a dash of creativity, a pinch of fun, and a whole lot of learning!
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so it’s time to add some extra special touches to your small group reading plans. Integrating the holidays into your literacy lessons is a great way to increase engagement and motivation. Today, I’m going to share some quick and EASY ways to add Valentine’s Day fun to your small reading groups! I also have…
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If you are a primary teacher, you can probably think of a student in your classroom who struggles with sight word identification. In fact, most teachers can think of several students whose sight word recognition skills have taken a toll on his or her overall reading success. Since sight words make up 50%-75% of all text, we know that being able to recognize and…
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Very shortly, the alarm clocks will be turned back on. Your lunch box will be packed, your teacher bag will sit by the front door, and an outfit that is stylish (yet comfortable) will be picked out for your first day back from winter break. When you enter your classroom, you’ll pause at the door and take it all in for…
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Today I am going to share a Christmas Lights Fingerprint Ornament with you. It’s a really cute, simple, quick, and EASY gift idea for your students this Christmas season! The weeks leading up to Christmas are stressful for teachers. On top of everything, many teachers like to squeeze in a project for students to create for their families as a gift. Since…
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Teaching questioning to primary readers can be challenging. I recently released a new edition of Concrete Comprehension for Primary Readers: Questioning. In this blog post, we’ll dig deeper into this important reading strategy. We’ll also dive into some concrete, hands-on activities to teach questioning skills to young readers. (If you missed my post about Schema & Metacognition, you can find it here.) Before we start…
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Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays to bring into the classroom. Why? Because teaching children the importance of being thankful and grateful for all we have is so powerful and important! Along with reading lots of Thanksgiving themed books (which I’ll list at the end of this blog post), we also participate in a lot of fun Thanksgiving literacy activities during the…
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In this post, I’ll talk about why teaching schema is important, give some ideas and tips for teaching about schema to your young readers, and discuss when we should explicitly teach schema within our classrooms. You’re at a fancy restaurant. You know the kind I’m talking about. You’re scared to move your arm in case you knock over a glass…
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