher is crucial: she needs to make good teaching decisions while teaching
  • let's get away from the term best practices and think about effective practices, because who is to say what is a best practice when considering individuals
  • and my favorite: support students in how to be literate in life 
If you can, check out the book: The Continuum of Literacy Learning Grades PreK-8 A Guide to Teaching by Gay Sue Pinnell and Irene Fountas; and think about attending the Literacy for All conference in November in Providence, RI.


If you are on summer vacation, I am jealous!! Ha!! Seriously, though, may you enjoy every second!!

Don't forget to come back soon to the blog. It is definitely a work in progress!



Saturday, April 18, 2015


I attended The Blueprint for Educational Excellence National Institute yesterday and it was really good. We listened to an excellent presentation from Bruce Taylor on the Common Core. He was very engaging! He showed us that the CC is not that complicated even though there are thousands of pages of information. Basically, it comes back to good teaching. If we are focusing on what we need to teach since the students only spend 16% of their time in the classroom, they will be able to meet the standards and pass the state tests. There are about 13 terms the CC uses throughout the standards. If we focus on these, then students will do well. And, not only will they do well on the testing, they will do well in life!

Most of the CC is based on tasks like analyzing, summarizing, inferring, evaluating, identifying, supporting. Add in things like describe, compare and contrast, determine the main idea and you have the basis of the whole Common Core. Moreover, these skills are needed for everyday life. Do we analyze the problem with our car, or at least have a mechanic do so? Do we summarize the movie for our friends who haven't seen it yet? Do we evaluate our bank accounts? The problem is that most students don't really know what these terms mean in the context of the task. Many students believed that explicit meant adult content. They aren't totally wrong! It just obviously doesn't mean that when they have to answer a question about something they have read and are asked to support their answer with explicit facts/information/examples from the text. 

We can embed the teaching of these terms and skills in our practice and not even need to have "test prep" as a separate subject. Moreover, Mr. Taylor believes we should be working on these across the curriculum and not just in ELA and Math. Students don't transfer their knowledge of these tasks to other areas, which is too bad because they are asked to do these all the time. If we can help them do that, they will rock!

I believe we can start this even in the primary grades. I have my first graders go back to the book to find the facts/information we will use when we do our comprehension work and our responding to reading. It isn't something they do independently yet, but they will get there. I also find that if I use the terms and then tell them what they mean in ways that they can understand this helps. Exposing them to that academic language is important. Don't forget to mention why they are doing something. Knowing the purpose and knowing that they can use this skill with anyone and in real life is empowering. 

Check out some more tips I picked up from the conference in the reading section of the blog. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Oh and happy April vacation if you are on it, like we are. Phew! I never thought it would come, and after our winter, it is so appreciated!! :)

Monday, March 9, 2015



First, let me say welcome to my blog! Thank you for visiting. My goal with this blog is to help teachers with their literacy instruction. I hope that you find something interesting and useful. After 16 years of teaching, I have learned that we really are all in this together. It truly does take a village! So, may you enjoy browsing through the site and may you come back often, as I am learning the technology side of things. :) Happy hunting!