LTL Podcast Episode 38: Planning Globally: Ideas to Strengthen Writing Instruction with Andrea Haas

Today’s podcast episode is all about writing! I am joined by Andrea Haas, a literacy consultant who supports teachers with instruction (you can learn about her work here). In our conversation, Andrea shares ideas for thinking globally when planning writing instruction. She gives advice about connecting writing to the other content areas: reading, social studies, and science.

We also spend time discussing a process approach to writing and when prompts are appropriate to give students. She explains how setting kids up for a writing unit is most supportive and then enables you to move into the writing instruction and move through the process at a pace that will keep the kids engaged, but also move the unit along so that kids do not get bored with the unit or genre.

We end by discussing small group instruction, and Andrea has an idea that can give kids extra support when needed.

I’d love it if you would check out this episode – and hopefully you find some ideas to include into your writing instruction.

The Power of Writing Formats

This semester, I am teaching a writing methods class. The students are learning different methods to get kids writing authentic pieces as well as design writing work that connects to other content areas. The topic of prior knowledge and background knowledge has been coming up quite frequently during class sessions. I am often asked how to help support kids’ background knowledge when teaching specific content. I decided to plan a writing activity that the students could complete that connected learning about kids’ prior knowledge and writing.

I split the class into four groups and gave each group the book Winter is Here by Kevin Henkes. The students I work with are currently teaching – so this activity was designed for them, but the goal was to give them ideas that they can use in their own teaching. They were asked to read the book – paying very close attention to the format of the writing. I asked them to finish reading the book with ideas about the format of the book. I also asked them to pay careful attention to the illustrations in the book because there are many details in the illustrations that connect to the text.

Each group noticed the format right away. The book begins with the sentence “Winter is here. It’s everywhere.” Then, there are descriptions of winter separated by the word and. For example, It’s falling from the sky and sitting on the houses and dripping from the roofs…” The book shows how winter stays for what feels like a long time, but begins to move into a new season – Spring! There was a lot of discussion on the format of the book and how it was very easy to visualize the words in the book – and learn content vocabulary associated with the season of winter!

The students were then asked to write their own book about spring using the opening sentences, “Spring is here. It’s everywhere.” I then gave them a graphic organizer with six boxes that they needed to fill with writing associated with spring. It was interesting to see how the students approached this writing work. Some groups started with a list of words connected to spring. Some of the words included: allergies, pollen, birds, fresh air, sunshine, outdoors, bugs, bees, blue sky, clouds. As a group, they were able to generate terminology associated with springtime. They then used the format from Winter is Here to craft their own sentences.

At the beginning of the lesson, the students did not think that they would be able to write a story in six boxes, but what happened is that most groups went past the six boxes! When I asked them to think about the writing and why they were able to complete the writing so efficiently and without many questions for me – they responded that they were able to use the format from the book and did not need to think about how to structure their writing. They also liked being able to use and multiple times in a sentence – something that they were not encouraged to do during high school and college in more formal writing. Some of the students shared that they could focus on what they knew about spring and wanted to share in their writing because they were not concerned with the formatting of the piece.

I asked each group to read their piece to the class. While there were similarities in the writing pieces, there were also many differences. The students noted how each group connected to what they knew about and liked about spring when writing their pieces. This showed how we can access students’ prior knowledge through more informal and collaborative writing tasks.

Sidenote: Kevin Henkes has books about spring, summer, and fall that are all great for getting kids writing. The book titles include: When Spring Comes, Summer Song, and In the Middle of Fall.

LTL Podcast Episode 37 - On The Job Market – Crafting Strong Resumes and Cover Letters

It’s that time of year again! It’s the time of the year when districts and schools begin to post jobs for the following academic school year. This week’s episode is designed to help you think about what to include in your resume and cover letters – and what not to include!        

You want to make a good first impression and both your resume and cover letter will help you do just that. In today’s episode, I talk about the goal of your resume and what areas to include as well as what to consider when working on the formatting and presentation. An area that I spend time discussing is the other experiences outside of teaching and whether or not they should be included on your resume. The answer is – it depends!

When talking about writing cover letters, I discuss the purpose of the cover letter as well as making changes for the specific jobs and schools where you are applying. I give some tips to keep in mind when writing cover letters as well.

The episode ends with a spotlight on a book that I recently reread, Reading Magic by Mem Fox. It’s a great resource for supporting kids with reading at home. Even though it was published a while ago, there are still many relevant tips.

Finally, if you are looking for a teaching position and need support with interviewing, check out an episode from last year.

What Happened at Clinic This Week!

It’s the end of another month and what a treat – we get an extra day! While I am not doing anything too exciting this year, I do love having the extra day and time. It’s fun to hear about what some people plan to do for the leap day. One of my students told me that she was invited to a wedding today! My whole class thought that was a very fun plan for a leap year!

Anyways, after the February break, we were back with the Literacy Clinic this week. There was a common theme in my students’ literacy lessons. They were connecting to the children’s prior knowledge and this required a lot of conversation and discussion – which was great to see in action. Background knowledge is so important because the more we know about something, the better we can understand what we are reading.

So, what’s the difference between prior knowledge and background knowledge?

Prior knowledge is the knowledge that children come to school with and it comes from all of their experiences. All children come to school with prior knowledge. As teachers, we try to learn about their prior knowledge so that we can help students connect it to the texts that they are reading. When readers apply their prior knowledge to what they are reading, it becomes background knowledge. Therefore, when readers begin a text that they do not have the knowledge necessary to understand the text, teachers (and, parents!) can provide support by sharing information, facts, or ideas that can help with their prior knowledge.

I saw this in action last night. One of my students is working with a second grader and they were reading a book where the main character was getting into some trouble for causing mischief at home. In order to support her understanding of the text, my student was asking questions about any mischief this second grader has ever seen caused or caused herself and what the consequences were for that behavior. She was able to share a story about her cousin coming into the house with very muddy shoes and dragging dirt around the house. Teaching the student to stop and think about her own experiences helped her understand the text and the character better.

Another student of mine is working with a middle school student who does not like to write and has shared that he has trouble sitting down to write. He can only write a few sentences because he does not know what to write about. After speaking with her about how to support this writer, she decided to tap into his prior experiences with sports and is planning a writing unit where he can research and write about a professional athlete. She is planning lessons on how his prior knowledge about the sport and athlete can support him as he is writing.

After observing the kids last night, I’m not sure how much they realize and understand that they are bringing their knowledge, experiences, and interests with them when they are reading and writing. This is something that I am working on with my students and they will then work on with their students!

What Happened During Clinic This Week!

Learning about students with an All About Me game!

It’s the spring semester, which means that the Literacy Clinic is in session! Each spring semester, the students in the Literacy Education Program at Old Westbury work with students in grades pre-k through twelve in the college library and prepare reading and writing instruction to support the kids who they are teaching. This is the culminating semester of their graduate program.

This past Monday was the first session of the Literacy Clinic for this semester. The graduate students met the students they are working with as well as met the families. At the beginning of the semester, it is important to learn about the students and for the students to learn about the teacher. This is a way to build trust between the teacher and student as well as build a community of learning – where students feel safe and supported to take risks and try out new skills and strategies.

Creating a supportive and trusting classroom community is a topic that I emphasize in each of my classes. I dedicated an entire podcast episode to this topic as well – it’s that important! Before the semester, I met with the graduate students and emphasized the importance of creating activities that would allow them to learn about their students as individuals as well as readers and writers. They did a fantastic job – and after working with the kids, they discussed how important it was to learn about the kids.

One student created an All About Me Game for her fifth grade students. It was similar to Monopoly – where the students had to roll dice and when they landed on a spot, they had to answer the question. This generated a lot of discussion in this group! The kids shared about their favorite activities and learned about their teacher’s favorite things as well (she played the game, too!).

I have another student who is an amazing artist and she created a visual of a person for her student to color in and then answer questions about himself. She learned about his hobbies and interests as well as his family and favorite foods. She made a model to show the student what they would be doing – but also to introduce herself to him. It was a great activity and the student was super impressed with her drawing ability!

The graduate students used books as a starting place to learn about their students and then planned activities that connected to the books. They really did a great job connecting reading to writing and modeling how the two go together and how we can use them both in our daily lives. In her book Into Writing, Megan Sloan emphasizes the importance of connecting reading and writing at the beginning of the school year when working with students because it allows you to introduce literature to students but you also learn more about the student through their own writing.

Three Big Lessons I Learned This Fall

The pink ribbon from my final chemotherapy treatment.

As teachers, we are trained to reflect on our practice. When I was student teaching, my cooperating teacher and my supervisor would ask me to consider what went well and what changes I would make in future lessons during my post-observation meeting. It became second nature to think about what I had learned after teaching because reflection is how we improve. Well, this past weekend, I spent time reflecting on a personal experience I have been through this fall – thinking about what I have learned from the whole situation.

In July 2023, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Since receiving the diagnosis, I have had surgery, gone through four weeks of daily radiation, and received chemotherapy treatment. It’s been a long journey, and I am very happy to be on this end of it. Last Thursday was my final chemotherapy treatment, when I was able to cut the pink ribbon and take it with me as a reminder (see photo above!).

At the end of the fall semester, a few students asked me a very astute question. They asked what the biggest lesson I had learned was from being diagnosed with breast cancer and going through treatment. So, here are the five lessons I have learned:

Daily Routines are Important

I love routines! I thrive off of a schedule and enjoy sticking to the plan that I set out for myself. Each morning, I wake up before my daughters and my husband and exercise. This daily routine kept me going all through the fall. It became a mission not to miss a day of exercise once I was cleared after surgery – and, I didn’t! Each day I set a schedule for when I would work and what I would work on – even during radiation and chemotherapy. This was such a tremendous help because I knew what I would be doing during the day. I knew that radiation would be intense because it was daily and was going to take a significant amount of my day (which it did), but I set-up a routine that would allow me to get a certain amount of work done – and it did get done. I was able to just execute the routine and keep going.

Part of my daily routine included taking time to rest. This was important because for the treatment to work, I would need to rest and take care of myself. This has become an important component of my daily routine now, too.

Community Really Matters

In education, we discuss the importance of the classroom community. We talk about establishing a community so that the students feel comfortable and ready to learn. Well, this one is really true and important. Community matters!

The literacy community at SUNY Old Westbury was amazing! I am so fortunate to work with wonderful students who help one another and were a huge help to me. They showed up for class ready to go and asked inquisitive questions. They also asked me about how I was feeling and always offered to help me in any ways necessary.

The community in the town where I live has also been amazing. I have been so fortunate to have people check-in on me and my family. This has led to friendships that will last far beyond my treatment. It has been a great example for my kids about how we support others in life.

Spend Your Time Doing Things That are Important to You

I have always loved thinking about time and reading time management books. The biggest lesson I learned is that time marches on regardless of what is going on in life. Time just keeps moving forward. After speaking with my team of doctors, I decided to continue teaching and really tried to keep my daily life as normal as possible. I am glad that I made this decision because it would have been hard to only focus on cancer for seven months.

While it was a difficult time, really good things happened during the past seven months and I am happy that I did not miss out on them. I told my students on our last class that time marches on so do not wait to do the things that you want to do in your life. The decks will never be cleared and there will always be something to deal with in life – so make sure you take the time to do the things that are meaningful to you!

LTL Podcast Episode 33: Libraries and the Communities that They Serve: A Conversation with ALA President Emily Drabinski

Happy New Year! This is the first episode in 2024 and it’s a fun one! In today’s episode, I am speaking with Emily Drabinski, who is the current President of the American Library Association. The American Library Association is hosting an event this month – LibLearnX in Baltimore, and Emily is here to talk about what to expect at this event.

She talks about the different sessions and the authors who will be speaking at LibLearnX – spoiler alert! Kate DiCamillo is one of the authors who will be speaking! There are many great interactive sessions being held at the conference, so check them out! Emily talks about the different options to attend. There is an in-person option as well as a digital option.

One of my favorite parts about this conversation is hearing about how invested libraries are in the communities that they serve. Emily has been traveling around the country and visiting libraries and librarians. She shares some of the unique services that libraries provide – and they do not include books. She also gives an update on what is happening with book banning in the U.S. and some of the wins that have happened recently.

Check out this episode! It’s truly a fun conversation that has many great take-aways!

Spring 2024 Semester Goals

Happy 2024! I love that 2024 started on a Monday – it was a new year, a new month, and a new week all at the same time. I believe the next time that this will happen is in 2029!

I hope your year is off to a great start and you are starting to get back into the routine from the break. It was a hard transition back to school and work routines. Since I am starting to approach the spring semester, I put together some goals that I have for my teaching. This spring, I am teaching and running the Literacy Clinic – which is a practicum class for the graduate students. My students, who are earning their Master’s Degrees and Literacy Certifications, need to complete a certain number of hours where they work with students who are in Pre-K through Grade 12. The Literacy Clinic gives them the opportunity to complete those hours. I supervise the Literacy Clinic – coaching the graduate students as they work with the kids and making sure everything is running properly. The other class I am teaching is a writing methods class. I love teaching both of these classes and really want to make the most of them for my students and for me. So here are some goals I put together. As you can see, I do not have tons of goals, that’s because I want to be sure to accomplish them – so I decided on a few to make sure I complete them.  

Build Community

This is a big goal for me this year. This fall (more coming on this later this month), I had an experience where I had to rely on my community for support. Community is huge – in life and in the classroom. I want to make sure that I am building a community in my classes where the students can feel comfortable taking risks in their work and their teaching and feel that their peers and I will support them. Many of my former students contact each other for lesson ideas and support when they are going on job interviews – so making sure that the students have a connection to each other is a goal as well. How am I going to do this? I believe that you have to know one another in order to build a community – so building in moments and teaching opportunities for the students to share about themselves and their classrooms will help accomplish this goal. Graduate students tend to sit with the same group of students – so mixing up the groupings and getting the students to talk is something else that I can do. Conversation starters at the beginning of class is one activity that I will try, particularly at the beginning of the semester.

Celebrate Fun Moments and Minor Holidays

As an elementary school teacher, I was great at celebrating minor holidays. For example, when I taught fifth grade, I had fun with the students on Groundhog Day – something they said they had not done since first grade. It did not take a lot of time, but had a huge payoff and is something that they remembered after they left my classroom. I want to do the same thing in my teaching with graduate students. This year is a leap year – so, I’m already planning something fun to celebrate this minor holiday.

The spring semester is also a time when the students are looking for jobs and interviewing – so I plan to celebrate these moments with them as well. When I was working towards my doctorate, one of my professors was really adamant about celebrating every milestone that we hit in life – she said it’s easy to just move past these moments – and she is right. I want to make sure to celebrate these times with my students.

Bring in Lots of Different Texts

I’m running the Literacy Clinic this semester and I’m hearing from parents that their kids want to read books that they will enjoy. In the recent interviews that I have had with other educators and authors, each of them has discussed the power of choice in supporting students with their reading and in getting kids reading. Jennifer McCarty Plucker, who I spoke with in a December podcast, spoke about how she spent time exposing high school students to many different types of books so that they could learn what they enjoyed reading and see themselves as readers. My goal is to bring in many different texts this semester so that my students see their role in helping students find books that they want to read. This may mean moving beyond what they have been reading and finding new books for their students.

Give Feedback That Will Move Teaching Forward

I provide feedback on my students’ work, but I want to be mindful of the type of feedback I am giving. Last semester, I was teaching a theory class – so my feedback was on supporting and strengthening their writing. This spring, I am teaching methods classes – classes to support them as teachers, so my feedback should be aimed at moving their teaching forward and helping them become stronger reading and writing teachers. Therefore, when I am giving feedback – this will be my focus when looking at their work.

If you have goals for your teaching this spring, what are they? Feel free to send me an email and let me know what you are working on! I will check-in and review these to see how I am doing at the end of February!

LTL Episode 32: Reflecting on Our Literacy Teaching

It’s hard to believe that it’s the end of 2023! I do not do my yearly planning for a January start. Instead, I plan my years on the academic calendar – beginning in September. I do find this time of the year to be a great time for reflection though. This episode is all about reflecting on your literacy teaching and setting an actionable plan to make small changes to your teaching to support your students.

In this episode, I walk through a guided reflection focusing aimed at literacy instruction. I identified the following areas: Reading Instruction, Books, Writing, Speaking, and Listening. For each of these areas, I pose questions to consider. At the end, I suggest identifying 1-3 things that you want to modify or tweak for the new year. It’s not necessary to overhaul everything – just making a few changes can often help a lot.

I did this activity with both of my classes this semester and I was amazed to hear what they were planning on changing – and everyone felt it was doable! I hope this guided reflection is helpful for you as you head into 2024!

Thank you all for listening. Please give this episode a listen. I hope you all have a very happy and healthy start to 2024!

LTL Episode 31: Talking About Graphic Novels with Author and Illustrator Stephen Shaskan

Graphic novels are incredibly popular with many kids today. So, I really wanted to talk about this genre with someone who writes and illustrates graphic novels. And, luckily Stephen Shaskan, who is the author and illustrator of the Pizza and Taco book series is on today’s podcast to talk about graphic novels as well as his work. This episode was such a treat! Stephen shares about his work and how he got the idea for the Pizza and Taco series – this is one of my favorite parts of our conversation! Comic books were very important part of Stephen’s reading and he talks about how finding books that kids love and want to read is a real joy.  

We begin the episode by talking about graphic novels and what this genre includes. He also talks about the work he is doing on creating videos to go along with his books – check out Pizza and Taco on YouTube – lots of fun content! Please give this episode a listen! I also welcome ratings and reviews.

LTL Episode 30: Inspiring Lifelong Readers with Jennifer McCarty Plucker

This week’s podcast episode is a special one! I sat down with Jennifer McCarty Plucker to discuss her new book, Inspiring Lifelong Readers, that just came out. This book is targeted at students who are in middle school and high school, but there are so many aspects of apply to kids at all grade levels. Jennifer has worked to help all students see themselves as readers and she makes it clear that reading is more than only reading novels and traditional books. We all read many texts each day – YouTube videos, rules for games, and social media posts are just a few.  

Jennifer talks about the importance of creating an environment that supports readers. She shared how she kept sharing books with students and surrounding them with books about topics that they would enjoy reading. She also shares how she modified her instruction to an inquiry approach, which helped keep her students interested and engaged in the content and the reading that they were doing. This episode is such a treat and I do hope that you will listen! There are so many helpful tips for teachers at all grade levels and Jennifer, who is also a parent shares some great tips to support children when reading at home.

Here's the link! And, happy listening!  

The Fun of Meeting Authors and Shopping for Books

At the book signing with Jenna Bush Hager

This past Saturday, Jenna Bush Hager was signing copies of her latest book, Love Comes First, which she co-wrote with her sister Barbara Bush. I decided to take my two daughters to the book signing so that they could meet her and get the book signed. We also bought a few other copies and had them signed for some family friends. It was fun and a great experience because my daughters could not believe how many people were at the bookstore to meet Jenna and buy books. After we were finished, we spent some time looking through books in the children’s section and I looked at the novels that were holiday themed. After speaking with Jennifer McCarty Plucker and Stephen Shaskan about supporting kids with reading, this experience was a good reminder about the importance of making the effort to take kids to bookstores, let them meet authors so that they have a face to go with the book, and also talking about books.

On that same note, this week, my kids have the Scholastic Book Fair at their school. The school sent home a brochure with some of the featured books that would be sold. We spent some time looking through the different titles and they each circled the books that they wanted to buy. My older daughter came home yesterday with her books. She selected a few graphic novels as well as other books – including one all about Taylor Swift! My younger daughter will come home from school today with her stack of books.

These are all great opportunities for kids to get excited about books and reading!

LTL Episode 28: How and Why We Teach Reading Strategies to Elementary Students

Today’s episode of the Literacy Teacher’s Life is focused on reading skills and reading strategies. This has been a topic that I have been asked questions about lately, and it is also a topic that I have been reading a lot about since the summer.

The episode begins with definitions of skills and strategies as well as some examples of each. I show how strategies can be taught using the book, The Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña. The order of teaching strategies can be important. I was recently working with a group of third graders who were supposed to be paying attention to character traits while they were reading, but when I looked at their work, they were actually finding character’s feelings. They were not clear about what a character trait was after I asked them what they knew about character traits. For this example, I explain that in order to teach kids to make inferences, they should begin with identifying character feelings and then move to identifying character traits.

The episode ends with a fun story from my reading methods class. I had my students read the book Black and White by David Macaulay. This is a postmodern picture book, so it does not contain the elements of story in the ways as traditional books. The students had to figure out how to read the book and then they really had to focus and think while reading the book. They enjoyed the reading and identified many skills that they used when reading.

I do hope you will listen to this episode!

LTL Podcast Episode 26: The Importance of Read-Alouds with Molly Ness

It is no secret that I love planning and implementing interactive read-alouds with my students. Read-Alouds offer the teacher the opportunity to share books, authors, and genres with students. It also allows teachers to model a fluent reading of a text – and most importantly, it allows us to share the invisible thinking work that we do when reading with students.

On this week’s podcast, I speak with Dr. Molly Ness. Molly is a former classroom teacher, reading researcher, and teacher educator. She was a professor of childhood education at Fordham University. She has a new book out called Read Alouds for All Learners: A Comprehensive Plan for Every Subject, Every Day.

During our conversation, we talk about what a read aloud is and why it is important to plan read-alouds for students – at all grade levels. One of the parts of Molly’s book that I enjoyed so much is that this book includes read-alouds for middle school students (spoiler – Molly explains why she does not include the high school grades in this book). She also gives great strategies for implementing read-alouds with different grade levels – and what to focus on when working with kids at each grade level. Finally, Molly shares some ideas for parents about what they can do when reading to and with their kids at home.

I do hope you will check out this episode!

Attention Parents! Information About Reading with Your Kids

We’re back into the school and fall schedule! School is in full swing and the kids are getting back to activities. I went to back to school night for both my kids last week – I have one daughter in first grade and another in third grade. Both teachers spoke about the importance of reading with your kids at home. This is not new advice, but this year it got me thinking and I have some questions about what parents do when they are reading with their kids at home. For instance – what types of books are you reading with your child? How long do you read with your child at home? When do you read with your child at home?

Parents want to support their children with reading and writing (and, school in general) at home, but are not always sure what is happening at school and often do not want to contradict how the content is being taught in school.

In order to get a better understanding of how parents and their children are reading together, I put together a short survey. I would love it if you would take it – it is completely anonymous and the results will not be shared. Thanks so much for your sharing your reading routines. Happy reading!

LTL Podcast Episode 24: Back to School Mixed Bag Episode

It’s back to school time! My kids just went back to school this week, and I started teaching last week. I love this time of the year – getting back to more structure and new routines. Because it’s back to school season – this is a mixed bag episode. In episode 23, I shared the “I Statement” activity I read about in Katie Cunningham’s book Story: Still the Heart of Literacy Learning. I tried it out with the students in my reading methods class during our first class session and I follow-up on how it went. Spoiler: It went well! I also talk about the decisions I made with using this activity with the students and possible extensions into the content areas.

I have been asked quite a bit about the stories to read to children. My short answer – any story that can form connections between yourself and your students or between the students in the classroom. I share some examples of what stories did for my former fifth grade students as well as for my older daughter.

Finally, I talk about how September is more like the new year for me than January – because I’m on the academic schedule. The summer is much more laid back for me, and September really marks the time when structure and new routines are in place. I set some professional and personal goals that I share at the end of the episode.

I hope you will have a listen to this episode!

Planning Engaging Interactive Read-Alouds

It’s back to the new school year! One teaching practice that many student teachers teach right away and many teachers start the year off with is the interactive read-aloud. An interactive read-aloud is not just reading a book aloud to the students. Instead, it is a teaching practice that makes the reading work visible to students and allows students to think about the book that is being read. The teacher reads a book aloud to the students, but rather than reading it from the beginning to the end, the teacher stops and thinks aloud, modeling how she is thinking about the book. In addition to thinking about the book, the teacher will include interactions in the read-aloud, which allows the students to work on their own or with a partner to think through what is happening in the text.

Reading aloud to students is an important time of the school day in elementary school. When we are reading aloud to our students, we are doing things during this time that can’t be accomplished in a conversation. For example, we are giving students access to new books and authors and stories, we are building their background knowledge, we are teaching them to read for enjoyment, we are using words and language that we might now otherwise use, and we are modeling how we read. To have read-alouds be a successful practice, you need to plan. It takes planning in order to do this work well.  

Choices of Books Matter

Read-alouds take planning. This means planning the books that you will read to your students. For example, at the beginning of the school year, I look for books about identity and community, so that I can learn about who my students are and what their interests are outside of school. I am also trying to build a community in the classroom so that the students will be able to work together over the course of the school year. It takes time to select books that are engaging and will allow the students to think about, connect with, and respond to the texts. I suggest being mindful of the books that you are selecting. You want to use the time efficiently, which means that you need strong books. There are so many resources now – Amazon Books sends out emails with the latest books for kids, so does Barnes and Noble. The American Library Association has wonderful book lists available that I like to check out (side note: here’s a podcast episode with the president of the American Library Association).  

How Your Read Matters

My husband always tells me that I read to our daughters differently than he does. I want to keep my kids engaged while I am reading, so I change the tone and inflection of my voice while I am reading to my kids. I also did this when I was teaching. I want to keep students (and my daughters) excited about reading the book – so I make sure that my tone is engaging rather than flat. I try to add in an element of suspense to my voice when it is necessary as well. This work takes planning because you will need to read through the book and make decisions about how you plan to read certain parts. Another tip: make sure to read the punctuation. For example, when reading Mo Willems’ Pigeon books, he often uses bolded text and exclamation marks. I make sure to read those in a louder voice to reflect the emotion of Pigeon. This often gets laughs from the students, but…it keeps them wanting to keep listening. Reading with emotion also helps them make sense of what is happening in the story. This can be done when reading nonfiction as well. Often in nonfiction, there is a narrative part of the book, which you can absolutely read with expression.

Modeling How We Think About Reading

Showing kids how I am thinking about the book is one of my favorite parts of the interactive read-aloud. It is making my thinking about what I am reading visible. This is called a Think Aloud. I try to plan about three think alouds into the interactive read-alouds. It’s a fine balance – too many of these and the students will lose track of the story and what is happening, but not enough, and they may not understand the story. Whether you are reading a picture book or a chapter book or poetry, you want to model how you are thinking about the text. This is your time to also make connections and show how you are doing that while you are reading. I find think alouds very challenging when teaching with a scripted curriculum because then the connections are not authentic. Some things that you can highlight in your think alouds are: summarizing what has happened already, what you notice about the character, setting, or plot, tell when something similar happened in your own life or in another text that you have read with the class, show the students how you are using the context clues in the book to understand a difficult or unfamiliar word, and reread part of the text to help you understand what you have just read.

I do this often when I am reading with my daughters. I’ve mentioned in the podcast that I have been reading the Little House books with my daughter this summer. I often will pause and talk about why this way of life would be hard for me. I will also show her how I am thinking about some of the vocabulary words that are in the book that may be unfamiliar or new to her. It also teaches children that we all need to make sense of what we are reading and think carefully about the text.

Interactions

I love to hear what students are thinking while they are reading with me, and planning interactions is a great way to make this happen. Here are three different types of interactions that you can plan for and include in your interactive read-alouds:

• Turn-and-Talk: This is when you ask a question and the students turn to face each other and answer the question together. If you do not feel the students are ready to answer the question with a partner, you can have them talk into their own hands to practice talking about their ideas. This works well for students who are new to interactive read-alouds. I use this interaction more than the others because it is quick and gets the kids thinking about the book and then talking about the book.

• Stop-and-Jot: I ask students to stop-and-jot their ideas on a paper or post-it note when I want concrete data about what they were thinking about during the interactive read-aloud. How this works is that the teacher will ask a question and then have the students stop-and-jot their responses. This is a great informal assessment that I can collect for each student (which is harder to do for the turn-and-talks). As a modification, you can have the students write in the air and then turn-and-talk to share their thoughts with a partner.

• Stop-and-Act: This interaction is great to get kids up and moving. I like to use this with younger kids when reading a book with many verbs. They can run or jump in place and interact with the text. An idea for older students – after reading the book, you can type up parts of the book on slips of paper. Then, you can hand them out to the students and put them in groups to share with each other. Then they can discuss what the book was about as well as other larger concepts about the book.

I hope this is helpful as you plan your interactive read-alouds this school year! Feel free to share what books you have used for interactive read-alouds.

Welcome, September!

New month! New school year! It’s hard to believe that the summer has come to an end and the new school year is starting. My kids don’t begin school until after Labor Day, however, my semester has begun.

I met with the new group of Literacy students on Monday and learned all about their summer vacations and their teaching positions. They have a great energy and I’m looking forward to working with them this year! I also taught my first class on Wednesday – with my students who were in the writing class I taught last semester. This semester, the class is centered on the teaching of reading. I decided to try out a new activity this semester – one that I have written about and spoken about on the podcast. It’s the “I Statement” activity from Katie Cunningham’s book, Story: Still the Heart of Literacy Learning. The objective of this activity is to build community in the classroom. Students write one sentence that begins with “I”. For example, I am happy when… or I went to… or I am looking forward to…. After writing the “I Statement”, students come to the front of the classroom and share their statements. When my students did this, it was amazing to see the connections that formed – and I did not give them time to discuss what they planned to write. This activity got the students writing and also got them speaking in front of each other – a skill that is important to build. Overall, my group really liked the “I Statements” and we discussed ways to modify this activity for the content areas. Many of the students were planning on trying it out in their classrooms after the start of the school year! A win – it’s always great to find a strategy that my students like and can implement into their own classrooms!

Back to the new year – I love the feeling of September. It always feels like a fresh start. To me, September is the “real” new year. After a break from schedules, routines, and teaching in the summer, it’s nice to set fresh goals and establish routines for a more structured time of the year. It’s also nice to get back to teaching and work with students. Some of my goals for September include working on a writing project, setting realistic “To Do” lists for each day, and getting enough sleep!

What are you looking forward to this September? Wishing everyone a wonderful start to the year! J

Podcast Episode 23: Heading into the New School Year!

“I Statements” for the Beginning of the School Year!

It’s that time of the year! Back to School Time! And, this episode is all about Back to School. I live outside NYC on Long Island, and this year, my kids are heading back to school after Labor Day. I, however, begin teaching my classes next week, which is the very last week of August. So, in honor of heading back to the classroom, I put together some literacy ideas for this time of year.

Beginning of the Year Writing Activities

Writing is a great way to learn about the students in your classroom. It is one of my favorite things to do with students at the beginning of the school year because it allows me to get a sense of who the students are as individuals. One of my favorite new ideas for writing is to have the students write “I Statements” - similar to a personal statement (see the photo above). The only rule is that the statement needs to begin with “I”.

Introducing Yourself to Your Students

Many of my former students have been going on interviews this summer and have shared that the administrators want to hear about how they as the teacher will introduce themselves to their students. They want to hear how teachers will share about themselves with their students. I thought this was a great thing to think through before the school year begins. I share a wonderful example that a former student of mine did so that her students knew something about her.

Read Alouds for the Upcoming School Year

I like to use certain books with students at the beginning of the school year to build a classroom community. It also sets the tone that reading is a part of our daily routine. I have some favorites that I return to each year, such as Looking Like Me by Walter Dean Myers and The Best Part of Me by Wendy Ewald. There are always so many new books that are great for the beginning of the year. I’m thinking of using This is a School by John Schu this year - and side note, it’s been fun to see how this book is being used in schools during this time.

Before ending, I shared a time management hack that may be useful for teachers as they head back to the classroom. A few of my former students have shared that they can be overwhelmed with all of the tasks and planning they have to do and they never feel like they are done. So, one idea is to assign specific tasks to a particular day of the week. For example, you can plan reading lessons on Mondays and grade on Tuesdays. This allows you to know exactly what you have to do on a given day and if you have a set time to do the planning – it’s automatically scheduled. Jamie Sears spoke about the importance of batch planning for teachers when I spoke with her this past spring. If you try it, let me know how this worked for you!

As always, I do hope that you will listen to this episode and that you hear something that will help you at the beginning of the school year.

Why I Can’t Say Enough About the Pizza and Taco Books by Stephen Shaskan!

Hiding behind Pizza and Taco books!

I know, I’ve talked about this book series a lot this month! But, trust me, it’s a good one! My younger daughter is entering first grade in a couple of weeks. We have been reading together quite a bit this summer, but she has wanted to read more independently - like her older sister. During a visit to Barnes and Noble, Olympia (my younger daughter) found book 1 in the series and thought she would enjoy it. She has really enjoyed the books and it has been so wonderful to see her confidence grow. If you have an emerging reader, here are a few reasons why I recommend checking out this book series:

Relatable Topics and Characters

Pizza and Taco (and their friends Hot Dog and Hamburger) are very relatable to kids. They have disagreements the way that kids do at times, but they also have fun together, too. For example - they go to water parks and they have a best friend dance. My daughter thinks that they are funny and wants to keep reading in order to find out what they will do next. This is great because it keeps her interest and she wants to return to the books to see what will happen next.

Illustration and Print Support

If your child is working on learning sight words or high frequency words, it is an excellent practice for them to see the words in the context of a book (rather than only on flash cards). The Pizza and Taco book series is a graphic novel, so the dialogue is written in speech bubbles and there are many sight words in the books so that kids can see how they are used in a book. It’s great practice for them and at a level that they can read. Again, because the books are graphic novels, there are illustrations, and the illustrations are match what is in the print, which helps for building comprehension. If my daughter is confused about something, she is able to refer to the illustrations for support with her meaning making - which is supportive of where she is as a reader.

Vocabulary Development

I have found this series very helpful for developing vocabulary and teaching new concepts. For example, in the first book, the topic of voting is addressed. Words like “ballot box” and “cheating” are found in the text. It allowed me to make sure she understood what it means to vote and what happens when someone cheats during the process.

Ability to Identify the Theme or Main Idea

When I read a book to my kids or to a class, I find that they are so excited when they understood the theme or the main idea of the book. It has been a huge confidence boost for my daughter as a reader to understand the larger idea in the books. After we read each book, I have asked her a question to get at the main idea of the book and she has been able to answer it without my support or guidance. This definitely has helped support and build her confidence as a reader. It’s not fun for anyone (adults or kids) to finish reading a text and have little to no idea what the text was about.

So, if you are looking for a book series for your young reader before the school year begins or during the beginning of the school year - I highly recommend this one!