When students tackle fact-rich texts, teachers may need to shift into focused instruction mode, modeling the strategic processing nonfiction readers use to make sense of new information. Cummins and Webb share a teacher-student partnership scenario.
Anne Anderson has added read-alouds and other picture books to her calendar celebrations – an engaging collection of odd information, birthdays of the famous and not-so-famous, and lesser-known holidays. See the Fantastic Flying Books and other top picks for December, January and February!
Discovery Engineering in Biology offers 20 thoughtful case studies, each centering around a different scientific phenomenon or discovery followed by additional activities with an engineering challenge closing out the lesson. A real winner for MS science teacher Ilana Cyna.
Close Reading the Media / Evaluating Media
by Frank Baker · Published 11/14/2021 · Last modified 11/17/2021
Students are constant targets of advertisers and influencers, writes author–consultant Frank Baker. Introduce kids to seven key media literacy questions that can boost their critical thinking skills and get them in the habit of always asking “What’s really going on?”
Kathie Palmieri likes the free teacher-owned Flippity site, offering engaging teaching tools in all subject areas. She shows how to easily create multimedia flashcards, involve classes in randomly choosing partners, and make interactive spelling lists tailored to students.
If you’re looking for a way to engage your students in deep mathematical thinking as soon as they walk into class, give math warm-ups a try. Middle grades teacher Mona Iehl lays out the elements of eye-catching warm-ups and how to make them work for your kids.
Throughout the gradual release of responsibility we want students to be in control of their learning. Each phase is a partnership, with teacher as facilitator and student as agent. Cummins and Webb show how this works to produce an instructional journey with maximum benefit.
After making a strong case for small group instruction during the writing process, Jennifer Serravallo shares how to implement and develop six types. Teacher Jennifer Wirtz loves the access to videos of groups in action and the printables for students. Highly recommended.
Students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE) benefit when teachers consider how SLIFEs have learned previously – most often informally in their family culture. Tan Huynh shares ways educators can blend a formal literacy focus with the relational learning they’re used to.
In classes like social studies and science, students are expected to do complex nonfiction reading. How can we ensure they’ll process and retain the content for future use? History/ELA teacher Megan Kelly shares fun activities to help kids think more deeply about information text.
