Data can be scary but it doesn’t have to be. As a researcher, we are concerned with things like validity, reliability, sample size, and statistical significance among other things, but data needs to be valuable to those who are using it in practice. Data may present frightening findings, but it can be helpful in facilitating discussions on improving practice and student …
Here are the facts: people of color make up 37% of the U.S. population, but only 10% of children’s books published in the past 21 years include multicultural content. That is a disconcerting gap. We know that children benefit from seeing people like themselves in the books they read, which means that for an organization working in urban schools, CLI’s collections …
This article is the first of an ongoing series entitled From the Field. Short, inspiring and heart-warming classroom anecdotes contributed by our professional developers as they work in classrooms across the country. Names of teachers and students have been changed. In the beginning of the school year, little Julie was a new kindergartner in Ms. Smith’s classroom. Julie was always …
It’s a beautiful late August day, and my family is heading down the shore for what is likely to be our last day trip of summer. As we drive the familiar roads, we approach the small roadside fruit stand that today displays a standing sign boasting Homemade PIES. I can hear my girls begin their plotting in the back. A …
For every teacher, a new school year is often accompanied by new goals: to build a positive classroom culture, to introduce new skills and concepts to your class, and to increase student achievement or test scores, to just name a few. With so many pressing goals to juggle, it can be easy to let other important goals fall behind… such …
This article is part 1 of 2, in the next article explore the advantages and disadvantages through the lens of students and teachers. All education stakeholders want a return on investment, but the methods used to measure successful learning vary widely. Student assessments are not always streamlined across schools or even classrooms due to a myriad of challenges, which can include …
The first few years of a child’s life are critical; a child’s brain grows to 90% of its adult size by age five, and from 3 to 4 years of age, children show rapid growth in literacy. Preschool has been shown to give children a head start in their development; children in preschool have vocabulary scores that are 31% higher than children who do not attend.
Gone are the days of having students locate and copy the dictionary definitions from long lists of assigned vocabulary words. To foster a love for learning and acquiring new words, instruction must be authentic, engaging, and relevant to students’ lives (Beck & McKeown, 2013).
“Data driven instruction…” is something we have been hearing for a long time. But what does that really mean in the everyday life of a teacher and his/her classroom? In this age of testing, it is often difficult to keep the notion of using data to make decisions about what is being taught.
Tired of the same old routines for small group guided reading instruction? Look no further! Let’s explore a hands-on activity to motivate and engage your young readers. We all recognize that guided reading provides teachers with an opportunity for showing children how to read and for supporting them while they are reading (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996).