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Looking for another low floor, high ceiling math activity?? Looking for something to get the conversation flowing? I love this idea because while the example is with a number, you could use this activity with decimals, fractions, percentages, negative numbers.... anything that goes on a number line!

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I came across this chart showing the 6 syllable types as they relate to candy bars, and because anything connected to food helps me remember things better I thought I'd share with you! Research from the Science of Reading tells us that teaching these different syllable types to our students will help them decode bigger, more complex words and become more effective readers!

So we know that a syllable is a word, or a part of a word, with one vowel sound. You may have worked with your students to count them, clap them or even segment them on paper. We know vowels and vowel combinations can make all different sounds, so knowing the different kinds of syllables helps students to determine what sound the vowels will make.

Wanting more information on the six syllable types? Click here or here!!

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I came across this idea from Twitter and I LOVE it! This reminded me of the AVID one-pager. With a chart paper and markers, one student a day can add what they think the class needs to remember from the read aloud that day. This could be a great way to get students to focus in on the read aloud and keep their thinking from those books all year long.

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The PH Instructional Framework documents define the Interactive Read Aloud as:

"A purposefully selected text, of appropriate grade level text complexity, is used. The text should foreshadow the work that students will soon study in reader’s and writer’s workshop. Through read aloud, the teacher demonstrates proficient reading, expands access to text beyond student’s abilities, and exposes students to a variety of genres. It will be expected that students are actively engaged through accountable talk as the teacher uses think-alouds to model various reading behaviors, points out how authors use language to convey meaning, and models strategies for acquiring new vocabulary."

So, why do we use them every day? Interactive read alouds allow us to build knowledge and thinking with students. We as teachers model the things that good readers just do instinctively. We can read books that students may not have the ability to read on their own, so the experience is both powerful and motivating.

And how exactly can you make a read aloud interactive? (SPOILER ALERT, you are probably already doing these things!!)

stop briefly to point out and discuss new vocabulary words

use think-alouds to provide a good model for understanding text (share what YOU are thinking)

encourage students to visualize what is happening

invite students to make text connections

encourage students to interact with the book: talk to a partner, act out a sentence or short part of the book, make a quick sketch or note, or participate in a class discussion

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So the picture may be how you're feeling about Bruno, and I chuckled when I saw the poster. BUT, then I started thinking about the ways this could be used in the classroom besides just singing about Bruno (we don't talk about Bruno)!! Maybe picking up pencils and other items off the floor is a problem, or picking up materials at music or PE in a quick, safe fashion. I think there are SO many ways you could use this idea to set a goal for something you want students to improve on and track how many days they have been successful in a row.

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I saw the I Feel, I Need from @sanfordfitkids on Instagram and it immediately caught my eye. I like how the emotions are color-coded and it gives some ideas on what students could do to help. I think the idea of asking students how they feel and what they need gives them a voice (think about the guiding hand PBIS strategy) but also empowers them to verbalize what they need. This may not work for all students, but it could be another strategy to try. They also have several other free resources, including mindfulness cards, positive self-talk coloring pages and seated movement cards.

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Looking for an easy way to stretch your students thinking in math? Needing a new strategy for number talks? Do I have something for you! You simply write an answer on the board and students have to determine what they think the question could be. What a way to promote higher level thinking! In a quick glance, you can see where your students thinking is. While the example I found is for math, you could use this in other subjects as well (think science or social studies!)

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A mathematics strategy game typically refers to a game that is won by out-maneuvering one's opponent. Such games abound in apps. Some more common to the mathematics classroom include Nim and Mancala. These games include quantitative and deductive reasoning, and they are fun! But we would like to propose a new definition of strategy game - a game that helps students become proficient at using reasoning strategies. There are really two versions of such strategy games: 1) games that help students become proficient at using a strategy and 2) games that help students become proficient at choosing a strategy. Incorporating a combination of such games provides meaningful, enjoyable practice that supports the development of mathematical fluency. As defined by the National Research Council (2001) and illustrated in Figuring out Fluency in Mathematics Teaching and Learning (Bay-Williams & SanGiovanni, 2021), Fluency includes three components, each having observable actions.
Figure 1. Procedural fluency components and actions.
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The label "fluency game" is often given to speed games that focus getting faster at recalling basic facts. These are anything but fluency games. Students cannot think about which strategy is efficient when forced to hurry. Speed games like "Around the World" have a tragic impact on far too many students, causing anxiety and leading them to think they are not good at mathematics.

Here we share some real fluency games. No speed component; students don't compete to get an answer faster than their opponent. Instead, these games provide students the opportunity to think and talk through strategies and to learn with their opponents.

Strategy Games: Games that focus on a reasoning strategy

A Winning Streak. Make Tens and Compensation are two very useful reasoning strategies. For example, to add 39 + 17, a person might 'move one over' to rethink the problem as 40 + 16 (i.e., Make Tens) or they might just pretend the 39 is a 40, add, then subtract one from the 17 (i.e., Compensate). These useful strategies also apply to decimals and fractions where Make Tens becomes Make a Whole. In A Winning Streak, students roll a 10-sided die (or draw a card) and add it to the given number on the game board (See Figure 2). This game provides students an opportunity to practice Make Tens or Make a Whole (and/or Compensation). New game boards are easy to make to provide more practice. Did you notice that students can also be strategic in which spots they claim on the game board in order to score more points. Can we call this a Strategy-Strategy Game?
Figure 2. Two versions of A Winning Streak.
You can download the Winning Streak +39 gameboard here and the +1.9 gameboard here.

Highs or Lows. How might a student fluent in multiplying fractions solve this problem: ? What they won't do is change into a fraction (. Yet this method is commonly used for problems, like this one, that are more efficiently solved by the Break Apart to Multiply strategy (i.e., using the distributive property). In Highs or Lows, players draw three (or four) cards,* make a multiplication problem, and solve it. Templates are provided to focus on a number type (e.g., one-digit times two-digit or one-digit times mixed number). They flip a coin to determine the goal (highest or lowest) - flip before arranging cards to put a focus on strategy or after to incorporate luck. The player with the product that fits the goal wins the round. Sample templates are shown in Figure 3.

*You can create access digit cards, 0-9, or use playing cards (queen = 0, ace = 1, remove 10s, jacks, and kings)

Fluency Games: Games that focus on choosing and using different strategies

These real fluency games give students an opportunity to think about when they want to use a strategy, moving beyond a focus on accuracy to also focus on efficiency and flexibility.
Figure 4. Two versions of Strategy Spin spinners.
Strategy Spin: Grab your scissors and turn a dull worksheet into this fluency game! But, first make sure the problems on the page lend to a variety of strategies. Players take turns spinning the strategy spinner, and then look for a problem that is best solved using that strategy. If they find a problem and solve it correctly using that strategy, they keep the card. Play until the cards are gone. The player with the most cards wins. Beyond the four operations, this game can also be played with ratios and solving equations for unknowns (see spinners in Figure 4).

insert 4b

You can download the Strategy Spinner templates for subtraction here and for division here.
Figure 5. Strategories game boards for addition (one for whole numbers and one for fractions and/or decimals).
Strategories: This is not a misspelling, but an adaptation of a popular game. Students are given a recording card with strategies listed and a blank cell to write in an example problem. For addition, the cards look like one of these (whole number version and decimal/fraction version), as shown in Figure 5.

Download the Strategories: Addition Gameboards here and here.

Place students in groups of three. Player 1 asks one of the other players to solve a problem on player 1's card for _______ strategy. If the player explains the problem using that strategy, they score 5 points. If not, the third player gets a chance to "steal" by explaining the problem using that strategy. If the third player cannot, the author of the problem must explain using that strategy. If they cannot, they lose 10 points. Continue taking turns till all problems are solved (or play 3 rounds). High score wins.

Strategic Use of Games

As teachers, we select games to help our students become competent and confident. The games shared here are designed to help students first become competent and confident in using strategies and then become competent and confident in choosing strategies. This type of practice is so much more useful, interesting, and cognitively demanding than solving a page of problems all the same way. That is not fluency practice - at best it is accuracy practice. We close this blog with a little checklist to help your strategic selection of games.

Game Characteristics to Seek

Game Characteristics to Avoid

Students have think time

Students explain their reasoning aloud (and we can listen and assess)

Involves the enactment of a strategy students need to learn

Involves choosing a reasoning strategy

Is fun!

Can be played over and over again (either in its given form or by adapting it).

Involves speed

Students compete to solve the same problem

Winner of the game is based on who is faster/stronger at using a strategy.

Involves player elimination

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author: Sherri Martinie and Jennifer Bay-Williams

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author: Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Michael W. Smith, Hugh Kesson, and Deborah Appleman

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4 Great Classroom Games to Get at Real Mathematical Strategy and Fluency - Corwin Connect

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Learn four quick and fun games to help students gain "real" mathematical fluency with whole numbers, fractions, and decimals.

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Our Mission

Multiplicity lab was founded at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy to support the teaching of mathematics as an ambitious, expansive, and just pursuit. We connect research in the learning sciences and mathematics education to the daily practices of teaching by providing resources, routines, and tasks worthy of students' and teachers' time.

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Multiplicity lab was founded at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy to support the teaching of mathematics as an ambitious, expansive, and just pursuit. We connect research in the learning sciences and mathematics education to the daily practices of teaching by providing resources, routines, and tasks worthy of students' and teachers' time.

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Story Starters: Creative Writing Prompts for Kids | Scholastic.com

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Scholastic's Story Starters kids' writing activity generates creative writing prompts, from general fiction to adventure, fantasy, and science fiction.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Math for Love - math openers and number talk ideas

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Math for Love - math openers and number talk ideas

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An index of some of our favorite lessons. We recommend starting with openers or games if this is your first time here.

Want more?
The Math for Love curriculum offers enough supplementary lessons to enrich the entire school year, or teach a month-long summer program.

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An index of some of our favorite lessons. We recommend starting with openers or games if this is your first time here. Want more? The Math for Love curriculum offers enough supplementary lessons to enrich the entire school year, or teach a month-long summer program.

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Virtual Picture Book Library for Black History Month

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Virtual Picture Book Library for Black History Month

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Resources to use for the 5 Pillars of Reading Instruction

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Resources to use for the 5 Pillars of Reading Instruction

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All the best things in life start with a strong foundation. A good garden needs good soil, a good party needs a good playlist, and a good introduction to literacy needs the five pillars of reading. The building blocks of reading, as defined by the National Reading Panel, include phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Together, these five pillars make up the components of successful reading instruction by shaping learners' brains one step at a time, to learn to read and understand the written English language. Built to these five pillars and supporting scientifically backed reading research (or the Science of Reading), our engaging Reading Eggs and Exact Path programs (including targeted K-2 enhancements) are the perfect tools to guide your youngest readers through their literacy journey.

Structuring an effective and research-based literacy and language arts block is the first step to laying a good foundation for your student's literacy skills. It's no easy task, but with the FREE Reading Workbook from Edmentum, you'll learn how to select the best approach for your classroom and explore the different components of a successful literacy teaching strategy. The workbook includes several pages dedicated to helping you incorporate these five components of literacy into daily reading instruction. But, before you dig into that resource, let's take a closer look at what these five pillars are and how they work to build the foundation of an effective literacy instruction strategy.

1. Phonemic Awareness

What it is: The ability to hear, identify, manipulate, and substitute phonemes-the smallest units of sound that can differentiate meaning-in spoken words

What it means: Teaching phonemic awareness means instructing students to identify and manipulate the approximately 44 phonemes in the English language. It doesn't require students to be able to read or even see printed letters to grasp this concept; it's all about the sounds that word parts make. Essentially, students begin by learning individual phonemes, then joining phonemes, and finally, building words.

Why it matters: Phonemic awareness is a strong predictor of long-term reading and spelling success. By using effective teaching strategies, phonemic awareness can be successfully taught during your literacy block. As you're planning instruction, it's also important to recognize that phonemic awareness development must be quickly followed by the introduction of phonics. Research shows that teaching sounds along with letters of the alphabet helps students better understand how phonemic awareness relates to their reading and writing.

2. Phonics

What it is: The ability to understand that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (the letters that represent those sounds in written language) in order to associate written letters with the sounds of spoken language

What it means: This is where students begin to "crack the code" on reading. Phonics instruction teaches students how to build relationships between sounds and letters or letter combinations and how to use those relationships to build words.

Why it matters: While the English language is full of irregular spellings and exceptions to phonetic rules, phonics teaches students a system for remembering how to read words so that they are able to read, spell, and recognize words instantly.

3. Fluency

What it is: The ability to read text accurately, quickly, and expressively, either to oneself or aloud; the NAEP Oral Reading Fluency Passage Reading Expression Scoring Rubric helps represent the learning progression of this skill

What it means: Fluency is the ability to read as well as one speaks and to make sense of what is being read without having to stop or pause to decode words. Fluency is different from memorization, which can occur when students interact with the same text so frequently that they can repeat it without reading. Actual fluency is developed with the repeated, accurate sounding out of words.

Why it matters: Developing fluency is critical to a student's motivation to read. When students struggle to sound out letters and words, reading can become a laborious and exhausting task, and students may begin to perceive reading as a negative activity. As students begin to acquire words more easily, they should also practice dividing text into meaningful chunks, knowing when to pause and change intonation and tone. With regular guidance and feedback, students begin to recognize these cues during reading and develop deeper comprehension.

4. Vocabulary

What it is: The growing, stored compilation of words that students understand and use in their conversation (oral vocabulary) and recognize in print (reading vocabulary)

What it means: Vocabulary is very closely tied to reading comprehension, and it can be absorbed or learned both orally and through print. Most vocabulary is learned through everyday listening in conversations, reading aloud, or independent reading. In fact, studies show that there are direct links between how many words children hear spoken at home and how well they excel in 3rd grade. This is because children are unconsciously building their oral vocabularies all the time.

Why it matters: In order to comprehend reading, a student must know what the words mean that he or she is reading. Beginning readers use their oral vocabulary to make sense of words they see in print. If a student encounters an unfamiliar word while reading, his or her reading is momentarily interrupted until the new word is added to his or her mental vocabulary. Direct instruction of explicitly taught vocabulary, as well as word-learning strategies, can help build a flourishing vocabulary and improve reading fluency and comprehension.

5. Comprehension

What it is: The ability to understand, remember, and make meaning of what has been read-this is the purpose for reading

What it means: Students with developed reading comprehension abilities can predict, infer, make connections, and analyze what is being read. If you want to think of reading like a watering can, then the four preceding pillars are the different parts that make up the watering can, like the handle, spout, and body of the can itself. Comprehension is the water. Without it, you still have a watering can, but an empty watering can won't help your flowers grow. Comprehension allows the flowers of literacy to bloom as it gives meaning and purpose to what is being read.

Why it matters: Even before children become independent readers, they can begin practicing and developing comprehension skills when books are read aloud to them. Students who comprehend what they read are both purposeful and active readers. They use metacognitive strategies to think about the purpose of what they're reading and monitor their own understanding as they read. This allows these students to isolate and verbalize where they have a lack of understanding, which, in turn, opens doors for them to apply specific strategies to attain that understanding.

The five pillars of reading are vital to literacy instruction, but they are still only one component of your larger reading instruction strategy. For an in-depth guide on how to evaluate the many facets of structuring an effective, research-based reading and language arts block, and for help selecting the appropriate technology tools to support your approach, download our FREE Reading Workbook.
This blog was originally published February 2018 and has been updated by Jiana Khazma.

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[The Five Pillars of Reading] Breaking Down the Elements of Successful Literacy Instruction

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All the best things in life start with a strong foundation. A good garden needs good soil, a good party needs a good playlist, and a good introduction to literacy needs the five pillars of reading.

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Pixar Shorts to utilize for literary elements

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Pixar Shorts to utilize for literary elements

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Listen to the interview with Angela Peery:
Sponsored by Google for Education's Applied Digital Skills and fastIEP

I've been an educator for 36 years, and if there's one thing I think every educator can agree on, it's that increasing the number of words our students know is a good thing. Period.

This is supported by decades of research:

A rich vocabulary supports content knowledge in all disciplines. Conceptual understanding, along with both general and specific word knowledge, impacts learning at every age level, starting with oral language development in preschool. When older students know the meaning of specific words and are able to put related words together during a unit of study, they can connect to new content more readily and remember more (Marzano & Simms, 2013).

Word knowledge is key for reading comprehension. Kindergarten students' word knowledge predicts reading comprehension in second grade (Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 1999; Roth, Speece, & Cooper, 2002), and this persists through fourth grade (Wagner, Muse, & Tannenbaum, 2007). Even more surprisingly, Cunningham and Stanovich (1997) find that first-grade students' vocabulary knowledge predicts their reading comprehension level much later, in the eleventh grade.

Students who are deficient in vocabulary face numerous obstacles, including having much lower reading comprehension. Their reading range is thus limited, their writing lacks specificity and voice, and their spoken language lacks range of word choice. They risk reading less (both in volume and frequency), not understanding content-area texts or concepts well, writing lackluster essays and reports, and not being able to express themselves as well verbally.

This is why all teachers should address vocabulary instruction head-on.

But what words should be taught? In English language arts/reading classrooms, explicit vocabulary instruction should focus on general academic words (Beck, McKeown & Kucan, 2013). These words cut across disciplines and help students speak, read, and write well in all the academic settings in which they'll find themselves. In every discipline, there are also domain-specific terms students need to understand and learn.

8 Vocabulary-Building Strategies

Good vocabulary instruction can and should happen throughout the school day. This can happen through incidental learning, when students talk with and listen to others, watch videos, play games, and read independently, through explicit instruction, which are more structured activities, or with the help of digital tools.

The strategies that follow, most of which require very little preparation time, come from three of my books, shown below:

Strategy 1: Informal Conversations

One of the most powerful things teachers (and adults in the home) can do is to have rich conversations with children. Recent research on conversational turns (LENA, 2017) indicates that the more turns a young child takes in conversation with an adult, the more they grow their vocabulary and verbal acuity in general.

So asking questions of a student, receiving their responses, adding information, and asking them to reflect or add more information-in other words, keeping the conversation going-is important in vocabulary development. This idea has great potential for non-instructional segments of the preschool elementary day like snack time, lining up to go to lunch, and restroom breaks. It also has potential for older students.

Strategy 2: Anchored Word Learning

Anchored Word Learning (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002) is ideal to use with elementary students where read-alouds are typically part of the daily routine. It can also be used in the upper grades, especially with complex text that is being read aloud and discussed together as a whole class.

For young children, picture books provide excellent sources of higher-level, sophisticated words that are important for expanding vocabulary. They expose students to words they would not typically read within leveled books or on their own. For older children, excerpts from novels, nonfiction texts of various types, and content-area texts can all be used for anchored word learning.

Isabel Beck suggests selecting three general academic words each time the teacher reads aloud a picture book or trade book; these should not be esoteric or archaic terms, but words likely to come up in other academic texts. Older students may be able to handle more words during a read-aloud and class discussion, but teachers are cautioned not to select too many words for one lesson. Three to five words is usually sufficient.

Prior to reading, teachers need to complete three simple preparation steps:

1. Select a read-aloud. Choose from books by favorite authors, recommended books, new books, old favorites, picture books, trade books, and content-area texts that impart critical information.

2. Identify three to five words for direct instruction. Select words which will expand students' vocabulary and will likely appear in varied contexts-or focus on words critically important to the content being taught. "Nice to know" words don't have a place here. The idea is to teach important words that are likely to appear in various contexts or words you really want students to know.

3. Mark the words in the text with a sticky note or with a highlighter and annotations if the text is on paper.

Once this preparation is complete, follow these steps with students:

1. Read the entire text aloud. Don't stop in the first reading to discuss the words at length. Students need to hear complex texts being read aloud fluently-especially a first reading-so they can start to process the story itself or the complicated ideas present in many nonfiction and content-specific texts.

2. After reading the text through once, go back and bring attention to each targeted word. You may want to reread the sentences and/or paragraphs in which each word appears.

3. Have students say each word aloud.

4. Write each word so it's visible to students. You may want to have students write the words down as well (or use their fingers and "write" the words in the air or in the palms of their hands). With younger students, spell the word as you write it. Call attention to any interesting spelling feature, such as double letters, silent E, prefixes, etc.

5. Provide a student-friendly definition of each word. You may want to repeat this several times.

6. Provide examples for each word beyond the context of the text. Encourage children to provide examples of their own so they personalize the word, relating it to their own context. This is a great time to use think-pair-share or turn-and-talk.

7. If desired, post these words on your academic word wall. If you're an ELA/reading teacher, you may want to have a section of the word wall dedicated to words from read-alouds.

Strategy 3: TIP Chart

This adaptation of a word wall features a visual in addition to a brief definition. TIP stands for term, information, and picture. Basically, a TIP Chart (Rollins, 2014) is a three-column poster displayed so students can quickly use it to remind them of the meaning of an important content-area ( tier three) word. In essence, it's a vocabulary anchor chart.

Unlike the well-known Frayer Model, the TIP Chart is useful for words that are fairly straightforward in meaning-not ones with heavy conceptual weight. Once completed, the TIP Chart serves as an "at a glance" reference for important disciplinary terms; this purpose must be kept in mind if the strategy is to be most beneficial.

TIP charts are displayed prominently for the whole class to see, but students can also keep personal TIP charts in their notebooks or digital files as well. The teacher can first model how to create the chart, and later, students can be involved in deciding what information to record and what picture to draw to go with each word.

The best time to use the strategy is when beginning a new chunk of instruction, like a chapter or unit. With the chart ready, announce the first word and call students' attention to the importance of this word in the current segment of instruction. Write the word in column one. Then share the formal and full definition, which ideally would also be printed in the text or on a screen or board in the classroom. Along with students, from this full definition, develop a short, student-friendly definition or a brief list that you write in the middle column. Do not write the full, formal definition in column two. Lastly, provide or co-create a simple visual in column three.

So, for the term soliloquy in my 9 th grade English class, I would first give the formal definition: A long, usually serious speech that a character in a play makes to an audience and that reveals the character's thoughts. We might talk for a minute about the fact that playwrights use soliloquies so the audience understands what a character is thinking. So, in the middle column, we might write the student-friendly, casual definition: When someone in the play thinks out loud. And, to emphasize the fact that this kind of speech is usually given with the character standing alone on the stage, I might then draw a single stick figure with lines or a speech bubble emanating from its face to indicate that he or she is speaking.

The TIP Chart in my class might look something like this:

Here's a social studies example. For the term "monopoly," the full definition might be "the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service." It is assumed that the teacher is also teaching the term "commodity" along with "monopoly." In column two for "monopoly," the teacher may write "control of a product or service." In the third column, he or she might draw a large square that surrounds smaller squares, thus showing the dominance of the one provider. Students might also suggest something that symbolizes a monopoly to them, like an iPhone surrounded by other types of cell phones, but the iPhone appears much larger or more prominent, or the other phones are crossed out.

Teachers can gradually do less in whole-class fashion with TIP charts and encourage students to create their own in hard-copy notebooks or digital notebooks using Google Docs, LiveBinders, or OneNote. Students might preview the first part of each chapter or unit (in any class) and try to complete a personal TIP chart to be kept in their organizational system. They could also collaborate with other students to create TIP charts, so that if any individual is confused about a word, they can get ideas from others. This is a portable strategy students can use with any content area and any textbook from elementary school well into college.

Strategy 4: Save the Last Word for Me

Save the Last Word for Me (Beers, 2003) is an ideal strategy to promote peer conversation, increase engagement, and promote deeper processing about vocabulary and content. Although it's usually applied to conversations about literature, its clearly defined structure is perfect for reviewing vocabulary and gaining deeper understanding of specific terms.

It is fairly typical for teachers to provide guided review activities before a unit test, midterm, or final exam. Let's say the instructional unit includes about 25 terms which students must recognize and understand how to use correctly within context. Save the Last Word for Me serves as an engaging vehicle for students to practice doing so in preparation for an assessment.

The steps for employing this strategy are as follows; the first three need to be completed ahead of time:

1. Print multiple sets of cards with a target word on one side and the definition on the reverse side (one set for each group of students).

2. Print the directions for the activity (see below).

3. Place the printed directions and terms in a plastic bag or manila envelope for each group of students.

4. Divide students into groups of three to five. It's important that groups are small so each student has an opportunity to discuss. The goal is for students to review and deepen understanding about concepts and specific terms, so making sure they clarify their thinking aloud is important.

To begin, one student draws a card from the deck and another student defines the term. Moving around the circle, each student adds to the definition, refining and adding examples along the way. The person who draws the cards gets the "last word" and can add to the definition or revise it before students agree upon a definition. You may want to model the process in whole-class fashion first or by having a small group model the process as the rest of the class watches.

Sometimes, if the bank of terms is large, I suggest simply printing one master deck of cards and place five or six cards in each bag. After a few minutes, signal the groups to trade bags of terms and, in so doing, each group gets new terms to review.

While Save the Last Word for Me is low-tech, sometimes simpler is better. It delivers by supporting interaction and engagement, deeper conversations, and higher-level processing.
Student Directions for Save the Last Word for Me

One student selects a card from the deck and says the term aloud with the other group members.

On a piece of paper, each student jots down what they know about the term. (This can also be "in your head" and each person takes about 30 seconds to think about what they know about the meaning.)

When everyone is finished, each person takes a turn sharing their reflections/responses. As each participant shares their thoughts, other students can share thoughts and responses.

The student who drew the card gets the last word by sharing their reflections/reactions or by stating a fresh view if the responses of others have altered their original thinking.

If students are unsure or need clarification, they refer to the text, notes, and/or handouts for clarification.

Another student draws a new card, and the process is repeated.

Strategy 5: SNAP Minilessons

Setting aside specific time daily, weekly, or periodically to explicitly teach general academic vocabulary through minilessons (of 5 to 15 minutes each) is another way you can provide explicit instruction.

Each minilesson in my books contains four core components or steps, which the acronym SNAP in the title represents:

S: Seeing and saying each word

N: Naming a category or group each word belongs to or noticing connections to related words or word families

A: Acting on the words (engaging in a brief task or conversation about the words)

P: Producing an individual, original application of the words

The example below is intended for secondary students.

Click here to see this lesson in a Google Doc.

Strategy 6: Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy

The primary purpose of the Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (VSS) (Haggard, 1986) is to help students generate a list of words to be learned based on their prior knowledge and experience with reading and texts. This strategy can stimulate word growth and independence as students read texts and select vocabulary which they deem important to understanding the content.

VSS includes the following steps:

Selecting words

Defining words

Finalizing word lists

Extending word knowledge

The strategy can be used to support general word learning from one's environment or to support vocabulary learning from assigned and self-selected texts.

A colleague of mine routinely used this strategy to support general word learning with college freshmen. Every week, students "collected" three words from their environment (watching, listening, and reading) that they thought important to learn. For each word, students included the following information

An accurate definition

Where they heard or read the word including a bit of the context

A justification for why they thought the word was important to learn

Words were shared and discussed in class at an established time each week. Students also recorded their words in personal vocabulary notebooks. VSS engaged students in lively discussions and specifically raised word consciousness, a critical goal of word learning.

Another way VSS can be implemented is to specifically support word acquisition from content-area text. To support content learning, students can work in cooperative groups and read a chapter from a textbook (or any text). As they read, they identify words they think should be studied and mastered. During class discussion, groups then share their words and why they think the terms are important to mastering content. Additional steps can include developing a class list that contains one word from each group, creating TIP charts with the words, and having students teach minilessons focused on the words to each other.

Strategy 7: Word Talks

Word talks were derived from a similar strategy called book talks, in which students give a brief (less than five minutes) presentation about a book they recommend to their peers for independent reading. Word talks are similar in that they require a student to give a brief presentation on one or several words that they feel are important for their peers to know. This strategy is, like some others in this chapter, excellent for general academic words, not highly specialized, domain-specific words. Also, it can be easily combined with the Vocabulary Self-Collection strategy discussed earlier.

Some teachers who use word talks schedule a certain day a week or a certain day per month on which several students get up and do their word talks. Other teachers schedule a rotation so that a few times a week, one student is doing a word talk that day. Because the word talks consist of a student teaching their peers, it's important to make time for this, because students tend to find the periods in which their classmates are leading discussion much more memorable than when the teacher is; students often have a way of saying something that "clicks" with their peers just because it's said in a kid-friendly way.

What kind of words should students share in word talks? Many students share from their independent reading and their media and technology use. Teachers can ask students to provide a rationale for each word chosen if they like, but they can also allow students to share any word that might be interesting. I find myself thinking of the character Sam in the Netflix series Atypical as a high school student. He would have certainly loved to share words related to penguins and Antarctica in word talks.

In a word talk in one of my high school classes, a student selected the following words to share: ascent, descent, decompression, and recompression. Can you tell what the student was learning to do outside of school? Scuba diving. This student was studying for her initial scuba certification and thought these words would be good to share because although they have scuba-specific meanings, they also have application to non-scuba situations.

Word talks are great opportunities for some students to showcase their interests and expertise, but most importantly, they make clear that continual word learning is important.

Strategy 8: Digital Tools for Independent Practice

The following websites/programs offer support for you as a teacher as well as independent practice activities for students:

Flocabulary
This robust program includes hip-hop type videos to help students learn new terminology.

Freerice
This site has an addictive vocabulary game with five difficulty levels, with levels one and two being appropriate for students in grades three and up.

Vocabador
This game allows students to study SAT vocabulary words, choose an avatar, and "get into the ring" to play against other virtual wrestlers.

There's nothing negative that comes about when anyone grows their vocabulary-and for students, there are many, many positives. By adding even a few of these strategies to your repertoire, you'll help students build vocabularies that will support them no matter what path they choose to pursue.
References
Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.

Beers, K. (2003). When kids can't read, what teachers can do: A guide for teachers 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Catts, H. W., Fey, M. E., Zhang, X., & Tomblin, J. B. (1999). Language basis of reading and reading disabilities: Evidence from a longitudinal investigation. Scientific Studies of Reading, 3(4), 331-361.

Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1997). Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 934-945.

Haggard, M. R. (1986). The vocabulary self-collection strategy: Using student interest and world knowledge to enhance vocabulary growth. Journal of Reading, 29(7), 634-642.

LENA. 2017. Proving the Power of Talk: 10 Years of Research on the Impact of Language on Young Children. Available at https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/3975639/Research_Summary.pdf?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lena.org%2F.

Marzano, R. J., & Simms, J. A. (2013). Vocabulary for the Common Core. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

Rollins, S. P. (2014). Learning in the fast lane: 8 ways to put all students on the road to academic success. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Wagner, R. K., Muse, A. E., & Tannenbaum, K. R. (Eds.). (2007). Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension. New York: Guilford Press.

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By adding even a few of these strategies to your repertoire, you'll help students build vocabularies that will support them no matter what path they choose to pursue.

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Count, explore number patterns, or create your own grid with fractions, decimals, and more.

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Convert and edit PDF documents and make web pages printer-friendly before you print them. Our browser extension and PDF tools are used by millions of people.

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Technical Requirements

Whiteboard.chat can be accessed on any web browser.

Neither you nor your students need to create an account to use Whiteboard.chat, but if you would like to save your boards, you can create an account using Google, Facebook, or an email address.

Whiteboard.chat allows the insertion of polls, backgrounds, shapes, text, drawings, math symbols, manipulatives, musical notation, and several widgets, such as a timer.

To capture student work, you can save any boards as a PDF or consider taking and saving a quick screenshot.

Check out this video and tip sheet for an overview of Whiteboard.chat:

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Technical Requirements Whiteboard.chat can be accessed on any web browser. Neither you nor your students need to create an account to use Whiteboard.chat, but if you would like to save your boards, you can create an account using Google, Facebook, or an email address.

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Hide the 'filmstrip' during edit mode in Google Slides

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Hide the 'filmstrip' during edit mode in Google Slides

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20 Ideas for Exit Tickets in the Classroom

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20 Ideas for Exit Tickets in the Classroom

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Class is done. We've learned a lot. We've tried some new things. We've had some great discussions.

So ... now what?

How can we make the most of the end of class? How can we tie a bow on a day of class to wrap everything up?

An exit ticket gives us that opportunity - much like bell-ringer activities help us kick class off effectively.

The name "exit ticket" makes it sound like you need a ticket to exit the room, but exit tickets are final quick check-ins with students before class wraps up.

What can we do with exit tickets?

In an article in the publication Educational Leadership by ASCD, Robert Marzano explains that there are four kinds of prompts teachers often use with exit slips - prompts that ...

Provide formative assessment data (How would you rate your current level of understanding of what we did today?)

Stimulate student analysis (How hard did you work today? What could you have done to help yourself learn better?)

Focus on instructional strategies (How did the group work today help you understand the content?)

Are open communications to the teacher (What could I do differently to help you understand better?)

Exit tickets are also a research-based best practice for several reasons ...

Exit tickets are a pretty versatile tool. We can use exit tickets one day as formative assessment and on another day to check in on students' feelings to learning.

Armed with this data, it can inform your instruction instantly - as soon as the next day or even later on in that same day!

So ... what does this look like in a classroom? What digital tools can help us with exit tickets? I have 10 ideas for both!

BONUS: The Exit Ticket Builder for Google Slides and PowerPoint

Having some ideas for exit ticket prompts can save you time AND help you remix them to meet the needs of your students.

Here I'll share 10 exit ticket prompts ... but let's take it a step further!

These prompts are part of my FREE Exit Ticket Builder template for Google Slides and PowerPoint! With this template, you can quickly add any of the 20 pre-made exit ticket prompts to your slide deck -- then assign it to students.

Flip through the slides below to see all the exit ticket ideas in the Exit Ticket Builder.

Then, make a copy in Google Slides or PowerPoint to assign to your students!

10 ideas for exit ticket prompts

Here are 10 exit ticket prompt ideas that you can use to wrap up your class ...

1. Do you agree or disagree with the topic today? Describe why. If you're studying a topic that has two or more sides, this lets the student decide where he/she stands and why.

2. How are you doing? Just a simple social-emotional check-in can give the teacher valuable information and help the student to feel seen and heard.

10 digital tools for exit tickets

The traditional way of doing exit tickets is with slips of paper. That's totally fine. But we do have plenty of digital options that give us variety.

The great thing about many of these is that you can re-use them. For many, you can create them once and use the same (or similar) questions and templates without having to reinvent the wheel.

Here are some digital tools and ideas for using them for using digital exit tickets in the classroom.

1. Socrative

Use Socrative ( socrative.com) for to ask a quick question or do a quick poll at the end of class. The quick question option lets you ask a super-fast open-ended or multiple choice question. Plus, Socrative has a built-in exit ticket option, asking students ...

how well they understood the day's lesson (multiple choice)

what they learned (open-ended)

to answer an additional question from the teacher, maybe one you ask verbally (open-ended)

Benefits: It's fast and summarizes your info quickly on one screen.

2. Google Forms

Creating a quick Google Form ( forms.google.com) can let you customize your exit ticket experience. Building your exit ticket with Forms, Google's survey tool, lets you add a variety of question types. Plus, you can also display videos, images and text. The drag and drop interface of Google Forms makes it pretty easy to pull together an exit ticket. When you're done, use the "Send" button to give your students a link. View results in the "Responses" tab and even export them to a spreadsheet.

Benefits: You get more question types and multimedia. You can view graphs of responses quickly.

3. Pear Deck

Pear Deck ( peardeck.com) works with slide presentation tools (easiest, in my opinion: Google Slides, with the Pear Deck add-on) to make slides interactive. Have a quick slide deck pre-created for the end of class. Design slides visually - or use the pre-created slides in Pear Deck's slide library in the Google Slides add-on. Students interact on their screen, drawing, dragging and typing. Pear Deck has a paid premium version, but there's a lot you can do with its free version.

Benefits: Questions are visual, hands-on and interactive.

4. Flipgrid

Using Flipgrid ( flipgrid.com) as an exit ticket means you get to see and hear your students via video. Create a simple prompt. Give your students a link to it - or assign it in Google Classroom - or provide students the QR code to answer it. Students respond in their browser (or with the mobile app). It's one thing to see text on a screen. It's another to be able to read your students' body language and vocal intonation.

Benefits: You can learn more from watching how your students answer via video sometimes.

5. Synth

Like the idea of video responses but prefer to respond with audio? Synth ( gosynth.com) makes responding with your voice digitally feel like a conversation. Students can leave short audio responses to a question - perfect for exit tickets. But they can also respond to each other's recordings, making it feel more like an asynchronous conversation over time.

Benefits: This lets you hear your students' voices - and lets them practice answering with their voices.

6. Kahoot!

You're likely familiar with this classroom staple by now. We often use Kahoot! ( kahoot.com) for reviewing. However, we can also use it for exit tickets. Create a new survey Kahoot! instead of the traditional quiz game. Surveys still have multiple choices, but they aren't scored. It takes the competitive edge off and lets students be more thoughtful with their answers.

Benefits: It uses a familiar interface that students likely connect to having fun. Plus, students can answer quickly and easily.

7. Google Slides

Google Slides is for way more than oral presentations in front of class! Create a new slide presentation and share it with students, making it "everyone can edit". ( Instructions in this blog post.) Each student gets a slide on the slide deck for responding. Give students a question or prompt to respond to at the end of class. Note that everyone can see everyone's slides, so this wouldn't be ideal for fact recall or for sensitive personal questions. Because of the design freedom in Google Slides, it opens up what students can create for you quickly!

Benefits: The design tools mean students can quickly make something visual with text, images, lines, shapes, etc.

8. Formative

Formative ( goformative.com) is like using Google Forms in some ways. But it offers even more flexibility. There are TONS of question types. One of my favorites is the "Show Your Work" question where students draw their answers. If you ask multiple-choice questions, it will autograde the responses.

Benefits: Have students draw their answers using the "Show Your Work" question type.

9. Poll Everywhere

Using Poll Everywhere ( polleverywhere.com) lets you create a quick poll with lots of options. You can add images to your polls and even rank items instead of just choosing one.

Benefits: Ask students to rank multiple items.

10. Seesaw

Teachers love Seesaw ( seesaw.me) because it creates a digital learning community. It's a bit like social media (think Facebook) for the classroom. For exit tickets, students can post to their Seesaw classroom and snap a picture of what they've been working on. They can even annotate it by drawing and labeling.

Benefits: Marking up images can help students show what they know.

Exit tickets that DON'T use technology

Technology opens up lots of opportunities to assess, create and gather data in unique ways.

That doesn't mean we HAVE to use technology, though. Sometimes, the data we want to gather can be done faster - or more meaningfully - without technology.

Here are some ideas:

The sticky note mosaic: Grab a few pads of sticky notes of different colors. Tell students what each color stands for: something that know for sure, something they're still unclear on, something they need to tell the teacher, etc. Stick the sticky notes on the board randomly or in groups as they leave. The colors will help you sort them quickly.

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20 ideas for exit tickets in the classroom

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Class is done. We've learned a lot. We've tried some new things. We've had some great discussions. So ... now what? How can we make the most of the end of class? How can we tie a bow on a day of class to wrap everything up?

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The Great and Powerful Graphic Organizer

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The Great and Powerful Graphic Organizer

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The Great and Powerful Graphic Organizer | Cult of Pedagogy

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Beneath its simplicity lies an absolute dynamo, a vehicle that can cement learning more firmly than a lot of the other stuff we try, in a lot less time.

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How to use Whiteboard in Microsoft Teams

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Tired of taking pictures and then realizing you have things in the background you don't want?! Cleanup.pictures will remove any object, people, text, you name it from the background!

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Remove objects, people, text and defects from any picture for free. Create a clean background for a product picture 📸, re-design any items 👠, fill up some missing space for a youtube thumbnail 🎬, You can use it to iron your shirts 👕...etc!

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We have talked about giving encouragement and we have learned about giving SPF - Specific Positive Feedback. PBIS tells us we should have a 4:1 ratio - 4 positive comments to every one redirect or reminder. We want to be careful that our SPF is NOT based on our feelings (I feel, I love, I am proud, etc. ) as using "I" statements can lead to insecurity, divisiveness between students, making feedback externally motivated vs. internally motivating, and narrowly defines students by what WE, the teacher, see (or don't see). Therein lies a PBIS connection to Conscious Discipline!

Some ideas for SPF:

You all picked up the trash from your table at lunch. That was so considerate of others.

You all surprised me with how quiet you were during the fire drill. Thank you.

You lined up the first time when the recess teacher asked. That was so helpful.

You put the equipment away at the end of PE/Art/Music/Library. That was so kind.

You were taking turns with the basketball at recess so everyone could play. That was respectful of others.

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Kids who struggle with executive functioning often have trouble dealing with abstract concepts, such as the passing of time. Using a wall clock and a dry erase marker, color in the "wedge" of time between the current location of the minute hand and where it will be when it is time to transition.

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10 Ways to Pursue Excellence through Equity

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10 Ways to Pursue Excellence through Equity

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Dr. Pedro Noguera has researched ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions, as well as demographic trends in local, regional and even global contexts. He firmly believes in the core value of educator and student relationships and the power of teacher expectations in influencing student performance. Using his own research and that from the University of Chicago, he has developed 10 practices to promote achievement for all students.

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Greta just had an amazing discussion with her fifth period history class. They've been studying the Holocaust, and in today's class, they just nailed it. She had originally planned for about ten minutes of discussion, but things were going so well, she let it go for the whole period. Days like this rock.

Except for the stuff she didn't notice. Like Haley.

Haley is in Greta's fifth period. She had a lot of questions today, but never found the right moment to ask them. She doesn't like to interrupt. A few times, she almost put her hand up, but someone else would start talking before she ever managed to lift it.

Robert is in that class too. He felt like an idiot the whole period - that one kid kept mentioning the Third Reich, and Robert wasn't 100 percent sure what that was. He definitely didn't want to ask.

Nadia thought the discussion was dumb - people really oversimplified the whole tragedy. But she didn't want to start any trouble, so she said nothing.

And Becky and Kyle? The super shy ones? Naturally, they also stayed quiet. Oh, and three other students secretly texted the whole time. In fact, in Greta's class of 28 students, only nine of them actually contributed to that discussion: Four of those were really into it, five commented once. The other nineteen just sat there. The whole time. Really.

Greta doesn't realize that she is suffering from the Fisheye Syndrome. It's a condition that impacts our perception, as if we're looking through a fisheye lens - the kind they use in peepholes. To those afflicted with fisheye, some students appear "larger" than others. They take up more energy and grab more of our attention, making the others fade into the periphery. We have a vague sense that the others are there, and we nag ourselves to include them, but those magnified students are just too hard to resist.

Maybe you're thinking this doesn't apply to you, especially if you're used to having animated debates with your students. Unlike some classrooms, where students are asleep most of the time, yours is interactive and engaging, right? Here's the weird thing: The fact that your class seems so lively might actually be a stronger indication that you're operating behind the fisheye lens.

I've been guilty of fisheye teaching. A lot. Recently, even. And I've seen many other teachers, good teachers, do it too.

I don't think any of us do it on purpose. We do it out of habit, and because it's so freakin' gratifying: You pose a question, and one of your sharp, verbal kids pipes up right away with an answer. It's a good answer, one that takes the class in the direction you were hoping they'd go, demonstrating a solid grasp of the material. Wow, you think, they're really learning! (...and, if we're being honest: You like me! You really like me!) Then it happens with another student, another extrovert, and then one more. Things are hopping now, a bona fide "class" discussion, but really, you're just volleying with three or four students. Most of the others have already checked out. We don't realize it because we're high on the whole thing, the nice rhythm we've got going with those three or four, that we lie to ourselves just a little.

So even if you have the tiniest suspicion that you might be afflicted, do some investigating. The best way is to videotape a few of your classes. The only problem is, once you become aware of the imbalance in participation, you're more likely to try and correct it while videotaping. Not necessarily a bad thing, unless you overcorrect for the recording, then go back to old habits and never recognize the presence of the fisheye. Another diagnostic tool is a laminated seating chart: Using a dry-erase marker, put a mark in each student's place on the chart every time he or she contributes to the class. In no time you'll have a visual on who is talking and who isn't.

Whether you think this is an issue in your teaching or not, my goal here is just to put the bug in your ear. To raise your awareness. Tomorrow, when you interact with your students, move your vision to the periphery and ask yourself if those students are as involved as they could be.

Sure, there's an element of "no duh" here: Obviously, increasing student participation is a good thing. But apart from making school a more interesting place to be, why is it important to get all of our students involved in discussions? Can't a student get just as much from listening as they would from actively participating?

Discussion equals formative assessment.
Classroom discussion is one of the simplest, quickest, and most effective means of formative assessment we have. By asking our students good questions, we can determine what they know and how well they know it in seconds. But when we allow a pattern to emerge where only our most confident and verbal kids respond, we miss the opportunity to assess the thinking of the others, and we may very well be fooling ourselves into thinking they're all getting it, when really, they're not.

The quiet ones MUST learn to speak.
Every year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers surveys employers about the skills they most want in potential employees (updated in 2016). In 2013, the 'ability to verbally communicate with persons inside and outside the organization' was near the top of the list. If our task is to help students become college- and career-ready, we are responsible for helping them grow as talkers. All of our students-especially the quiet ones-must learn how to present their ideas effectively, and no amount of listening compares to the cognitive and social challenge of actually having to frame your thoughts into coherent spoken sentences. Although our painfully shy students will resist, and our compassion will make us want to protect them, we do them no favors by letting them avoid this practice. Writer and teacher Jessica Lahey, in her February 2013 Atlantic column, agrees: "If anything," she says, "I feel even more strongly that my introverted students must learn how to self-advocate by communicating with parents, educators, and the world at large."

The talkers MUST learn to listen.
The extroverts need to learn how to let someone else take the stage. In school, in their careers, and in their most important relationships, listening skills are hugely important. Chances are, your big talkers don't have a lot of practice in skills like paraphrasing another person's ideas, asking thoughtful follow-up questions, or thinking quietly before they speak. By making a concerted effort to balance the participation in our classes, we are also giving those extroverts a chance to grow in ways that could have a powerful impact on their quality of life.

So now that the lens is off, how to keep it off? How do we get more students involved? First of all, know that the goal is not to have all students participate at exactly the same rate; the push should be for more balance. If your quieter students contribute one good comment per discussion, that's a step in the right direction.

Here are some ways to balance things out:

Make your intentions transparent. Talk to your students about this issue, and ask them to help change the current dynamic. This will prepare your quiet students, so they won't be startled by the sudden shift in attention. It will also help your extroverts understand why they are no longer getting the floor the way they're used to. Some of this might happen behind the scenes: For the class dominators, you might encourage them to limit the number of comments they make to three per class, or offer points any time they paraphrase or build on another student's comment or question. For those who typically hang back, have them choose a question ahead of time that they feel they could contribute something to, and plan to call on them for that item.

Increase wait time. Typically, female students and those with more reflective learning styles need more time to process higher-level questions. This can be accomplished with some good old-fashioned wait time. We should be waiting at least three seconds between posing a question and calling on a student to answer. (Easier said than done.) This gives everyone more time to think about what they want to say. Want to go even further? Add a "no hands" time, where no one gets to raise their hands at first: You ask the question, EVERYONE thinks for a moment about their answer with their hands down, then give them the go-ahead to raise their hands, then you call on someone. You'll be surprised at what a difference this makes to the number of hands that go up.

Pre-load discussions. Give shy students a head start by slipping them the discussion questions ahead of time. Actually, go ahead and give them to everyone. The talkative students could also benefit from some more thinking time.

Vary discussion formats. Any time you can give students a chance to share their thoughts with a smaller audience, you build their courage to share them with the larger group. This is where think-pair-share comes in handy: Rather than holding whole-class free-for-alls, put students in groups of 2 to 4 and pose questions one at a time, allowing each group to talk it over with each other first, then call on representatives to recap for the whole class. Take this a step further by doing a think-WRITE-pair-share, where each student first considers their own answer, writes it down, then shares it with someone else. Not only does this give them more thinking time, it also forces them to answer the question on their own, rather than "what that guy said."

Use icons. This strategy, described by Ruth Wickham, an English language teacher in Malaysia, is an ingenious way to get active participation from students in large classes. "I printed out four sets of little pictures, just clip-art type things, then I cut them up and stuck one on the first inside page of each (participant) workbook. The icons were all mixed up, so no one had the same as the person next to them, and there were four of each scattered around the room." She then placed the same icons onto certain slides in her presentation. Whenever an icon (such as a duck) appeared on the screen, participants who had a duck on their paper had to come to the front of the room and answer a question or perform a task. "The looks on their faces every time they saw an icon appear was just classic! We all had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs even with such a big group."

Some students are naturally going to be more active, more talkative, livelier than others. We're not trying to make them all be the same, just better, stronger, more balanced versions of the people that showed up on day one. With your little case of fisheye taken care of, you'll be ready to help every one of them stretch closer to their full potential. That's when the real conversation will begin. ♦

Stick around.
If you liked this one, I'd love to have you come back for more.Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. When you join, you'll have access to my Members-Only Library of free downloadable resources, including the e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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The Fisheye Syndrome: Is Every Student Really Participating?

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Greta just had an amazing discussion with her fifth period history class. They've been studying the Holocaust, and in today's class, they just nailed it. She had originally planned for about ten minutes of discussion, but things were going so well, she let it go for the whole period.

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Free Word Cloud Generator - Create a Word Cloud Live

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Create Live Word Clouds with your audience using their smartphones. All for Free with Mentimeter!

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Activities to Promote Orthographic Mapping

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Activities to Promote Orthographic Mapping

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In my last post, we discussed orthographic mapping and why it is crucial for reading success. Theory is great, but what every teacher wants to know is this-how does it look in practice? In it's simplest terms, we want to use activities that will help students focus on matching sound to print. Today, I want to talk about a variety of activities that you can use to promote orthographic mapping.

Phonemic awareness

Without phonemic awareness, orthographic mapping isn't possible. Children must be able to sequence and manipulate words at the phoneme level to be successful. You don't have to have a program. Instead, every day you can practice segmenting, blending, adding, deleting, or substituting. I've discussed phonemic awareness at length in other posts, so I won't belabor it here. But I couldn't write without highlighting the importance of this skill-you can't match sounds to print without a knowledge of the sounds.

How should you do it? Use the words you are using for your word study! Before introducing a new phonics skill, practice phonemic awareness tasks with the words. For example, if you were about to teach magic e, your students could practice segmenting words with short and long a. Just remember, however, that we need to take our phonemic awareness practices to print! After you have practiced your phonemic awareness tasks, make sure you are bridging those sounds to the graphemes that match those phonemes! I've moved the phonemic awareness portion of my lesson to right before I introduce a phonics rule, exactly for this reason.

Sound-symbol mapping

Sound-symbol mapping is a fantastic procedure to use for practicing new phonic rules or reviewing previous ones. The purpose of sound-symbol mapping is to assist students in matching phonemes to the graphemes that represent those sounds (sounds familiar, right? Are you tired of hearing me say that we need to match sounds to print?)

Here's the procedure:

1. Say a word. Have students repeat the word.

2. Tap the sounds.

3. Outline/color in the same number of boxes as sounds. (3 sounds = 3 boxes).

4. Fill in the letter(s) that represent those sounds. There may be more than 1 letter that represents a sound. For example, the word crash has 5 letters, but only 4 sounds. The sh goes in one box because it represents a single sound.

Time and time again, I hear teacher say how powerful this strategy has been for them. If you want to see this in action, check out my Facebook live on orthographic mapping. I start utilizing this technique around the 14:30 minute mark.

Using Elkonin Boxes

Before I introduce a new phonics rule, I use elkonin boxes to get students thinking about the sounds. For example, if I am teaching students ou and ow, I give them several pictures, like the ones on the right (cow, snout, couch, shower).

Before I even discuss the graphemes, we talk about the sounds. We use chips or buttons to represent each sound. After tapping sounds, I say something like "Where was the /ow/ sound in cow? snout? couch? shower?" Then I make the explicit connection between sounds and symbols. "When we hear the /ow/ sound in the middle, we use an ou. When we hear the /ow/ sound at the end of a syllable or word, we use the ow." I always try to make explicit the connection between phonemes and graphemes.

Rainbow sounds

When I was in the classroom, one of my favorite activities was rainbow words, where children write each word in a different colored marker or crayon. It's a fun activity, and one that is literally zero prep for the teacher. But I'm no longer convinced it is an effective strategy for word study. Ask yourself this-is it possible for the child to do this activity without being able to read or spell the word? If so, then we may need to rethink it.

One way we can focus on making the sound-symbol connection is by having children use a different color for every sound, NOT every letter. Take a look at the picture. If a child writes itch in 4 different colors, does it tell you anything about their spelling knowledge? If a child writes i-tch with two colors, that tells you that they have been paying attention to the sounds. Shoutout to Decodable Readers Australia, where I first heard about this technique!

Teaching heart words

Giving children flashcards with high-frequency words and expecting them to somehow remember those words is not an efficient strategy. There's an idea floating around in the teaching world that sight words are words we "just have to memorize because you can't sound them out." In fact, after I left college I thought sounding it out was an ineffective strategy for most words. Instead, I thought we should using the cueing strategies to promote word recognition. I cringe when I reflect on how I used to tell parents that children should be using the text clues, not phonics clues, to read the words.

The truth is, however, that we CAN sound out sight words. We just have to draw attention to the sounds that DO work before we talk about the ones that don't play fair. I have an entire blog post dedicated to this topic. At the bottom, I'll list some great free resources to help you get started!

Final Thoughts

I know what you're thinking. When am I supposed to do these activities? The great thing is this-all of these activities can be done whole-group or small group. Most of these activities don't require a lot of time each day. What many of them do require, however, is consistency and persistency. You do not need to do all of these every day, but every day your children should have time devoted to matching sounds to print. We will never have the level of automatic word recognition we want without a great deal of practice.

Resources

1. Sound-symbol mapping sheets.

2. You Tube video on orthographic mapping.

3. Heart Word Magic from Really Great Reading.

4. University of Florida Literacy Institute's Heart Words resources.

In my last post, we discussed orthographic mapping and why it is crucial for reading success. Theory is great, but what every teacher wants to know is this-how does it look in practice? In it's simplest terms, we want to use activities that will help students focus on matching sound to print. Today, I want to talk about a variety of activities that you can use to promote orthographic mapping.

Phonemic awareness

Without phonemic awareness, orthographic mapping isn't possible. Children must be able to sequence and manipulate words at the phoneme level to be successful. You don't have to have a program. Instead, every day you can practice segmenting, blending, adding, deleting, or substituting. I've discussed phonemic awareness at length in other posts, so I won't belabor it here. But I couldn't write without highlighting the importance of this skill-you can't match sounds to print without a knowledge of the sounds.

How should you do it? Use the words you are using for your word study! Before introducing a new phonics skill, practice phonemic awareness tasks with the words. For example, if you were about to teach magic e, your students could practice segmenting words with short and long a. Just remember, however, that we need to take our phonemic awareness practices to print! After you have practiced your phonemic awareness tasks, make sure you are bridging those sounds to the graphemes that match those phonemes! I've moved the phonemic awareness portion of my lesson to right before I introduce a phonics rule, exactly for this reason.

Sound-symbol mapping

Sound-symbol mapping is a fantastic procedure to use for practicing new phonic rules or reviewing previous ones. The purpose of sound-symbol mapping is to assist students in matching phonemes to the graphemes that represent those sounds (sounds familiar, right? Are you tired of hearing me say that we need to match sounds to print?)

Here's the procedure:

1. Say a word. Have students repeat the word.

2. Tap the sounds.

3. Outline/color in the same number of boxes as sounds. (3 sounds = 3 boxes).

4. Fill in the letter(s) that represent those sounds. There may be more than 1 letter that represents a sound. For example, the word crash has 5 letters, but only 4 sounds. The sh goes in one box because it represents a single sound.

Time and time again, I hear teacher say how powerful this strategy has been for them. If you want to see this in action, check out my Facebook live on orthographic mapping. I start utilizing this technique around the 14:30 minute mark.

Using Elkonin Boxes

Before I introduce a new phonics rule, I use elkonin boxes to get students thinking about the sounds. For example, if I am teaching students ou and ow, I give them several pictures, like the ones on the right (cow, snout, couch, shower).

Before I even discuss the graphemes, we talk about the sounds. We use chips or buttons to represent each sound. After tapping sounds, I say something like "Where was the /ow/ sound in cow? snout? couch? shower?" Then I make the explicit connection between sounds and symbols. "When we hear the /ow/ sound in the middle, we use an ou. When we hear the /ow/ sound at the end of a syllable or word, we use the ow." I always try to make explicit the connection between phonemes and graphemes.

Rainbow sounds

When I was in the classroom, one of my favorite activities was rainbow words, where children write each word in a different colored marker or crayon. It's a fun activity, and one that is literally zero prep for the teacher. But I'm no longer convinced it is an effective strategy for word study. Ask yourself this-is it possible for the child to do this activity without being able to read or spell the word? If so, then we may need to rethink it.

One way we can focus on making the sound-symbol connection is by having children use a different color for every sound, NOT every letter. Take a look at the picture. If a child writes itch in 4 different colors, does it tell you anything about their spelling knowledge? If a child writes i-tch with two colors, that tells you that they have been paying attention to the sounds. Shoutout to Decodable Readers Australia, where I first heard about this technique!

Teaching heart words

Giving children flashcards with high-frequency words and expecting them to somehow remember those words is not an efficient strategy. There's an idea floating around in the teaching world that sight words are words we "just have to memorize because you can't sound them out." In fact, after I left college I thought sounding it out was an ineffective strategy for most words. Instead, I thought we should using the cueing strategies to promote word recognition. I cringe when I reflect on how I used to tell parents that children should be using the text clues, not phonics clues, to read the words.

The truth is, however, that we CAN sound out sight words. We just have to draw attention to the sounds that DO work before we talk about the ones that don't play fair. I have an entire blog post dedicated to this topic. At the bottom, I'll list some great free resources to help you get started!

Final Thoughts

I know what you're thinking. When am I supposed to do these activities? The great thing is this-all of these activities can be done whole-group or small group. Most of these activities don't require a lot of time each day. What many of them do require, however, is consistency and persistency. You do not need to do all of these every day, but every day your children should have time devoted to matching sounds to print. We will never have the level of automatic word recognition we want without a great deal of practice.

Resources

1. Sound-symbol mapping sheets.

2. You Tube video on orthographic mapping.

3. Heart Word Magic from Really Great Reading.

4. University of Florida Literacy Institute's Heart Words resources.

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Activities to Promote Orthographic Mapping - Campbell Creates Readers

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In my last post , we discussed orthographic mapping and why it is crucial for reading success. Theory is great, but what every teacher wants to know is this-how does it look in practice? In it's simplest terms, we want to use activities that will help students focus on matching sound to print.

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Every word has three forms - its sounds (phonemes), its orthography (spelling), and its meaning. Orthographic mapping is the process that all successful readers use to become fluent readers. Through orthographic mapping, students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect) the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings). They then permanently store the connected sounds and letters of words (along with their meaning) as instantly recognizable words, described as "sight vocabulary" or "sight words".
Sight Words
A sight word is any word that a reader instantly recognizes and identifies without conscious effort. Adult competent readers have between 30,000 and 60,000 words that have been orthographically mapped in their sight vocabulary. As soon as one of these words is seen, it is unconsciously and instantly recognizable. This is what enables us to be efficient readers, able to focus on the meaning of what we read instead of on word reading. When words are stored as sight vocabulary words in long-term memory, a reader no longer has to decode words one at a time the way beginning readers do. While some orthographic mapping can begin earlier, most children start applying this skill in second and third grade. As we continue to read into adulthood, we continue to use orthographic mapping to grow our sight word vocabularies.

Because some high-frequency words (e.g., the, and, is, was, for, are) are essential to learning how to read, teachers of kindergarten and grade 1 typically provide explicit instruction to help students automatically read some of these words. Students are taught to read them as whole words at the same time that they are being taught how to decode most other words. However, once students are able to orthographically map, they will start to store high-frequency words as sight words on their own.
What is the mental process of orthographic mapping?
With orthographic mapping of a word, the letters we see with our eyes and the sounds we hear in that word get processed together as a sight word and are stored together in the brain. This is not the same as memorizing just the way a word looks. It is also important to remember that orthographic mapping is a mental process used to store and remember words. It is not a skill, teaching technique, or activity you can do with students (Kilpatrick, 2019). What can be taught are phonemic awareness and phonics skills which enable orthographic mapping.

With orthographic mapping, students connect something new with something they already know. Through listening and speaking, young students already know a word's pronunciation and meaning which is stored in their long-term memory. Students turn a written word into a sight word by attaching the phonemes in the word's pronunciation to the letter sequence of the word. The pronunciation of the word has to be broken into its phonemes, which is why having strong phonemic awareness skills is important. The word's letter sequence can become familiar (i.e., become a sight word) because the student can attach it to the already known pronunciation.

Kilpatrick (2019) provides examples similar to the following:

If a student knows the spoken word /bed/, its pronunciation is stored in long-term memory - he knows what it means and what it sounds like. If he has good phonemic awareness skills, he can pull the word apart into its individual sounds (phonemes) /b/ /e/ /d/. Those sounds become the anchoring points for the word's printed sequence. The student can then attach each phoneme to its corresponding letter (spelling). The student is using the power of what he knows (the pronunciation) and attaching it like "superglue" to the printed word bed. This example has all single sound-letter correspondences.

If a student knows the spoken word /sheep/, its pronunciation is stored in long-term memory - he knows what it means and what it sounds like. Using phonemic awareness skills, he can pull the word apart into its individual sounds /sh/ /e/ /p/. The student then attaches each phoneme to its corresponding spelling. In this example, some of the sounds are represented by more than one letter.

In typically developing readers from grade 2 on who have orthographic mapping skills, they only need to see and read printed words one to four times before they become permanently stored as sight words for future instant recall (Reitsma, 1983 as cited in Kilpatrick, 2015). When a word becomes a sight word, as soon as it is seen its sound and meaning are immediately available. Having a significant amount of stored sight words is what enables fluency - quick and accurate reading where the reader is free to focus on making meaning from text.
How does orthographic mapping develop?
Three intersecting skills must be in place to enable orthographic mapping (Ehri, 2014; Kilpatrick, 2015):

Highly proficient phonological and phonemic awareness

Automatic letter-sound correspondence knowledge

The ability to accurately and quickly decode a word by identifying its sounds letter by letter, and blending those sounds to read the word

Kilpatrick (2015) describes three phases of word-reading development for children in the primary grades that are aligned with corresponding phonological skill development.

Beginning readers in kindergarten and grade 1 are developing their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and basic phonemic awareness skills, and are beginning to learn phonic decoding. Before a student can orthographically map a word, the word first has to be identified. Young students identify the pronunciation of a word by using their letter-sound knowledge to determine each sound in the word, and then using their phonemic blending skills to blend those sounds to decode (sound out) the word.

Once these skills are proficient, typically by grade 3, orthographic mapping usually develops for the majority of students simply by interacting with letters and words. However, many students with word-reading difficulties do not develop orthographic mapping. They therefore have greater difficulty developing the sight word vocabulary needed for fluent reading and will likely stay disfluent and hesitant readers unless they receive intervention that builds proficiency in phonemic awareness and phonics skills (Kilpatrick, 2015; Parker, 2019). It is difficult for them to get beyond having to decode most words when they read.

Orthographic mapping doesn't work well for students who struggle with letter sound knowledge or who do not have proficient phonemic awareness skills. Here's how Ehri (2014) explains the skills that need to be in place before orthographic mapping can take place:

"To form connections and retain words in memory, readers need some requisite abilities. They must possess phonemic awareness, particularly segmentation and blending. They must know the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences (letter-sound knowledge) of the writing system. Then they need to be able to read unfamiliar words on their own by applying a decoding strategy." Doing so "activates orthographic mapping to retain the words' spellings, pronunciations, and meanings in memory." (p. 7)
Implications for Teaching: Explicit Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction Leads to Orthographic Mapping
Phonemic awareness and phonics instruction help students use the alphabetic principle to learn relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. As noted in the word-reading development chart above, developing early phonological awareness, including phonemic awareness of initial sounds, should be a focus of PreK and kindergarten instruction to develop basic letter-sound correspondence knowledge. As students move through kindergarten and grade one, a focus on blending and segmenting of phonemes in written words develops phonic decoding skills which must be in place for orthographic mapping. Some kindergarten and grade 1 students may be able to start completing simple phoneme manipulation tasks, such as deleting or substituting initial sounds in words.

Kilpatrick (2015, 2019) suggests that as students move into grades two and three, they need to become proficient in more advanced phonemic awareness skills to apply the orthographic mapping process. If a student can do a phoneme manipulation task with ease (i.e., deleting, substituting, reversing phonemes), it indicates a higher level of proficiency with phonemes which is correlated with word reading more than blending and segmenting.

For struggling readers in grades two and three who do not naturally develop advanced phonemic awareness skills through exposure to classroom literacy activities, orthographic mapping is difficult. Research suggests that advanced phonemic awareness skills and phonics should be directly taught for these students to become proficient readers. Kilpatrick (2015) notes:

"Intervention studies that allow students to complete their phonological awareness development (along with teaching and reinforcing phonics skills and phonic decoding, and providing opportunities for reading connected text) produce very large gains in word-level reading skills. Studies that do not address phonemic awareness skills beyond the basic level (blending and segmenting), however, yield more limited results because their students have only partially completed their phonological awareness development." (p. 312)
References

Ehri, L. C. (1998). Grapheme-phoneme knowledge is essential to learning to read words in English. In J. L. Metsala & L. C. Ehri (Eds.), Word recognition in beginning literacy (p. 3-40). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Ehri, L.C. (2014) Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading 18(1).

Kilpatrick, D.A. (2015). Assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Kilpatrick, D.A. (2016) Equipped for reading success. Casey & Kirsch Publishers

Kilpatrick, D.A. (2019). Assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Online course. Colorado Department of Education. Retrieved from: https://sitesed.cde.state.co.us/course/view.php?id=132#section-1

Parker, S. (2019). Sight words, orthographic mapping, and self-teaching. Stephen Parker blog post, April 22, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/sight-words-orthographic-mapping-and-self-teaching

Reitsma, P. (1983). Printed word learning in beginning readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 36, 321-339.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read - Keys to Literacy

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Every word has three forms - its sounds (phonemes), its orthography (spelling), and its meaning. Orthographic mapping is the process that all successful readers use to become fluent readers. Through orthographic mapping, students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect) the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings).

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Getting Started with Blooket - Teacher Edition

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Sensory Strategies That Help Students Refocus on Learning

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Sensory Strategies That Help Students Refocus on Learning

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Elementary students face a constant stream of distracting sensory stimuli throughout the day, but these simple, quick exercises can help them stay on track.

Anna Godeassi / The iSpot

Elementary school students are constantly bombarded with sensory stimuli throughout the day, during school hours, and at home. Sensory processing plays a critical role in self-regulation and in how children function, interact, and learn at school, so it can be difficult to separate emotional regulation issues from sensory processing concerns, as they often connect.

Children who have functional sensory processing skills are able to take in sensory information, filter out what's irrelevant, and stay relatively calm and self-regulated. They may occasionally engage in compensatory behaviors, such as biting their nails, playing with objects, getting a drink of water or going to the bathroom (when they don't need to, for a brief respite), tapping their legs, fidgeting with their hands, and so on.

When children have difficulty processing sensory information, they can have trouble completing school- and home-based tasks that require them to sit still, attend to instruction, engage socially with peers, and play or work cooperatively with others. They have a lot of difficulty interacting with their environment and peers functionally, because they're not receiving appropriate sensory feedback. They may engage in maladaptive behaviors-for example, they may be unable to sit in their seat and may collide with objects or peers while navigating the school setting, put objects in their mouth, and have difficulty following multistep directions (among other difficulties).

Providing young students with increased awareness of their sensory system at regular intervals throughout the day may help improve their behavior and overall self-regulation.

Simple Sensory Strategies to Improve Participation

Hug your knees: Ask your students to sit on the floor, knees up, feet firmly planted on the floor. Have them bring their knees under their chin, hugging them tightly. They can rest their chin briefly on their knees, as if they were using them as a table. This strategy integrates proprioceptive input (the ability to perceive the position and movement of the body) through joint compression (applying deep pressure).

Backwards hug: Sitting on the floor as tall as they can, students should reach both arms backwards, crossing their hands to squeeze their wrists. This strategy also integrates proprioceptive input through joint compression.

My own learning space: This is a good strategy for students who may be sensitive to auditory and/or visual inputs. When a child is having strong emotional feelings, it can often be helpful to "take space," or move away from the challenging situation at hand (e.g., when they're frustrated during a lesson that's difficult to understand). This strategy allows students to take space while learning. Have an agreed-on location for this exercise. Consider creating a visual boundary to the space, such as painter's tape, so that the student has a guide for where to go.

You may want to add sensory-blocking tools, such as noise-reducing headphones and something that blocks the student's visual field, such as a folder standing up vertically, to further decrease sensory stimulation.

Velcro on rug spot: Consider placing Velcro around the student's learning space, such as under the desk, on the floor, and even on their learning materials (on the back of their notebook, on their pencils, etc.). I like to alternate soft and rough textures for the added sensory stimulation. Feeling Velcro on the floor at the student's rug spot can help them keep their eyes on you and will definitely be less distracting than having a stress ball in their hand.

Chair: Sitting on a chair with a back while listening to you can help the student focus when they're feeling low-energy. The back support gives them the information of where their body is in a space, while their body doesn't have to focus on trying to sit against gravity. This strategy provides tactile and proprioceptive feedback.

Floor desk: This is a small desk that provides a physical and visual boundary around the student. It can be helpful when they're feeling high-energy. It also provides the student with a writing surface while you're teaching. This strategy can be useful for those who benefit from increased proprioceptive and visual feedback.

Tangle/string fidget tools: These types of fidget tools are somewhat circular, so that the student can fidget with them in a repetitive and functional way, getting rid of excess energy. This tool also provides tactile feedback.

Big body breaks: Having the class stop at regular times to check in and do big body breaks so that everyone can feel just right can be very productive. Remind students that sometimes, our bodies may need to check in more often, and that's OK. Ask your students to do downward dog/upward dog yoga poses and head-below-knee poses, and to bend down and squeeze each joint of their body, beginning at their ankles and working their way up to their shoulders.

These strategies provide a reminder to allow for increased proprioceptive (body awareness through joint compression) and/or vestibular (head below knee and rotational) inputs to ensure that students perform consistent large-movement exercises that have those components.

Cardboard box/laundry basket stuffed with pillows: This is a large, firm, and shallow cardboard box filled with a few pillows. Students should be able to sit in there, slightly squished, bringing their notebook/worksheet and a clipboard. Using this seat the right way, on the rug with their classmates, means that they are sitting up and participating. This strategy provides increased proprioceptive, visual, and tactile feedback.

The above strategies can help alleviate the sensory overload that young students experience from the continuous wave of sensory stimuli and keep them in the frame of mind for learning.

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Sensory Strategies That Help Students Refocus on Learning

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Elementary students face a constant stream of distracting sensory stimuli throughout the day, but these simple, quick exercises can help them stay on track. Anna Godeassi / The iSpot Elementary school students are constantly bombarded with sensory stimuli throughout the day, during school hours, and at home.

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Templeton, S. and Bear, D. (Eds.) (1992). Development of orthographic knowledge and the foundations of literacy. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Treiman, R. and Bourassa, D. (2000). The development of spelling skill. Topics in Language Disorders, 20, 1-18.

Uhry, J. K. and Shepherd, M. J. (1993). Segmentation and spelling instruction as part of a first-grade reading program: Effects on several measures of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 28, 219-233.

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Many young readers are puzzled by the rules and exceptions of spelling. Research shows that learning to spell and learning to read rely on much of the same underlying knowledge. Learn more about the relationships between letters and sounds and how a proper understanding of spelling mechanics can lead to improved reading.

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2 1/2 minute video from Dr. Moats

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https://marilynburnsmath.com/category/games/

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So what kind of math tasks are best for Rough Draft Thinking??

*Number talks!!

*Tasks with more than one good answer

*Tasks that can be solved with more than one strategy

*Tasks in which students can predict then revise their thinking

https://stevewyborney.com/2019/09/51-esti-mysteries/

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http://readinginroom11.blogspot.com/2019/04/word-chaining-essential-part-of-your.html

https://www.dyslexiclogic.com/blending

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https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/11-picture-books-that-celebrate-hispanic-heritage

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8 steps for making feedback more effective

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8 steps for making feedback more effective

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https://www.edutopia.org/article/8-steps-making-feedback-more-effective

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https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/crickets/

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https://keystoliteracy.com/blog/using-morphology-to-teach-vocabulary/?fbclid=IwAR3EslrJ7qteLdR4HZXzJ5nWJGFRpuPQasg3DgFhvbd6DU70kRtqxuxnw7o

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https://www.fcrr.org/student-center-activities

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How to make digital stickers with IconsMania!

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How to make digital stickers with IconsMania!

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https://slidesmania.com/how-to-create-digital-stickers-using-iconsmania/

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https://blog.heinemann.com/podcast-jennifer-serravallo-marilyn-burns-reading-and-math