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A wonderful book that can be used as a year-long book study between teachers and literacy coaches. It has many lessons and activities that can be used during small group work for reading strategies, comprehension, fluency, stamina, and much more.

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Heinemann | The Reading Strategies Book by Jen Serravallo

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Techniques and effective strategies for teaching reading and literacy across content areas listing 13 unique goals and 300 strategies. NY Times Bestseller.

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A book, written by the same author as "The Reading Strategies Book" that provides 300 strategies that support 10 crucial instructional goals for teaching struggling writers.

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Writing Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo.

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Collection of strategies that span all aspects of the writing process, all genres and modes of writing, and that will work well with students in grades K-8. Organized so the busy teacher can find just the right strategy at just the right moment.

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A video, highlighting a one on one writing conference between a teacher and her student. The teacher highlights specific strengths she sees in the student's writing and corrections that need to be made before publishing.

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Discussion

Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. Notice how many ways Ms. Noonan highlights very specific strengths Why does Ms. Noonan choose two areas of focus for Crystal?

2. How has writers workshop affected Crystals perception of her own writing?

Newest

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Ms. Noonan: Making Students into Better Writers

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Madeline Noonan meets with all of her students individually during writer’s workshop. In each conference, she specifically identifies strengths and two goals. Students continue to revise and rewrite throughout the workshop process and build confidence in their writing at the same time.

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A video resource that shares with teachers how to interactively build vocabulary inside and outside of the classroom. It gives activities that teachers could use in their classroom to teach 5-10 vocabulary words per week.

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Teaching Vocabulary

One of the central goals of early elementary education is helping students expand their vocabularies. Beyond the obvious communicative benefits, an increased vocabulary has been proven to improve outcomes on everything from reading comprehension to second language acquisition. Building good vocabulary habits from an early age is a good way of making sure that students succeed in the long run. However, how are we to do this without resorting to the dated practice of writing and rewriting definitions ad nauseam? In this lesson, we'll demonstrate how to effectively work on building vocabularies both in and out of the classroom, through use not only of formal vocabulary work but also in building the ability to deduce the meaning of words from context.

Formal Study

To be clear, by formal study I don't mean dusty old libraries and academic gowns. I instead mean the act of being in your classroom learning vocabulary. In the past, students may have simply written and rewritten definitions until they sunk in. However, such rote memorization was far from engaging. Instead, more interactive ways of teaching vocabulary offer better outcomes.

Additionally, in the past, numerous words would be introduced, overwhelming learners. While there's no doubt that a high school student can handle 20 SAT words in a given week, or that a foreign language graduate student could be expected to learn that many in a night, we're targeting much younger students. As a result, 5-10 words a week is plenty to ensure mastery.

Examples for Formal Study

Incorporating the vocabulary of the week into other aspects of the classroom is a great way of increasing proficiency. Many teachers use games that incorporate newly learned words in order to present the material in a more interactive manner. Such techniques can not only be used to teach words during their assigned week, but also as review exercises. Bingo games could be made where each word is listed in a random order on the board, but only definitions are read out. Students have to identify when their words have been defined in order to complete the game. At the same time, the random nature of Bingo levels the playing field amongst students with different abilities.

Classroom time does not need to be sacrificed, however, for vocabulary to be reinforced. Many teachers have found success in using a word wall to constantly remind students of the words of that given week. Posted with definitions, it's an ever-present reminder for wandering eyes of the vocabulary of the week. At the end of the unit, the words can migrate to another wall to join other words that have been studied that year, reinforcing a feeling of accomplishment.

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techniques for teaching vocabulary - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Techniques for Teaching Vocabulary - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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One of the central goals of early elementary education is helping students expand their vocabularies. Beyond the obvious communicative benefits, an increased vocabulary has been proven to improve outcomes on everything from reading comprehension to second language acquisition. Building good vocabulary habits from an early age is a good way of making sure that students succeed in the long run.

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This resource could be used during a professional development day to teach classroom teachers tips on how to teach vocabulary in their classroom. It discusses how students can be involved in the selection of vocabulary words.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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A video that classroom teachers could utilize when teaching spelling to students. It suggests to have the students sing a 6 letter, 7 letter, or 8 letter word to certain songs to help them memorize the spelling of the word.

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Teaching Kids 3 Ways to Practice Spelling Words

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This video features three novel strategies that come from Amy Schwed and Janice Melichar-Utter's terrific book, Brain-Friendly Study Strategies, Grades 2-8. The strategies are designed to help children practice 6-letter, 7-letter, and 8-letter spelling words. Give these ideas a try in class with your students or at home with your children.

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A resource that can help classroom teachers understand what word study is, how it is taught, and teaching strategies to teach it to students.

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A resource that could be used to teach classroom teachers the importance of teaching high-frequency words in the classroom and providing tips on how to teach high-frequency words.

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A collection of sight word activities classroom teachers can use in their classroom.  These sight words activities help make learning to read fun, with outdoor games and crafts.

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Sight Words Activities for Kids | Education.com

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Sight words activities guide children through learning the basic building blocks for writing through games. Try these sight words activities with your child.

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A video showing how students can actively participate in a word wall. The words are placed o the floor and student's need to connect their thinking to vocabulary words. This is a good resource for classroom teachers to watch and put into practice in their teaching.

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Interactive Word Wall: Management in the Active Classroom

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Rich Richardson's eighth-grade students at the Expeditionary Learning Middle School in Syracuse, New York, use an interactive word wall to demonstrate their conceptual understanding of words in context. A word wall in the classroom is a powerful instructional tool to strengthen content vocabulary or concepts. A word wall can be an organized collection of words (and sometimes phrases) displayed on a wall or other space in the classroom. In this example, however, the "wall" moves to the floor to allow students to easily connect to one other's ideas and show their collective understanding. It allows both the students and the teacher to see how their knowledge has grown or perhaps where gaps may still exist.

In this video, students and teachers are engaged with a protocol/engagement strategy from EL's grades 3-8 ELA curriculum.

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A resource to use in the classroom that explains how to use a word wall. It also has various ideas on how a teacher can use a word wall with different subject areas and for differentiating instruction.

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Language Arts

Ask students to hunt for words in their reading and writing that fit the phonic or word study pattern being studied. These words can create a word wall that illustrates examples of the different patterns studied. Students could keep a word study notebook to record the known patterns and their new understanding about words, and can play games and activities that apply their word knowledge.

Math

Word walls in math can provide visual cues and graphic representations of content. Consider using a math word wall that has three parts: key vocabulary, "in your own words" definitions, and a variety of ways to portray a function. For example, multiplication is portrayed by the following symbols: x, *, and ( ).

Number sense, concepts, and operations word wall
The purpose of the mathematics word wall is to identify words and phrases that students need to understand and use so as to make good progress in mathematics. Mathematical language is crucial to children's development of thinking. If students do not have the vocabulary to talk about math concepts and skills, they cannot make progress in understanding these areas of mathematical knowledge. They need to be familiar with mathematical vocabulary and mathematical terms to understand written and spoken instructions. See math word wall resources >

More ideas for word walls in math
Many teachers are familiar with basic word wall strategies including the use of a flashlight (to put the light on words) and a fly swatter (to highlight words). Teachers are also familiar with tested favorites like bingo; I Have, Who Has; and Mind Reader, but they really wanted other ideas. The purpose of this post by Dr. Deborah Wahlstrom is to identify additional ways to use word walls with mathematics content. More math word wall ideas >

Science

Using interactive word walls in science
Science is a vocabulary-intense subject that is dependent on students learning new and often times difficult vocabulary to increase comprehension and help them make connections between and among concepts. When science students are given the opportunity to interact with the vocabulary, they are more likely to remember it.

Ideas for using the words on your wall are only limited by your imagination. Some examples include:

Students categorize and sequence from largest to smallest (cell, bacteria, yeast, tissue, ribosome, organ, organism, organ system, protozoa, virus) Variation: Students are given vocabulary words, and their classmates must arrange them in the correct order and justify the placement.

Students remove words from the wall and make connecting statements about the words. The class can then create a summarizing statement, for example: cells make up tissues, and tissues make up organs.

For more ideas like these, read the full post by Toni Enloe.

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Word Walls | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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A word wall is a collection of words which are displayed in large visible letters on a wall, bulletin board, or other display surface in a classroom. The word wall is designed to be an interactive tool for students and contains an array of words that can be used during writing and reading.

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A collection of word wall activities that classroom teachers can use to help teach vocabulary. It also has presentation explaining what a word wall is and how it can be used in the classroom.

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A resource that shares with classroom teachers how to make their running records count. It gives tips and ideas on what he or she can do while giving and after giving a running record.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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This resource can be used by a literacy coach or reading specialist to help give classroom teachers assessment tips when it comes to giving a running record. It discuses what a running record is, the running record form and how to score a student, how to analyze the running record, and what to do with the student after reading with him or her.

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This resource could be used during a professional development day. Teachers could then take what they learned and apply it in their classroom when doing a running record on a student. It describes what a running record it by dividing it into 3 parts: Part 1- Listen to & Record Behavior (listening to the student read out loud to you and recording what he or she is saying), Part 2 & 3- How to assess comprehension (the student retells the text to you and you use a comprehension check rubric to see if he or she is understanding the text).