Three families have contacted me in the last few weeks asking me to meet with their children over the summer months to read, write, and talk about texts. Today was the first meet-up with two of the families which included five students total, ages 5-14. There will be– no worksheets no pre-packaged summer packets no …
In this time of COVID, our adult kids decided not to send each of their youngest children to preschool. I asked the kids if they were willing to send their sons to our home a few days a week so that I could learn with the boys. My original teacher certification is age 3 through …
So often when kids are working to recognize and regulate their own emotions, adults step in to tell or even dictate what kids need to do. Our Scholabox team chose to share resources for teachers and families to facilitate discussions, writing, reading, inquiry experiences for kids all around Emotional Intelligence. During this really tricky time …
A pivotal point in a reader’s journey is when she realizes, either intuitively or explicitly, that the goal of reading is to obtain meaning. Understanding the goal of reading moves our students from Reading as Compliance to Reading as Learning — a critical shift. —Dave Stuart Reading for meaning should be the goal for all readers. It …
Reading books aloud to kids can be one of the most powerful practices in your classroom or, for that matter, your home. There’s much for us, families and educators, to appreciate about the read-aloud. This post will be short, but hopefully informative in a “reminder” kind of way. Here for our benefit, quotes from professional …
I posted on FB and Twitter that our family has a monthly subscription box for teachers. For the next three weeks, we are making our instructional guides and family guides available to you free from ScholaBoxThe instructional guide includes articles, media, poetry, that kids can access online. There are writing response prompts, discussion questions and …
This blog post was first published a few years ago. In the last two months, I’ve had the conversation about whether teaching kindergarten students to read is developmentally inappropriate at least a dozen times. Teachers worry that they are putting too much pressure on young kids to read too soon. It’s time to repost. Recently …
Fifteen years ago in preparation to facilitate a PD session for teachers, I spent hours reading everything I could about text structure in expository texts. I was struck by how much I learned and how little I’d done to adequately prepare students to recognize and use knowledge of the types of structures authors use in …
My original state certification was for ages 3 through third grade. The state of Texas doesn’t allow that certification any longer. In addition, I am certified to teach grades K-8. Because my university degree and subsequent certification started with early childhood, the importance of social emotional learning in addition to academic content is clearly in …
Kids Who Can’t Read Teacher: “I’m looking at this running record for Andrew (5th grade student) and he can’t read words with multiple syllables. When’s he’s stuck and he tries to decode, I notice he doesn’t even really know vowel sounds.” Admin: “Which STAAR practice group is he in?” Teacher: “He meets with Ms. Pratt, …
