ESL instructor Dara MacKay has some great tips on differentiating using literature circles in this short article I found on the ESL Literacy Network. She provides not only a rationale for use of lit circles, but offers a step-by-step plan for incorporating them into [read more…]

You all know how much I love active learning, especially in the early grades. Therefore, I was delighted to see this post about building a “word hop” in the hallway for kindergartners. Teacher Marsha illustrates not only how to create your own hop, but gives advice on which materials to purchase. She also shows examples of the words she uses in her [read more…]

I am back from a long spring vacation and ready to give you a little boost to get you through the rest of the school year. My May ideas are going to be focused on literacy and I am going to kick off the series with this short and to-the-point post from two professors with expertise on the topic of teaching to diverse learners. The piece can be found on [read more…]

The Story Starter is a great resource for writing prompts. When you see a child who is having a hard time getting started on a writing assignment, you can connect to this site and generate a random prompt. You may also want to print some out and keep them in a box on your desk so students can access them easily.

Of course you can also give your students the option of either thinking of their own story or using one of the generated prompts. Once they see some of the fun choices, however, don’t be surprised if most want to pick off the site. Who can resist prompts such as “The retired handwriting expert wrote a story in the vault to wake up the President” or [read more…]

Do you have students who love games? Some who need to hear cues vs. see them? Others who like repetition? Have them all practice at Spelling City! Here they start out by entering their new spelling words into the site. Then, they choose from a variety of spelling activities such as finding the missing letter in a word, alphabetizing words, or practicing writing sentences with their words. Learners can even [read more…]

Not every lesson involving student writing needs to be an old-fashioned narrative.  Using the unique tool at Fodey, students can create their very own newspaper “clipping”.  

With this tool, everyday classroom topics can be treated as news events to be covered by your newly hired student reporter staff. Let creativity run wild to include both the important lesson facts and any embellishments that students want to add to give the story more interest. Learners can select from different [read more…]