Leading Learning for ELL Students is a helpful resource for all school and district leaders looking to evaluate and strengthen their EL services. ESOL educator Jordan Walker-Reyes explains how EL teachers can also use the book to improve their programs.
An English learner’s developing language skills can easily be misdiagnosed as a learning disorder. As a first step, make sure Els are receiving high-quality instruction. Tan Huynh suggests ways to detect EL processing issues and strategies to support dually-identified ELs.
Mary Tedrow shows how to cultivate students’ individual relationships with writing using a low stakes approach called a Daybook – a safe, authentic space for students to write and think that can feed into other disciplines and writing genres. Ariel Sacks calls it her “new top resource.”
It’s amazing to think – with all the digital tools we have at our disposal – that genuine communication is more difficult today than ever before. Yet that’s our reality, says middle grades teacher Jeremy Hyler, at school and at home, with students, parents and colleagues.
Math teacher Robert Kaplinsky wanted his students debating about the best way to solve a problem, using strategic thinking and not just the formula. He also wanted to know when students had misconceptions so he could reshape his lessons. His solution? Open Middle Math.
Understanding concept words like ‘innovative’ can help students to make sense of complex sources. Britany Harris and Sunday Cummins share a four-step process to introduce a few new vocabulary words before reading an information text and then focus on them as kids read, talk and write.
Are students who increasingly communicate through bits of digital text missing the chance to develop live conversation skills? In her middle grades classroom, Nancy Costanzo has crafted strategies to help kids both deepen their understanding and become skilled conversationalists.
I Will Screw This Up / YA Reviews
by Dina Strasser · Published 02/19/2020 · Last modified 09/03/2020
Acknowledging that as a white woman of privilege she cannot fully experience the depth of meaning in Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone, ELA teacher Dina Strasser shares four takeaways from her limited perspective as an educator and lover of speculative Young Adult fiction.
As we move into the 2020 presidential election, questioning what we read and hear is paramount. In the fake news era, are students learning how to verify what they consume? Media literacy expert Frank Baker doesn’t think so and says it’s up to educators to teach them.
Future of History / Writing in Social Studies
by Sarah Cooper · Published 02/10/2020 · Last modified 03/23/2020
Writing a letter to a politician is about as “civic” an assignment as we can do within our classroom walls, and it feels so relevant in our polarized political climate. After 3 years of tweaking her project, teacher Sarah Cooper shares tips to boost the response rate.
