Here’s what students had to say about the literature circles in their classrooms: “I get to ask more questions and learn more by talking about the books with my friends. We help each other with new words, reading them and understanding them.” “During book clubs we talk to people and they can help you figure out questions or words. Book …
Philadelphia, April 25, 2017 Children’s Literacy Initiative (CLI), a 501(c)(3) headquartered in Philadelphia, that works with teachers locally and nationally to get more children reading proficiently by 3rd grade, received a generous donation from Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc., a leading global provider of technology-enabled risk and benefits solutions. Sedgwick’s Jonathan Mast, Director of Social Media, and Tracy Mock, Vice …
March is National Women’s History Month. What better way to celebrate the legacy of female resilience, ingenuity, and limitless possibilities than with rich, diverse, picture books? A good book has the power to shift our thinking and challenge preconceived notions. Intentional Read Alouds provide the opportunity for students to think about and discuss great books while exploring big ideas, themes, …
Stories of the journeys taken by refugees touch all of our lives. Perhaps we have neighbors, friends, or family who are refugees. Perhaps we have read about the global crisis in the news. Perhaps refugee children are new to our schools. The moment a newcomer walks into a classroom, the journey that student took to reach that doorway becomes a …
The first, and highly successful lesson study cycle at Grissom Elementary (Houston Independent School District) inspired its kindergarten through 3rd grade teachers to collaborate within their grade level teams, and across languages of instruction. The process of planning an Intentional Read Aloud (IRA) lesson together, and watching a colleague teach that lesson, allowed the teachers to develop effective practices they …
Turn and Talk, in which children are partnered up to take turns listening and speaking with one another, is a common classroom practice with many benefits. It allows all children to share their thinking with one another, it helps children develop their oral language skills and the pragmatics, or social conventions, of discourse. Turn and Talk also provides teachers with …
As teachers of young children, we all have encountered learning scenarios in which a child makes up a word. How do we effectively handle these teachable moments? We need to find a way to validate the child’s offering, without muddling the difference between words that are real and words that are not real in their impressionable minds. We may be …
Lesson study is a valuable tool for schools as they continue to look for ways to improve teaching and learning. Lesson study is a form of long-term professional development in which teams of teachers collaboratively plan, research, and study their lesson instruction as a way to determine how students learn best. Teachers focus on understanding the content of the lesson, …
Last week, in a major event on innovation, the president said: “We’ve applied data and evidence to social policy, to find out what works, to scale up when it works – and stop funding things that don’t, thereby fostering a new era of social innovation.” Built into the DNA of My Brother’s Keeper is finding and scaling what works best …
Imagine this, an unexpected visitor peeks into your classroom. What words do you want the visitor to use when describing how your classroom looks and feels? How do you want your students to describe their classroom to that visitor? Safe? Hard working? Joyful? Welcoming? Supportive? Collaborative? Empowering? When we first take the time to consider how we want our classroom …