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 …
Lesson Study Inspires Teachers
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 …
6 Easy Ways to Improve Turn & Talk for Student Language Development
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 …
How to Validate “Silly” Words with No Nonsense
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 Improves Instruction & Builds Collaborative School Culture
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, …
Children’s Literacy Initiative Participates in My Brother’s Keeper’s, What Works Showcase
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 …
Building Positive Classroom Culture
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 …
Partners in Literacy: JuneFrances Anderson
A teacher since 2001, JuneFrances Anderson is a literacy teacher and coach at Oakland Elementary in Denver. JuneFrances discusses coaching and training, and how book collections are benefiting her classroom. What were your initial expectations about CLI? I really didn’t know a lot about CLI when I started here at Oakland this year. How do you feel about CLI …
Partners in Literacy: Glenda Smiley
Throughout Glenda Smiley’s 15-year career as a teacher in New Jersey, she has taught pre-K to 3rd grade and 5th grade. Glenda also has had the unique opportunity of looping with her students (following them to the next grade) twice in her career. A 2nd grade teacher last year, Glenda followed most of her students to 3rd grade for …
Creating a Successful Word Wall
The Word Wall is the place in your classroom where high-frequency words are housed after you have taught them (other important words such as vocabulary or theme words should be posted elsewhere). The Word Wall serves as a visual reminder and reference tool for your students that they can use whenever they read or write. A Word Wall makes it …