You know that expression people use: “It’s like riding a bicycle?”
It’s supposed to mean that once you learn a skill set you’ll never forget it.
Turns out reading and writing are not like riding a bicycle.
Take a little tour with me as I share highlights from this new book by Katie Egan Cunningham.
Don’t shy away from the formulaic “I am” poem! There are so many possibilities…
When I tested Jennifer Serravallo’s Independent Reading Assessment (Scholastic), I was an immediate believer. Finally, here is a reading assessment that gives rich, clear information about upper grade readers, using an authentic reading… Continue reading
Every summer I dream of my classroom. When considering my third grade writers, what do they need to grow and how can I provide classroom spaces for that?
“Writers,” Ali said as she leaned in close to teach her second graders, “I’ve got an important tip for you about your realistic fiction characters. You’ve done such a great job describing what they are… Continue reading
Some weeks ago, when the school year was brand new, I wrote about setting up our Reading Journals for a year of writing about our reading. Now we are approaching the end of… Continue reading
When I first began teaching, Nancie Atwell’s In The Middle was my go to PD book for all things to do with reading and writing workshop. I modeled so many of my teaching… Continue reading
This week I’m sharing the Happy Like Soccer craft table my graduate students created. My students worked in partnerships to flesh out explanations for craft moves they identified in Maribeth Boelts’s book on… Continue reading
This is the second in a series of three posts that include craft tables you can download for use during your conferences or strategy lessons. If you missed last week’s post, which talked… Continue reading
Craft tables are a way to organize one’s thinking about a books teachers will be use as a mentor text. Since a good deal of the mentor text work we do with students… Continue reading
Stella Villalba teaches English as a Second Language at Beechwood Elementary in Columbus, Ohio. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she started her career in education teaching ESL in Asuncion, Paraguay. Stella also publishes… Continue reading
Edited by Ruth: Pssst…today is Mary Helen’s birthday! Won’t you join me in leaving comments on her blog post about one of her very favorite books? Mary Helen Gensch is currently a literacy… Continue reading
So I took some time to create a video about the system I created in order to track and reflect on my summer reading. Because I pushed myself to reflect in a new… Continue reading
We’ve all had that kid in our class. You know who I mean. It’s the kid who sticks out like a sore thumb because of his weight, because of his hair, or because… Continue reading
Ruth was shocked when she learned that I had never heard of Scaredy Squirrel Books when we passed the Kids Can Press Booth at the NCTE Conference. Quite frankly, once I started paging… Continue reading
The Fall of 2006 brought me the savviest class I ever taught. Nearly all 32 of them scoffed at me on Wednesday, September 6th when I pulled out Nothing Ever Happens on 90th… Continue reading
When I was at the TCRWP’s Writing Institute a couple of weeks ago, there was a buzz about the power of three. Funny how I’ve been in and around lots of writing-related professional… Continue reading
I had the absolute pleasure of listening to Pam Muñoz Ryan deliver the keynote address at the TCRWP Writing Institute this past Wednesday. (And to make things even better, she even signed my… Continue reading
The Reading Specialist in my school recently lent me her copy of The Fluent Reader: Oral Reading Strategies for Building Word Recognition, Fluency, and Comprehension by Timothy V. Rasinski after a brainstorming session… Continue reading
