Gearing Up for the New School YearMaking the Most of Your Time: Time Management Ideas from Laura Vanderkam
Here is something that you may not know about me: I love all things planning and time management. I use a paper planner to plan my days, weeks, and months – and I really enjoy thinking about what I am going to do each day and when I am going to do each of these tasks. A long while back, I started reading time management and productivity expert, Laura Vanderkam’s books and blog. I was immediately a fan of her writing and ideas on how to make the most of time. This past spring, I had the opportunity to speak with Laura about making the most of time as a teacher as well as discuss her most recent book, Tranquility by Tuesday: Nine Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters. I’m sharing this podcast episode again before the start of the school year – in case you are looking for some new ways to make the most of your time this year.
In this episode, we discuss:
Ways to manage the many different demands that are placed on teachers lately
Scheduling time for grading and communicating with parents or guardians
Strategies for making life more manageable and avoiding burnout (hint: you need to schedule time for yourself!)
Finding time to read for pleasure outside of the reading you do for your class
Laura is always full of excellent advice so I do hope you will enjoy listening to this episode again or listening to it for the first time!
Podcast Episode 22: The Power of Stories, Gearing Up for the New School Year, and A Book Recommendation for Emergent Readers
August - The Month of Sundays!
It’s August! The month of Sundays – with the new school year around the corner. This week’s episode of The Literacy Teacher’s Life is about the power of stories and why the stories we share with kids matter, ideas for gearing up for the new school year and getting kids back into the routine of reading and writing, and I have a book recommendation.
This summer I read a few books that focused on the importance of story and how stories can lead to increased engagement with books and also a better understanding of the text. After reading the three books, I noticed common themes. They include:
Being mindful of the stories you share with kids.
Book Talks! Get kids talking about the books that they are reading. This increases interest and engagement in reading and makes it more social.
What is the mood? As you are reading the book, think about the mood in the story and see how (or if) it changes. For example, I was reading one of the Itty Bitty Kitty books with my six-year-old. As we were reading, she noticed how Itty was happy at the beginning, but was then confused when a problem arose. Later in the book, Itty was nervous. And finally, she was happy. We were able to follow the moods of the character, which did help with her understanding of the book.
Next up in the episode is getting kids back into the routine of reading and writing before the school year begins. Some ideas for reading include setting a time of the day for your kids to read, picking books that kids are interested in, and finally reading to your kids!
Finally, the episode ends with a book recommendation, Pizza and Taco by Stephen Shaskan. It’s a graphic novel series that is great for kids who are still learning to read independently. It’s very funny and is a great book series to support vocabulary development, too!
Please give this episode a listen!
A Graphic Novel Series –Pizza and Taco by Stephen Shaskan
Kids love graphic novels. My older daughter has really enjoyed reading The Babysitter’s Club graphic novels by Raina Telegemier as well as her other books, Smile, Sisters, and Guts. As a parent, I have found graphic novels to be excellent for my older daughter because of the visual representation in more advanced books, which helps develop vocabulary. I had a feeling that my younger daughter would enjoy graphic novels, too, but needed to find a book that she would enjoy.
So, when I was in Barnes and Noble last week, I stumbled across the series Pizza and Taco by Stephen Shaskan. I picked it up and thought it was a great series for my younger daughter who is an emerging reader and wants to read more books on her own. This is a graphic novel series – perfect for emerging readers who are learning to read more independently. In the first book in the series, Pizza and Taco: Who’s the Best?, we learn that they are best friends, but only one of them can BE THE BEST! They get their two friends Hamburger and Hot Dog involved to figure out who is the BEST.
My younger daughter, who just turned six, has been reading the book to me. This has been great for her confidence as a reader. The books have chapters, which is very appealing to new readers who are moving past the early readers books and the storyline is engaging. She can relate to it and finds it very funny, which means that she is eager to keep reading. Reading this together has allowed me to help her learn new vocabulary and help her make predictions when she is reading. For example, because Pizza and Taco both feel that they are the best, they need to have a vote. For the vote, they need a ballot box – and unfortunately one of them cheats! This led to a discussion with my daughter about voting and what is involved. When Hamburger and Hot Dog were asked to vote, this was a great place to make a prediction, and she was able to see that Hot Dog may not vote for either Pizza or Taco. So, overall, it is a great series to build emergent readers confidence as they are decoding and support their comprehension.
If you visit Stephen Shaskan’s website, he has book trailers for some of the books in this series. They are a fun way to get kids into reading this series. Check this one out if you have a kid who wants to read more books independently!
The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes
If you have a child who is entering the second grade, I have a great book recommendation for you! I just finished reading The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes with my older daughter, who finished second grade in June. This book was a 2014 Newbery Honor Winner.
I have always felt that second grade is a bridge year. It bridges the primary grades of kindergarten and first grade and the upper elementary grades of third and fourth grades. It’s a year where you see tremendous growth in kids – because they are really growing up! You see that in this book.
The book starts out with a family vacation before the start of the school year where Billy and his family are visiting the statue of the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Unfortunately, Billy has an accident at the statue and ends up with a small lump on his head. So, Billy will begin the second grade with a lump on his head – not the way that he wanted to start the new school year. The book is divided up into four parts: Teacher, Father, Sister, Mother. Each part highlights Billy’s interactions with either his teacher, his father, his sister, or his mother – and shows how he starts to appreciate each of these people more. I appreciated the book because it really shows the growth of a second grader and how they learn to navigate life a bit more independently than previously. For example – Billy learns to problem solve when he makes a whale out of a pillowcase to occupy his younger sister, he learns to keep working at his poem for his mother when his teacher doesn’t think his poem is quite ready to be finished, and he shows his thinking skills when he helps his father come up with an idea for his artwork. By the end of the book, readers can see Billy’s progression from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year.
This is a book that you can read together with your child or your child can read it solo. If you are interested in reading this book with your child, here are some questions you may want to discuss together:
Part I:
Why does Billy’s Dad say that this year will be the year of Billy Miller?
Billy asks Ms. Silver if she thinks he is smart enough for the second grade. Why do you think that Billy is nervous that he is not smart enough for the second grade?
Ms. Silver tells Billy that Billy is very smart. How did Billy feel after hearing Ms. Silver say that? How would you feel after hearing that comment? Why?
Part II:
Why does Billy want to call his father “Dad” instead of “Papa”?
How does his Dad feel about his new name?
How does his Mom feel about Billy calling “Papa” Dad?
Part III:
Why does Billy want to stay up all night?
How does Billy feel when he learned that he did not stay up all night?
Part IV:
Why does Billy decide to write the poem about his mother?
How does Billy feel when he gets up to the microphone? How would you feel if you had to speak in front of a huge group of people?
At the end of the book, Billy tells his mother that “This was the year of Billy Miller.” What did Billy learn during his year in second grade?
LTL Podcast Episode #21: The Joy of Reading Book Series!
This week’s episode is all about children’s book series! Kids love book series, and why wouldn’t they! They can delve deeper into the characters, settings, and plots that they love. Book series are a great tool to use to keep kids engaged and interested in reading, especially during the summer months. I like to think of book series in a similar manner as a tv series. If you are interested in the tv series, you will want to keep watching it because you are interested in the characters and want to find out what will happen next.
In this episode, I start with an overview to children’s book series and discuss some of the benefits of reading book series with kids. Then, I share some ideas about what you can focus on with your child when reading book series together. For example, right now I am reading The Adventures of Sophie Mouse with my six-year-old, and I will have her begin reading the chapter and then I continue reading the remainder of the chapter. This allows her to get some practice reading, but also gives her time to enjoy the story, too. It has been a good balance for her this summer. I end with some strategies that you can implement when your child is reading a book series.
I hope you find this episode helpful. What book series are your kids enjoying this summer?
The Art of ComprehensionBy Trevor Andrew Bryan
This summer I have been reading books about the teaching of reading. These are books that are mostly focused on helping kids understand what they are reading and also the joy of stories. I just finished Trevor Andrew Bryan’s book The Art of Comprehension: Exploring Visual Texts to Foster Comprehension, Conversation, and Confidence. Before beginning, I absolutely loved Bryan’s ideas and his framework for supporting students’ comprehension.
In this book, Bryan introduces a framework for reading both illustrations and writing in books. This framework can also be applied when students are crafting their own pieces of writing. The framework includes:
List everything you see (decode)
Determine the mood and support it with evidence from the text
Think about what is causing the mood
Determine a big idea or a topic or a theme from the text
Think about symbols
Make connections (text-to-text, text-to-world, text-to-self)
When teaching and then implementing the framework, you can support students to think critically about what they are reading and analyze the texts. I appreciated how when this is practiced frequently, students can move from recall to grappling with the text and thinking about it in more depth. So, the framework shows teachers how to get students to think critically about texts they read, which is so important for our readers. We want kids to think about what they are reading and make connections to other areas of their lives when reading.
There were many strategies that I found very supportive and I was impressed with how some strategies were better intended for small group work while others could be implemented with the whole class. One of my favorite strategies was for writing and highlighted the connection between reading and writing. It’s one that I plan to model to my students in the fall. This strategy is called Mood Poems. Students work in small groups and using a text that has already been read and discussed through the framework, they write their own poems about the mood in small groups. After the poems are complete, the groups share with each other. After the sharing, it opens up to a discussion in the class and enables students to see more possibilities in the text. This is wonderful because it allows the students to think through the text and generate a poem together and then as a class they can go further to understand the text.
In the final chapter, Trevor Bryan discusses the cycle between understanding and creating and how the two work together. He argues that this is our most important job as educators and parents - to help children engage with this cycle. I loved this ending and found it to be so true!
LTL Podcast Episode #20: Supporting Readers During the Summer Months: Spotlight on the Power of Picture Books
This episode as well as the next few episodes are more aimed at parents and how parents can support their children with reading during the summer months. When reading with kids during the summer months, think of it as time together with your child and find books that your child will enjoy or that you will enjoy reading together. I approach summer reading as a time to connect with my daughters and I really try to pick books that we can talk about together or books that they will really find funny and enjoyable.
In this week’s episode, I focus on picture books and how they can be beneficial to read to kids of all ages during the summer months. Picture books are great for kids of all ages - even kids who are in the upper elementary grades. Picture books are a format of children’s literature and they come in all different genres - which is wonderful because there are many options when reading to your child.
Some suggestions when reading picture books with your child include:
Identifying the characters in the text
Talking about the character’s traits or describing the characters with your child
Identify the setting in the book
Thinking about the big idea or the theme in the book
Making connections to the book
I hope you will give this episode a listen! Feel free to respond and let me know what you are reading with your child this summer!
Getting Over the Mid-Summer Slump and Back Into Summer Reading!
I am a long-time reader and follower of time management and productivity writer, Laura Vanderkam. A couple of weeks ago, she was on the Today Show to talk about the mid-summer slump, which is the time when summer sets in and productivity may go down. She offered suggestions for getting over this slump to make the most of the time in the summer. It makes sense, during mid-to-the-end of July is when the summer schedule has set in and summer mode is in full force!
I was thinking about the mid-summer slump in relation to summer reading. If your kids started off the summer reading regularly, but now that may not be reading so regularly, it’s ok and completely normal. In the summer, we get on a summer schedule which may include camp, vacations, swimming in the pool, and seeing friends – which is great! But, if you are looking to read with your kids before the new school year rolls around, here are some ideas:
Plan to read 2-3 times a week with your child. Doing something daily can be challenging and the pressure of daily reading might be too much right now, so look at your schedule realistically, and plan 2 or 3 days when you can read with your child.
Set realistic amounts of time to read with your child. If you can only read for ten minutes or read one chapter, that’s fine. Something is better than nothing. I try not to put too much pressure on myself (or my kids) in the summer because I want reading to be fun rather than a chore. When I don’t have much time, I remind myself that 10 minutes or one chapter is better than nothing!
Pick books that your child wants to read! Reading in the summer should be fun for you and your child, so pick books that your child is excited and interested in reading. My older daughter has a friend who really wants to read Raina Telgemeier’s books Smile, Sisters, and Guts, so she and her mom are reading those books this summer. It’s a series she wants to read and now she and her mom can read them together!
Try to talk to your child about what you just read. One question or comment is enough – this does not need to be lengthy. Right now, I’m reading The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes with my older daughter. I will often share what I think with her about what is happening. Sometimes she continues and adds her thoughts or what surprised her, but other times, my comment is enough.
Have fun! Reading with your child is time together during the summer. Enjoy this time together!
What books are you reading with your kids over the summer? As I mentioned, I’m reading The Year of Billy Miller with my older daughter and The Adventures of Sophie Mouse book series by Poppy Green with my younger daughter.
LTL Podcast Episode: The Importance of Following the Conversation: Talking Books and Writing with Author Matt de la Peña
Books by author Matt de la Peña!
In episode 19, I spoke with author Matt de la Peña. Some of Matt’s books include The Last Stop on Market Street, Love, Carmela Full of Wishes, Patchwork, and Milo Imagines the World. Matt discusses some of his books and how he decided to write about these particular topics and themes. He shares how relationships are key to his books. For example, in Carmela Full of Wishes, he highlights the relationship between siblings - a brother and his sister. In the book, Carmela is a nuisance to her older brother, but in the end, they are family and he is there for her.
Matt has frequently worked with the illustrator, Christian Robinson. He shares some details about their collaborations and how they decide what to work on together as well as how they approach new projects when working together.
As a children’s author, Matt visits many schools and speaks with students. He talks about how teachers (and even parents!) can follow the conversations that come from reading his books with students. It’s a great reminder to let the students lead the conversations and it is supporting their understanding and comprehension of the text.
Finally, we end by discussing writing and how teachers can support students when they are working on writing. I love Matt’s approach to writing and he offers some excellent ideas to support students. I hope you will listen to this episode and learn something new about his books and approach to writing.
LTL Podcast Episode 18: The Power of Stories and How They Can Help Us Grow and Connect Us - A Conversation about Books, Stories, and Writing with John Schu
The Amazing Books by John Schu!
Welcome to episode 18 on The Literacy Teacher’s Life Podcast! Today I am speaking with John Schu. He is a teacher, librarian, and author. He is the author of the books This is a School and This is a Story. He also wrote the book The Gift of Story, which is a great resource for teachers.
On today’s episode John and I discuss his recent book, This is a Story and the power of stories in our lives. I love how John acknowledges what stories do for us as individuals and why it is so important to learn about the stories from your students (and also for them to learn some of your stories!). We also talk about his book This is a School and how it can be used in classrooms with students.
John gives ideas for what you can do at home to support your child with reading. Hint! Keep reading to your child - regardless of your child’s age! He also has some excellent advice for supporting children with writing. I even found his $4.89 notebook at Target!
I hope you listen to this episode and find something that makes you think differently about books, stories, and writing!
June: A Month for Reading and Hearing from Authors
We are well into June now! The month is almost halfway over and where I live, schools are letting out soon! This month is a fun month for me on the podcast, and I hope it is for you as well. I had the opportunity to speak with Lessa Kananiʻopua Pelayo-Lozada, who is the president of the American Library Association (ALA). She is wonderful and has so many great ideas to share about reading and books. You can definitely get a sense of her energy on the episode. Here’s the link so that you can listen! We discuss how librarians are a wonderful resource for kids. If you feel that your child is struggling to find books that she enjoys, it may be more beneficial to ask a librarian rather than the classroom teacher. Lessa explains that librarians are removed from the classroom and sometimes that is helpful for kids when looking for books.
We also discuss the upcoming conference that the ALA is hosting and wow, it sounds amazing! It is being held in Chicago and there are so many great authors who are speaking during the week. Lessa mentions a few of the authors, but there are definitely more who will be in attendance!
I hope you will check out this episode and get ready for the next two episodes this month. I am speaking with two other children’s authors and they have great ideas for reading and writing. Hopefully this will be a good transition to summer reading!
The Literacy Teacher’s Life Podcast: Making the Most of Your Time: A Conversation with Laura Vanderkam
As many of you may know, I love time management and planning! Managing time is not easy, which is why I find it so fascinating. I don’t think it would be nearly as interesting if it came naturally. I am often asked by students who are student teaching and students who are in the early years of their careers about how best to plan and how they can get everything that the job requires accomplished. In order to shed light on this topic, I spoke with time management and productivity expert, Laura Vanderkam. She is the author books such as What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done, and her most recent book, Tranquility By Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters. I have read all of Laura’s books and she offers advice that is practical to implement and does not require you to change your whole life.
During our conversation, we discuss ideas for how to manage all of the curricular demands placed on new teachers, managing time during the school day so that lesson plans are written and you have time to speak with parents. She gave some very helpful tips on this one! We also discuss finding time outside of work to do things that you enjoy doing. Laura talks about all of the inputs that we have in our lives, and that’s a great thing but, she offers strategies for managing all of these inputs.
I hope you listen to and enjoy this episode and find something that makes you think about managing your time in the classroom or outside of the classroom differently.
Composing Through Illustrations When Writing
Starting with the illustra
Earlier this year, I had the great opportunity to speak with Amy Young, the author and illustrator of the series A Unicorn Named Sparkle. During our conversation, she discussed the importance of having elementary students draw as much as they would like before moving into the print writing in their writing pieces. The idea here is to get kids to compose in a detailed manner through their illustrations before moving into the work of writing.
Writing can be challenging for young kids. They need to think of an idea and then once they have the idea, they need to move to put their idea into words. As they are writing the words, they have to consider spelling, spacing, and punctuation. This can be a lot to manage for a younger student. In order to support our younger learners, we can have them draw their stories and add many details to their illustrations. Over time and with some coaching, the students will begin to transfer those details from their illustrations and into their writing. It may take time, but it is doable work for elementary students.
Last week during the literacy clinic, one of my students who is working with kindergarten students decided to try this strategy out. She asked them to draw pictures about what they did over the weekend. She had them add color and details. Once they were pleased with their illustrations, she coached them to move on to writing a sentence about their illustrations. As they were working on their writing, she was amazed at how much more engaged the students were when they were writing. They were able to stay focused on the illustration and she was able to challenge them to add more details into their drawings. When it was time to do the writing, the students were excited to discuss what their illustration was about and really worked to implement the sound-spelling patterns that they had been learning.
I have been thinking a lot about how to keep young kids engaged in the writing work that they are doing. We want them to feel like they are capable writers and in order to get there it takes time. We have to meet the kids where they are – and with younger students, they need to start with the skills that they already have, which includes making illustrations. It’s important to remember that writing and composing involves more than just putting a pencil to the paper – it involves discussing with others, drawing, and lots of playing with ideas.
If you would like to listen to the conversation with Amy Young, you can find it here. She gives so many wonderful ideas for getting young kids engaged in their writing. I hope you find some of them helpful!
The Literacy Teachers Life Podcast: Getting Ready to Interview for a Teaching Job?Tips for the Interview Process
It’s the time of the year when schools and districts are interviewing teachers for positions for the upcoming school year. Interviewing is a skill and requires some practice and preparation before going in to meet with a committee. For this episode, I put together some tips to consider before interviewing for a position. These include:
Updating your resume and cover letter
Dressing professionally
Being prepared by having extra copies of your resume and cover letter for the committee
Being mindful of your language when answering questions
Don’t be a robot! Have some of your personality shine through during the interview
What’s Your Story? Be prepared to answer the question about who you are and why you want to be a teacher
Give examples when responding to questions to help show how you have navigated different circumstances
I also share some other tips to consider when interviewing, such as keeping your relationship information out of the interview and remember to practice answering questions before going in for the real thing! To help you practice, I include some sample questions that can help you prepare for your interview.
I hope this episode is helpful as you prepare for the interview process, and I do hope you will listen. Remember, you can follow along on Instagram @theliteracyteacherslife.
Anchor ChartsWhat’s Their Purpose? How To Use Them? And, Different Formats
Anchor Chart to Introduce the Opinion Writing Genre
I don’t remember seeing or using anchor charts when I was a student in elementary school or even middle school. I do remember hearing lots about anchor charts when I began teaching – not student teaching, but in my 3rd or 4th year of teaching when I was teaching 5th grade. Anchor charts were popular for teaching reading and writing because they “anchored” the students to the learning.
An anchor chart is an instructional tool that is created by the teacher and used to support instruction on a particular concept or skill. They are used in literacy lessons because they make the invisible thinking visible to the students. The anchor chart should explain – in a clear and straightforward way – the skill that the teacher wants the students to learn and apply to their reading or writing.
On Monday night during the literacy clinic, many of the students came to class with anchor charts. The anchor charts were clear and visually appealing, and most importantly focused on one strategy that they wanted to teach the students and then have them apply into their own reading or writing work. As I was observing the students using the anchor charts, I was noticing how well they used the anchor chart to explain the strategy.
One of the graduate literacy students has been reading a book with the middle school students she is working with and wanted to teach a comprehension strategy that they needed to learn and apply when reading the next chapter. She used what they had previously read to give examples of the strategy as she was teaching and connected the examples in the book to her anchor chart. She was pointing out how to apply the strategy as she re-read parts of the book. She used the anchor chart well. First, she explained the strategy, then she modeled how to apply the strategy when reading. She modeled this twice to the students. Then, she had them try the strategy out with her (twice!) so that they had her support with the reading strategy. As they did the work, she would point out what they were doing on the anchor chart – anchoring their reading to the strategy. Finally, she let them try out the strategy on their own – releasing the responsibility to them, but with her overseeing, in case they needed her support. This was a great way to use the anchor chart – because she referred to the anchor chart as she modeled the strategy and then as she guided the students through the strategy. The chart was not just hanging on the wall, rather it was actively being used.
Some helpful tips when creating your own anchor charts:
Make them yourself! Do not purchase anchor charts, but write them the way you plan to teach the strategy or concept
Keep text minimal so that students can focus on the necessary and essential information
Add some color! It doesn’t need to be Pinterest worthy, but make it visually appealing
If possible (this one is hard for me!), add an illustration to put a visual with the strategy
One more suggestion is to make smaller copies of the anchor charts so that the students can refer to them when they are doing the reading and writing work on their own (after your lesson is finished). I like the idea of giving the kids their own copies and organizing them in a notebook so that they can refer to them when necessary.
*Photo of an anchor chart that an awesome graduate student made to introduce opinion writing to her second graders. It’s clear and easy to understand. And, I love how she uses the different colors to emphasize different points.
The Purpose of Formative Assessments
Making Assessment Fun!
In the spring semester, I run a Literacy Clinic at SUNY Old Westbury, where students who are in grades K-12 come to campus and the students in the Literacy Graduate Program plan literacy instruction for the K-12 students. This semester, one of the assignments that the literacy students had to complete was an assessment overview for the students they are teaching. This required them to administer around three reading and writing assessments and then analyze the assessments to find the students’ reading and writing strengths and identify areas that need further support.
This past week I read the assessment papers and I was impressed with how holistically the literacy students are looking at the assessments that they are administering. They are analyzing each assessment, but then looking across the assessments to see if the strengths are the same and if the skills that need more support are matching up in each assessment. This holistic view allows the literacy students to see the skills that need to be targeted for the students they are working with this semester and then plan lessons that will target the needs.
One literacy student, for example, is working with a child who is learning to identify the letters of the alphabet. The child can identify all of the letters when they are written as capital letters, but the child is not able to identify all of the lowercase letters. The literacy student administered a phonics assessment as well to learn what letter sounds the child knows. From both assessments, the literacy student learned which letters and sounds need to be explicitly taught and she put together a plan to get the child reading words as the letters and sounds were being taught. She is trying to see if the child will learn the letters and sounds better and faster if they are immediately connected to words that the child can read.
Rather than guessing, the literacy student was able to administer assessments, learn about the what the child knows and what the child needs to learn, and then plan instruction that meets the child’s needs. That’s the point of formative assessments – they inform our teaching. As teachers, we want to support our students with skills that they need to learn in order to be stronger readers and writers, and in order to do that, we need to administer and analyze assessments that will provide accurate information about the child. And, when you have multiple assessments that provide similar information – it’s all the better!
Time Management in the Classroom
Here’s a fun fact about me - I love time management! I enjoy reading books about how best to manage my time. Laura Vanderkam and Oliver Burkeman are two of my favorite authors who write about time management. I think I enjoy this topic because it is not easy for me to figure out how I want to spend my time. Time is fleeting. We only have 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. We can’t get any additional time - no matter how hard we try!
When planning my classes, I am always weighing what to cover with the students so that they will get the most out of our class sessions. I have to make decisions and choose wisely - it’s not always easy. The same goes for my time outside of the classroom - how will I use my time so that I am happy with the choices I am making.
Next week I am speaking with a group of preservice teachers about time management. I have been thinking about the focus of this workshop, and after hearing an interview with Kate Bowler, the New York Times Bestselling Author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved and an Associate Professor at Duke University, who said the phrase “not everything is possible, not nothing is possible, but what is possible today?” I’m going with this idea. How do we manage our time in the classroom? As teachers we can’t address everything in one day, but I believe that it’s important to think about what we can work up to and take steps each day to work up to that goal.
I’ll give an example of this - in the Literacy Clinic, one of my students is working with an ENL (English as a New Language) third grader. The 3rd grader is very motivated to read and write in English, so my student has put together a plan for the remainder of the semester. Her lessons are very strategic and targeted so that the student is learning something each week that will help her learn to read and write in English. She has really had to streamline her instruction so that she targets what the student really needs in order to be a more confident reader. So far her planning is paying off. Each week there is improvement and the student is able to do more of the work on her own. My student does not waste any time either - which helps! She gets right to work with the 3rd grader and sets the tone that they will work through the lessons.
So, I think it’s worth considering what is possible today that will get your students to reach a particular goal. Because something is possible every day!
How do you manage your instructional time in the classroom? I’d love to hear! Send me an email or leave a message @theliteracyteacherslife.
Some Take-Aways From the LILAC Conference
Meeting John Schu at the LILAC Conference!
At the end of March, I presented at and attended the LILAC (Long Island Language Arts Council) conference. After presenting my session, which was focused on ways to help parents support their children at home with reading and writing, I attended a session on Shifting the Balance from balanced literacy to more of a Science of Reading focus. The presenter for that session was great! She discussed the importance of rethinking MSV when kids are reading. So, rather than emphasize the importance of meaning and encouraging kids to guess a word that can make sense in the sentence, highlight the visual and make sure to have the kids try to decode the word. This means that MSV are still helpful to teachers, but the focus is shifting from the M - Meaning to the V- Visual. That makes perfect sense and it is necessary for the kids to try and read the word rather than guess based on what they think fits and not even pay attention to the look of the word.
While I was at the conference, I met the children’s author John Schu! He is the author of the books This is a School and This is a Story. His books are amazing - so full of details the excite kids. In This is a School, the illustration is drawn so that it looks like John is the librarian, and the library is full of his favorite books! Kids can identify so many of the books on those pages.
To end the day, educator and consultant, Kelly Gallagher spoke about writing instruction. He shared so many ideas and strategies to get kids writing beyond the four paragraph essay. One strategy that he shared was how to help kids give feedback to each other. Kids need to have their writing read by more than just the classroom teacher - so helping them learn to give feedback to each other is very beneficial to their writing. One idea is to do laps. For example, have the kids do an “I wonder lap.” After reading a peer’s writing, give feedback using the sentence started, “I wonder…”. Other sentence starters can include - “I noticed that…” or “I enjoyed the part…” or “Locate the thesis lap.” These help guide the feedback and keep it constructive and also have the writing read by more than the teacher.
Kelly Gallagher also spoke about the idea of volume of writing and getting kids to write more. He gave the strategy of free writing about different topics that provoke kids to want to write. At the end of the week, let the students decide which of their pieces you will read and give feedback on. I like this strategy because it lets kids write for the sake of writing, and does not mean that each piece will be read and assessed. It also gives the students the choice to decide which piece they want the teacher to see and provide feedback on.
Overall, it was a productive day full of lots of wonderful information that I am sharing with my students!
Literacy Teacher’s Life Podcast Episode 13 - Mixed Bag Episode Running Records, Long-Term Planning, and Getting Kids Writing
For today’s episode, I’m sharing a mixed bag of topics, stories, and examples you can use in teaching literacy.
Running Records
Running records are informative assessments that tell the teachers what the kids are doing so they can make informed decisions about what to teach their students. They provide teachers with what they need to know to make wise teaching decisions. Here, the students read the text out loud, and the teacher marks what the student is doing as they’re reading. Do they need to work on their vocabulary? Their phonics? Are they struggling with comprehension? These assessments usually last 5-10 minutes, but what would you do if they lasted 15-20 minutes instead? What if the student doesn’t say much or seems unwilling to participate? This is the exact situation I witnessed recently, and I share how the teacher handled it fantastically.
Long-Term Planning
I get it. Planning your lessons for a long period of time is a guarantee that things won’t go according to plan.. Field trips happen. Students get sick. Classes get canceled. So long-term planning can seem futile. But long-term planning helps you create lessons that are related to each other and actually helps your students develop the literacy skills they need. Rather than thinking of your lessons and activities in isolation, you can design them to progress and build on one another. And when the time comes that things aren’t going according to plan, it will be easier for you to adjust because you have a long-term goal to guide you.
Writing Activities
I also share several writing activities such as writing centers, and opinion writing, that you can use and apply in your classroom to increase engagement. These ideas are fun for the kids, but challenging enough that it would keep their attention, and they’ll still learn the skills they need.
I hope you find this episode useful, and that you’ll find more than a few things you can apply in your own classroom.
Decoding! How to Support Your Child at Home
Last week, I went to parent teacher conferences for my kids. While I was at the elementary school waiting to meet with one of the teachers, another parent approached me and asked for strategies on how she can help her kindergartener with decoding when they are reading together at home. So, to help, I am going to share a few strategies so that as your child is reading at home, you can support her with reading and help her decode the words on her own. It’s important to remember that there are so many strategies to help teach kids to decode. If one particular strategy is not working well for your child, don’t worry! There are others that you can try. Just like in life, some strategies work well for some people while other strategies work well for others. That’s why there are so many!
When children encounter new words, in order to decode the word, they need to have knowledge of print concepts (such as reading from left to right, realize that print is useful), phonemic awareness (understand that letters make sounds), and sound-spelling knowledge (understand the correspondences between spellings and sounds). It’s important for children to learn to decode so that they can figure out words that are new and unfamiliar on their own using the strategies that they have been taught. Here are a few strategies that you can use to support your child:
Tap-It-Out
The tap-it-out strategy is pretty popular. It is used in the Fundations Phonics Program that many schools near where I live use to support kids with phonics. For this strategy, the kids learn to tap out each sound in the word. They tap their pointer finger and their thumb together for each sound. So, for example, in the word cat there are three sounds /c/ /a/ /t/. The kids would tap their pointer finger and thumb together three times and as they tap their fingers together, they will say each sound. This strategy helps the kids identify the sounds that the letters make and try out the work on letter-sound knowledge that they are learning in school. After the kids tap-out the word, have them repeat the sentence and check to make sure the word makes sense. This can be the challenging part because often kids want to keep going, but it’s important to help them check their work.
Look at the Word!
This strategy seems pretty simple and straightforward, but it can be hard for kids to put into practice. Often when kids approach an unfamiliar word, their eyes dart everywhere but the word that they are reading. This strategy reminds the child to look at the word and remember all that he knows about letters and sounds. This can be frustrating for kids, but it teaches them to be comfortable with working through new and challenging words. If your child is struggling and needs your help decoding the word, sound it out by blending the sounds in the word together. After you decode the word, have your child do it with you. After you try it together a couple of times, have your child read the sentence again on his own. Then, ask if the word makes sense in the sentence. Again, you are helping him check and monitor for understanding of the text, while working on decoding new words.
Follow Along with Your Finger or a Bookmark
If your child is having forgetting where she is when she is reading, give her a bookmark, an index card, or have her use her finger to help keep track of the words in the sentence that she is reading. This strategy will help your child keep her eyes on the words and not lose her place when reading. As your child is reading, if she comes to an unfamiliar word, you can have her tap-it-out or look carefully at the word and put the sounds together. If your child is reading too quickly, ask her to slow down and read each word. Having your child slow down will help with comprehension as well because it is harder to know what is happening in the story if you are reading too quickly.
These are just a few strategies that you can try out at home with your child. They do not require a full lesson and are pretty easy to implement. It may just take a couple of reminders about what to do when reading and approaching unfamiliar words. Happy reading!