and living life one day- and book- at a time
A few days ago I made the comment that I had managed to read 3 books in one day. That was a record for me because usually I could read one book in a day, but three had to be a record. A former student of mine, who is about to graduate from college with …
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, reading has been on a decline since 2019. This isn’t too hard to understand considering the fact that 2019 and 2020 were pivotal years in education with the onset of Covid. Education was highly disrupted, and even though things have gone back to normal in the education …
In my classroom, the switch to discontinue lecture and teaching specific texts for teaching reading skills. Prior to this year, I had taught through lecture, and while I was secondary certified, I was comfortable with teaching certain pieces of literature. I thought that was what ELA was all about. I could use specific pieces of …
I realized recently that there is a huge discrepancy between when I first taught this unit and now. The discrepancy is that my students then could read, and if they couldn’t, they sure had me fooled. As I stood at the front of the classroom with my copy of the article in my hand and …
This week I started teaching my anti-bullying unit. It’s one that I developed after going to a professional development, and because it is mine- and a topic that is close to my heart- I love teaching this unit. I wanted to find a way to incorporate our informational text in with a novel study, and …
My Anti-Bullying Thematic Unit is now available on Teacher-Pay-Teachers. I will be starting this unit with my kiddos in 2 weeks. Follow along as I show you how I adapt this unit for all of my student needs from Honors to my struggling readers.
Twice this past week I have seen (and sent to myself to reread) articles regarding the use of balanced literacy or the science of reading in teaching students to read. As an ELA teacher with students who struggle to read and a grandmother of a Kindergartener who is struggling to read, I can sympathize with …
One of my most favorite activities to do with my students is to create book trailers. It allows them to give a summary of a book in a visual format that also gives them the opportunity to utilize their creativity. There are several ways that students can create their book trailers. One is to use …
We started our poetry unit this past week, and by Thursday I was feeling about as “Blah” about poetry as my students. I hadn’t yet broached my favorite poems as I was using one larger poem in each of my grade levels to teach some of the basic poetry terms, so my enthusiasm was really …
As soon as I heard Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb,” I knew right away that I wanted to purchase a copy of her book. I pre-ordered the book in January 2021, and I have been waiting a long time for it to arrive. I was pleasantly surprised when her book, Call Us What …