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REFLECT ON THE DAY, ARRANGE THE CLASSROOM FOR THE END OF THE DAY

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REFLECT ON THE DAY, ARRANGE THE CLASSROOM FOR THE END OF THE DAY

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GET BACKPACKS AND LINE UP TO GO TO THE GYM

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GET BACKPACKS AND LINE UP TO GO TO THE GYM

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Go Math VOCABULARY - Addition Number Sentence, Odd, Even

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Go Math VOCABULARY - Addition Number Sentence, Odd, Even

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Building Stamina                 Pass Guided Reading books to Students to Read Silently        DEVELOP SOP FOR SILENT READING

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Building Stamina                 Pass Guided Reading books to Students to Read Silently        DEVELOP SOP FOR SILENT READING

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Reading to Self SOP Choosing the Just right book

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Reading to Self SOP Choosing the Just right book

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THE WHEELS ON THE BUS SONG  HOW MANY WHEELS ARE ON YOUR BUS?

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THE WHEELS ON THE BUS SONG  HOW MANY WHEELS ARE ON YOUR BUS?

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* Unlimited remote access! * Direct links for instant logins! * A collection that's always GROWING!

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Tumblebooks

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What a treasure. This site is extremely useful for non readers of all ages. My children just love it. I have shared this site with many of our special needs teachers across our county. Thanks so much for providing such a fun, affordable, and worthwhile product.
Renee
Special Education Teacher, MI

We love TumbleBooks!!! I should add the kids do, too!! TumbleBooks has allowed us to introduce a vast collection of books to students and they W A N T to read. It gives them choice, gives them some control over their own learning, all while at an appropriate reading level. What could be better?
Kathy
Reading Consultant Seth Haley School, CT

I love this site! The fact that the levels of books available are so far-reaching makes this a wonderful site for classrooms---virtually any child can utilize the features on this site. The book report feature is great as well--right along with many of the standards we are teaching in our classrooms, and a great tool for guiding students. The quizzes offer students feedback, and also encouragement as they continue to read. This promotes a feeling of success among students, and furthers their love for literature and reading.
Tammy
Curriculum Coach, SC

This is the best interactive read aloud website I have found. My students and I love it. We can always locate a book easy that connects to what we have been studying. The students love to watch the pictures, and as they progress with their decoding skills they pick out words that they know. When we watch one of these books, I have to pause it after every page so they can find all their sight words that are on the page. The website makes it like have a celebrity reader in our room daily. Thank you so much for your wonderful reading website.
Brandi
Kindergarten, AL

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TumbleBookLibrary is a curated database of children's e-books, available by subscription to Elementary Schools and Public Libraries around the world. TumbleBookLibrary Premium has over 1100 titles for grades K-6, and includes our unique animated, talking picture books, read-along chapter books, non fiction books and videos, curated playlists, as well as books in Spanish and French.

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GO MATH SHOW WHAT YOU KNOW     SUBITIZING    BASE TEN

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GO MATH SHOW WHAT YOU KNOW     SUBITIZING    BASE TEN

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TO COMBINE-PUT TOGETHER TWO OR MORE QUANTITIES

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TO COMBINE-PUT TOGETHER TWO OR MORE QUANTITIES

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Reading Workshop                 SOP for Reading to Self

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Reading Workshop                 SOP for Reading to Self

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15 Meet the Teacher Night Printables - Classroom Freebies

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It's about that time of year again for many teachers to head back in the classroom. That always involves a lot of staff meetings (yay for icebreakers instead of working in classrooms yet again), a lot of setting up, and a lot of prepping everything.

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Children with high ACEs scores are constantly on edge from unstable home environments that can place their brains and bodies in a state of high alert. At school, even a small reprimand from a teacher or perceived insult from a fellow student can trigger explosions of rage, expletives, and other inappropriate behavior.

Students struggling with this toxic stress are often ill-suited to learn in a traditional educational environment. "Teachers like to tell students that if they work hard they will succeed-that it is in their control to pay attention, do their homework, and perform well in class. But those assumptions don't work for children growing up in high-stress environments, such as those living in poverty," said Jim Sporleder, the former principal of Lincoln, one of the first high schools in the country to embrace so-called "trauma-informed" education practices and the subject of the documentary Paper Tigers.

At Lincoln, the teachers and staff follow a few deceptively simple rules: Don't take anything the student says personally and don't mirror their behavior with an outburst of your own. The teachers give students time to calm down, often in the principal's office or a special "quiet room." Later, they inquire about what might be bothering them and ask if they want to talk about it.

Such seemingly straightforward techniques are actually based on hard science. In contrast to the fight-or-flight response triggered by perceived threats, seemingly minor acts of kindness, such as a few caring words from a teacher or a quick hug, can activate a cascade of Oxytocin, sometimes called the "love hormone." In highly traumatized kids, such simple acts can have an outsized impact.

Kelsey says she was "shocked" when, after precipitating a violent fight with another girl during her freshman year, she wasn't immediately arrested and kicked out of school. Instead, she went to the principal's office to cool off. "I was given a bottle of water, a gentle pat on the back and time to reflect on my behavior," recalled Kelsey. "Even the school cop talked to me calmly and helped me discuss what I had done."

There were consequences: Kelsey was suspended for three days and charged with assault. But she never got into a fight again. "I saw that there were people in the building who cared about me and realized I could have gone to any of them to resolve the issue without a fight," she said.

Sporleder's approach was quickly embraced by Lincoln administrators and teachers, many of whom were already informally using similar practices. Primarily by reallocating existing resources, Sporleder was able to reinforce their efforts through regular training by outside experts and staff meetings designed to reduce caregiver stress and refine strategies for struggling students. Many Lincoln students, for instance, hadn't seen a doctor since birth. In response, the teachers and administration launched an on-campus clinic to provide free counseling and basic health care. Funding for the clinic was largely provided by the city's main hospital, Providence St. Mary Medical Center, which saw it as way to ultimately keep down costs if fewer students went to the emergency room for their primary care.

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Traumatized Students Learn Differently in School

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Children with high ACEs scores are constantly on edge from unstable home environments that can place their brains and bodies in a state of high alert. At school, even a small reprimand from a teacher or perceived insult from a fellow student can trigger explosions of rage, expletives, and other inappropriate behavior.

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Teacher friends

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

A couple of weeks ago one of my students came back from the school library with a board book.

Yes, a board book. And don't get me wrong here. I want to empower my readers and let them choose what they want to read. But I also want my readers to challenge themselves and tackle grade level stuff. After all, there is a standard that requires us to address text complexity, right?

This is one of my most capable and skillful readers.

The next day he came back from the library with a Jack Sparrow book with a lexile level of 1070.

Yes, that is about a 7th grade level. I mean thank you for trying to challenge yourself, but 7th grade?

I have told you all before how my school librarian, Mrs. Parker, is the best librarian in the history of librarians.

And I mean that.

So I went up to her and told her how most of my students were not making good book choices.
And then she asked:
-Well have you shown them what series are available?
Umm no.
- Have you had a series of "just right books" lessons with them?
Umm yes.

We both came up with the idea of a book tasting event based on something that we saw on Pinterest.
We set a date and divided on things to do.
This is what she did:

Decide on a genre

Look for 6 different series or authors who have several books out

The series picked needed to be within the 300 and 500 Lexile levels

She also made the tasting plates

Make props like tasting cards, a menu, and a selection sheet for students

Make label for trail mix

Get donations from parents in terms of snacks, tablecloths, and disposables.

Set up a parent volunteer who could come and help us on the day of the tasting.

These are some pictures:

Click HERE to download this book tasting menu. And BTW I made this menu using Canva.

Mrs. Parker decided that for our first tasting, the flavor of the month should be realistic fiction. So we made realistic fiction trail mix!

My sweet DBo (My former and talented assistant made the labels) you can download them by clicking HERE!

Each student got a book sample slip. After Mrs. Parker introduced each series, the students walked around the library and took a taste. After the taste, they would circle YES or NO to show if they liked it or not. Each student was also required to make a final choice. To get this sample slip, please click HERE!

All in all the kids had an absolute blast! The activity was different, enlightening, funny. Mrs. Parker has a gift for engaging audiences.

Mrs. Parker created the tasting plates. She wrote a blurb... we are are becoming true expert blurbologists.

In order to get a copy of the series-snack labels, please click HERE!!

Troubleshooting

Of course not everything was rainbows and fairies.
At the end of the day, we got back together and touched base on a couple of things before we throw our second book tasting event around Halloween time.
These are the changes that we will make:

No food on the tables. We noticed that some students were more focused on getting snacks than anything else. We will still keep the trail mix in a bag, and the students will get to take it home to families to discuss the contents and what they have learned.

We will both dress up for the second book tasting.

I have also made sure that my classroom library is a happy an inviting place for everyone. I use these labels that you can fin in my TPT store.

You can get them by clicking HERE!

I still have a couple of students who are not making good choices. And I am still reflecting on how to help them get hooked on a book they love. Hooking kids on reading takes time, and that is OK. Teaching our students to become lifelong readers is a slow process that we need to follow very carefully... after all, we do not want to interfere with our students' identities.

I would love to hear your suggestions and the things that you do in your classrooms to reach every reader.

Thank you for reading teacher friends, until next time!

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How to Throw a Book Tasting For 2nd Graders

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Teacher friends Desperate times call for desperate measures. A couple of weeks ago one of my students came back from the school library with a board book. Yes, a board book. And don't get me wrong here. I want to empower my readers and let them choose what they want to read.

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Clean Up Robot (Mark D. Pencil/Harry Kindergarten Music Collaboration)

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My November Top Ten List: Word Study in Action | Scholastic

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READ ON to find out how students are introduced to new spelling patterns each week, take part in literacy activities in which they gain more exposure to the patterns, and

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My daughter started fifth grade this month with a wonderful new teacher and, to my delight, the absence of one of the most annoyingly ubiquitous "tools" in modern classrooms today: the behavior chart.

You know what I'm talking about, right? Those color-coded charts, using cards or clothes pins or Popsicle sticks to represent each child in the class. If students are "good," they get rewarded with a good color. If they're "bad," they're punished with a bad color - which often accompanies some type of actual consequence.
READ MORE: Column: Why you should never use timeouts on your kids
"Pull your card," is a common refrain in these classrooms. "Change your color" is another. The daughter of a friend has a teacher who tells disrupting students to "clip yourself down."

The rationale for these charts is as obvious as it is understandable: Teachers have one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Put a group of high-maintenance, chronic "misbehavers" in their classrooms, and what the heck are they supposed to do? They have to do something, right? And behavior charts are certainly kinder than the ruler-to-the-hands or dunce-in-the-corner tactics used in our grandparents' and great-grandparents' age.

And yet.

Fellow parent David Martin's daughter was in kindergarten when she was first exposed to a color chart. For the first few days she stayed on the "good colors," but still found herself preoccupied with the students who were not. "She saw how reputations of children were being shaped as a result of what colors they typically landed on," Martin recalled to me. "She felt empathy for them but helpless to do anything for them.

Charts may be better than physical punishment, but that's far from good enough.

Each day, Martin said, his daughter's anxiety grew. Within the month, she was "begging us to tape her mouth shut to prevent a possible slip-up that could result in her clip being moved down." And then it happened: The teacher moved the girl's color from green down to yellow.

Martin's daughter came home and told her parents she wanted to kill herself. She was 5.

Yes, charts may be better than physical punishment, but that's far from good enough. It's high time behavior charts themselves got moved down to "a bad color" and expelled from schools altogether.
READ MORE: Column: 12 alternatives to timeouts when kids are at their worst
I'm not the first to suggest outlawing these things. According to countless child psychologists and the country's most respected parenting experts, the function of "rewards" in child-rearing is drastically misguided. Though reward systems may sometimes appear to work in the short-term - and who, among us, hasn't used a reward or two to coax our kids to try something new? - rewards are as detrimental as punishments when used regularly. The damage they inflict over the long-term has been proven time and again.

Here are seven reasons teachers need to trash the behavior charts.

1. They're demeaning.

Rewards are for training pets, not people. You give your dog a command, he obeys, you offer praise. Why? Because dogs have small brains. They can think, of course, but they can't reason or talk or make rational decisions, which means we humans are left to communicate with them in relatively primitive ways.

Rewards are for training pets, not people.

Elementary school kids, on the other hand, can read, write, reason and think highly complex thoughts. Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, authors of one of the bestselling parenting books of all time, "How to Talk to So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk," are heavily anti-praise. Treating kids like people who want to do the right thing, rather than animals in need of training, they say, is key to relationship-building, and relationship-building is the only way to bring about lasting change. In short, rewards charts underestimate children's abilities - and, I would argue, their humanity.

2. They're shaming.

Behavior charts are not private matters between teachers and students; they are public reminders that your teacher thinks you are inadequate. Humiliating kids should never be accepted, much less condoned, in any school.

3. They make teachers a figure of judgment, not empathy.

Treating behavior as "good" or "bad" is part of an antiquated paradigm that doesn't take into consideration a child's temperament, developmental stage or emotional needs. When a child disrupts class in some way, there is a reason for that. Maybe the kid is hungry or didn't get enough sleep. Maybe the kid is being left out on the playground or having a hard time at home. Maybe he is having learning difficulties, or maybe he's just suffering from a little thing called JUST BEING A KID.

Treating behavior as "good" or "bad" is part of an antiquated paradigm that doesn't take the child into consideration.

Similarly, children who play the role of teacher's pet may be acting that way because they are scared, or insecure, or perpetually subordinated at home. Now, I get it: Teachers don't have time to sit and empathize with every child's back story; they have two dozen other kids to look after. But just because a child's behavior isn't permitted doesn't necessarily make the behavior bad, and just because a child is doing what you want doesn't necessarily make the behavior healthy. So let's stop being so judgey, yeah?

4. They encourage extrinsic motivation and corrode self-esteem.

Grading children's behavior on a daily basis - whether it be through behavior charts or a new and increasingly popular phone app called "Class Dojo" - shows kids that the approval of others is what matters. It becomes all about what the child "gets" from the teacher rather than what the child "gets" from himself. It doesn't matter if the child is proud of herself for keeping her impulse-control issues in check that day; what matters is what the teacher thinks.

This is classic self-esteem-killing stuff, people. Rudolf Dreikers, an Austrian psychiatrist and educator, wrote about what he called "the fallacy of punishment and reward" in his 1964 book, "Children: The Challenge." "The system of rewarding children for good behavior is as detrimental to their outlook as the system of punishment," he said. "The same lack of respect is shown." And that's not all, says Dr. Laura Markham, creator of Aha Parenting. In her book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, Markham writes: "It's also well established that giving kids rewards robs them of the inherent pleasure of their achievements."

5. They're hypocritical.

If kids are put in the position of being their very best selves every moment of every day, why aren't teachers and administrators (and parents, for that matter) held to the same standard? What happens when a teacher comes to school in a bad mood? What happens when she snaps at a kid, or blames the wrong person for a misdeed, or forgets to give out an assignment?

Where are the teachers' behavior charts?

Kids often are concerned about fairness, and, as a society, we encourage kids to stand up for equality and human rights. Yet here is a situation where teachers are constantly being asked to judge children, and no process exists by which the children are able to make their own opinions known. Where are the teachers' behavior charts?

6. They waste valuable class time.

I knew a teacher who, whenever a child would begin acting up in class, would walk slowly over to the child and stand behind him while continuing to teach. The child instinctively knew to settle down, and the teacher didn't miss a beat. Now contrast that with a class where a teacher is regularly interrupting her own teaching so she can tell kids to make a trip to the behavior chart. Not only is the teacher losing valuable instruction time, but all the children in the class are losing valuable learning time. By the same token, why would we ask a child who is doing well in class to make a chart run when a simple smile or a "thank you" would mean so much more?

7. They don't work.

Rewards and punishments rarely change behavior. Not only do kids "outgrow" the rewards being offered, meaning the rewards must get increasingly bigger to make an impact, but kids don't end up wanting to change; they simply end up wanting their rewards. "Redirecting Children's Behavior" author Kathryn Kvols, founder of the International Network for Children and Families, writes: "If the person giving the reward is not around, the child has no motivation to internally behave as you want her to."

In other words, as soon as the class gets a substitute teacher who doesn't use the behavior chart, all bets are off. Alfie Kohn, a scholar, educator and author of "Punished by Rewards," argues parents and teachers need to keep in mind the long-term goal of helping kids grow into responsible and caring people rather than the short-term goal of obedience. When faced with a "misbehaving" kid, the question he asks is: "What do kids need - and how do we meet those needs?"

I can hear a lot of educators saying: "What else are teachers supposed to do to keep order in their classrooms?" As though behavior charts are somehow necessary. They're not. There are plenty of alternatives to behavior charts - far more effective and far less damaging - if only educators (and parents) took the time to explore and use them.

There are plenty of alternatives to behavior charts if only educators (and parents) took the time to explore and use them.

Martin, the father I talked about earlier, did try to get his daughter's school to do away with the behavior charts - as did I, incidentally. Both of us were met with inaction. For Martin, though, the stakes were higher. Faced with a seemingly suicidal child, he and his wife decided to homeschool. Three years later, and his daughter is doing great.

Teaching is a hard, thankless job, and most teachers deserve to be sainted for the patience they show their students. I have nothing but admiration for the vast majority of them. But - like a swat on the hand - the kind of behavior charts used in most classrooms are antiquated and hurtful, and they need to go.

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Column: Hey teachers, please stop using behavior charts. Here's why

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You know what I'm talking about, right? Those color-coded charts, using cards or clothes pins or Popsicle sticks to represent each child in the class. It's high time behavior charts themselves got moved down to "a bad color" and expelled from schools altogether.

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My THREE Favorite Classroom Management Tips - Susan Jones

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These three classroom management tips get me ready for a brand new school year. As each new group of students arrives, I like to bring back what works in my

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A savory summertime Tomato Pie made by layering tomatoes slices, basil onion and a cheese spread into a pie crust and baking it until golden and bubbly. This is the perfect recipe for using up your excess fresh garden tomatoes!

I don't have my own garden to care for (it's still on my bucket list), but every summer I like to go to Farmer's markets and buy a big box of fresh tomatoes. I'll make a big batch of our favorite homemade salsa and I usually end up canning tomatoes and making this amazing tomato pie!

If you've never tried tomato pie, you absolutely have to! It's a southern dish that is one of my favorites-especially when it's made with fresh garden tomatoes.

How to make Tomato Pie:

Start by pre-baking your pie shell for a few minutes. I highly suggest using a homemade pie crust for this recipe, not just because it tastes better, but because it will not brown as quickly as a store-bought crust.

I make this recipe for perfect pie crust, and I follow the instructions at the bottom of the post for blind baking the crust by putting parchment paper and pie weights down on the pie crust and baking for just 15-20 minutes. (If using a store-bought crust, only bake for a few minutes, and probably even less than instructed on the package. Store-bought crusts are thinner and will brown faster.) Then I continue with this recipe.

I think roma tomatoes work best for this recipe, but you can use any tomatoes you have on hand.

While the crust is pre-baking, slice the tomatoes into thin slices and lay them in a single layer in the colander. Sprinkle salt over the tomatoes to help bring out their liquid, and let them rest for 10 minutes.

Use a paper towel to blot the excess juice out. This step is really important if you don't want to end up with a soggy tomato pie.

Make the cheese topping by combining the mayonnaise or plain Greek yogurt, cheddar cheese and mozzarella.

Layer the tomato slices into the bottom of your pre-baked pie shell. Chop your basil and green onions and sprinkle them over the tomatoes. Smooth the cheese mixture onto the top of the pie, and then it's ready to bake! Bake the tomato pie for 30 minutes or until it is lightly browned!

Be sure to allow the pie at least 15-20 minutes to cool off before you cut into it. The longer it rests, the most it well set up and it will be easier to serve.

I've found that tomato pie is best served fresh, but you can store the leftovers covered, in the fridge.

What kind of tomatoes should I use for tomato pie?

To make tomato pie, I recommend using Roma tomatoes. Roma tomatoes are a more firm tomato that are not as juicy and don't contain as much liquid as other tomatoes. This is important because if your tomatoes contain a lot of liquid, they can cause your crust to get soggy. That being said, you can be successful making this recipe with any type of garden tomato.

Can you freeze tomato pie?

While freezing tomato pie is possible, I would have to discourage you from doing this. The tomatoes make the crust soggy and the topping on this recipe contains mayonnaise, which doesn't freeze well. However, you can use a frozen pie crust to make tomato pie! See my perfect pie crust recipe for tips for freezing and blind-baking (pre-baking) your pie crust!

Looking for more tomato recipes? Consider trying these tomato based recipes:

Have you tried this recipe?!

RATE and COMMENT below! I would love to hear your experience.
I originally shared this recipe in July 2014. Updated July 2018.

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A savory summertime Tomato Pie made by layering tomatoes slices, basil onion and a cheese spread into a pie crust and baking it until golden and bubbly. This is the perfect recipe for using up your excess fresh garden tomatoes!

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Do you struggle to make one worksheet work for your whole class? Are you trying to differentiate without pulling your hair out? I have been there, and I feel for you.

While I am not a worksheet kind of teacher, I do understand that they have their time and place in just about every classroom. While they are necessary, they can be difficult to reach every student with, and in the modern classroom that poses some serious issues. Differentiation is such a buzzword these days, as it should be with individualized learning, but it can add a lot to a teacher's workload.

It doesn't have to though! Differentiation isn't always a big sweeping change in what you are doing, sometimes it is more about how you structure an assignment, than it is about the assignment itself. With this being said, I would like to share my 8 favorite ways to differentiate a worksheet.

Highlighter

A highlighter is a magical little tool. It is super easy to stick one in your pocket or clip it to your lanyard so that you have it at a moment's notice to whip out and be ready to differentiate like a boss. I use a highlighter to select items for a student to complete. I use this tool when there are specific items that I need to see student's progress on. When using a highlighter it usually means that I am the one selecting which items need to be completed, and it is usually more than half of the items.

Sometimes I will ask the student which item they are struggling with and work with them on that item, and then highlight items that will compliment their learning based on that item. A fringe benefit of using the highlighter is that students love the color that is added to their paper. My favorite highlighters are the Frixion erasable highlighters, because a teacher reserves the right to change her mind.

Evens or Odds

Evens or Odds is a great tool for students that struggle to complete an entire worksheet, but still need practice, or students who get bogged down thinking about completing a lot of items. This differentiation strategy is as easy as it sounds, students simply complete either the even or odd numbered items.

To add a little bit of fun, and instantly engage students, I will play a quick game of evens or odds with them to determine whether they will be completing the Evens or Odds items. It gets them pumped every time.

Fold In Half

This strategy, much like Evens or Odds works well when students should be completing about half of the items on a worksheet. This differentiation strategy is great for students that seem to get overwhelmed looking at an entire worksheet, so by folding the paper in half, they have less to look at and can be less intimidating. Similarly, you can continue folding the paper into fourths if a student needs to look at even less.

Similarly, I have cut up worksheets into smaller pieces to give to students who need a little more to help ease their anxiety. In this case I give students one piece at a time, but often wind of giving them the whole assignment, just in pieces.

Select Items

This differentiation tool is amazing for students that need a little bit of control, because it offers choice. In this case I generally have a highlighter and meet with a student. I tell them what the different sections are and use my highlighter to split up the items based on standard. Then I write in highlighter how many of each item I expect them to complete. Finally, I leave the highlighter with the student to choose. It becomes their responsibility to choose items for each standard to highlight and complete.

It absolutely amazes me how students exceed my expectations just about every time I use this strategy. The idea that the teacher is allowing them the choice of which problems they wish to complete is empowering, and they really take it on.

Create a Challenge

This differentiation strategy is great for students that are fully capable of completing an assignment, but lack the motivation or follow through. A challenge can take on many different forms, but it is basically simple reverse psychology. It sounds a little something like, "This is a tough one, it is actually something I would ask fifth graders (if you are teaching fourth grade) to do, but I think you might be able to get through it. What do you think?"

Then I ask students to tell me how many of the items they think they can complete correctly, and we essentially make a little wager. Usually it is something along the lines of if you complete ___ items correctly then you can take your shoes off for the rest of the day.

This strategy works with a very specific type of student, and not every time, but it can be a life saver.

Cooperative Structure

I am a huge proponent of cooperative learning in every aspect, but it is a miracle worker when it comes to differentiation. It is a powerful tool for all learners, but it is especially great for our English Language Learners.

My favorite cooperative learning structure for completing a worksheet is Sage-N-Scribe, because it allows students to help each other all while voicing exactly what they are doing.

To complete Sage-N-Scribe

1. Partner A has the pencil

2. Partner B thinks out loud while Partner A scribes for them giving them praise or corrections

3. Partner A and Partner B switch rolls and repeat

This strategy is amazing for all students, because voicing their thinking really makes them work on their metacognition and work on academic vocabulary. It also allows me, as the teacher, to hear how my students are doing.

It is sometimes hard to remember that students need differentiation in both directions, so these next two strategies focus on differentiation for our faster workers, higher achievers, and creative thinkers, but are great for students of all skill levels.

Extension Question

This differentiation strategy can go one of two ways:

1. The teacher writes an extension question on the board for students to respond to.

2. Students create their own extension question to respond to.

Both of these options are powerful, but I would argue that the more creative questions and explanations come from the students.

Become the Expert

I love this strategy when we are working on mastery. While students are working, as they show mastery of a standard I given them a pen, I used purple, and they were then allowed to move around the room and offer help to other students.

This tool can be really powerful in giving confidence to students and giving them control of their learning. It is also a great motivator to get students working. I purposely look for students that sometimes struggle to give the almighty purple pen to, because they are actually getting more practice while helping others.

Wrapping Up

These eight strategies have worked miracles for me, and I know that they can be a great set of tools to add to your toolbox as well. What strategies have you tried?

Subscribe to get the 8 Ways to Differentiate a Worksheet one-pager!

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Do you struggle to make one worksheet work for your whole class? Are you trying to differentiate without pulling your hair out? I have been there, and I feel for you. While I am not a worksheet kind of teacher, I do understand that they have their time and place in just about every classroom.

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Phonemic Awareness is an important early reading skill for preschoolers and kindergarteners to develop. It is the ability to play with sounds in a variety of ways to manipulate, substitute, and hear isolated sounds. It is also an essential skill to develop before a student can learn to read.

Many of the kiddos in my second grade classroom who had phonics difficulties also had an underdeveloped phonemic awareness. They could not isolate and blend sounds. They just didn't have enough practice in listening to and playing with sounds, apart from the letters.

As my five-year-old has entered kindergarten this year, his phonemic awareness skills have been something I've paid attention to more and more. He is at the right place to learn all the skills below and it's something I'm monitoring, because, well, he has a teacher for a mom.

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In the simplest of terms, it is an awareness of sounds. It is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes, which are the smallest units of sound that have meaning.

One very important thing to emphasize is that phonemic awareness is done without letters. It is all sound. Once you add letters, it becomes phonics. Students need a strong phonemic awareness foundation before you add phonics on top of it.

Rhyming / Alliteration

Rhyming is one of the earlier phonemic awareness skills to develop. It is present in most of our nursery rhymes and songs for young children. Alliteration is similar to rhyming, but on the other side of the word.

Rhyming is a difficult skill to learn for some readers, especially for English learners. Although rhyming is a phonemic awareness skill, I wouldn't focus intervention on it. Teach it, yes. Do songs, poems, and rhymes in your classroom, yes. However, if a student is not able to produce rhyming words after some instruction, I would move into the other phonemic awareness skills. Is Rhyming Ability Important in Reading? is a great article about how much emphasis to put on rhyming. The basic conclusion is that the other components of phonemic awareness are more influential in reading success than rhyming.

Oral Blending & Segmenting

Oral blending is the ability to put units of sounds together. Oral Segmenting is the ability to break a word apart into the units of sound. For example, say the word cat. Tell me the sounds in cat. /k/ /a/ /t/. Both segmenting and blending should be practiced regularly.

Start with (1) compound words, like pancake, then move onto (2) two-syllable words, then onto (3) cvc words with continuous sounds. Finally do (4) open syllables, (5) cvc with stop sounds, and (6) long vowel patterns.

When I teach students to segment into syllables, we often use our hands, putting out a hand for each syllable. For blending, we often use slinkies to emphasize elongating the word.

Initial, Final, Medial Sound Isolation & Identification

Consonant isolation is the ability to tell the first sound of a word. For instance, say the word cat, tell me the first sound, /k/? Teach and practice the initial, final and then medial sounds. Start with consonants in the initial and final positions before you work on the vowels.

Deletion

Deletion is the ability to remove a sound from a word and tell what is left. For instance, say the word cat. Remove the /k/. What is left?

Substitution

Substitution is similar to deletion, but a little more advanced. It requires a student to remove a sound and place another sound in it's place. For instance, say the word cat. Replace the /k/ with /b/. What do you have?

Most phonemic awareness actives should be done daily for short intervals of time throughout the day. The point is short, frequent interactions with the sounds to build competency, moving from simple cvc words to more complex blends. Also move from simple rhyming and identification tasks to segmenting, blending, deletion and substitution tasks.

Which words do you choose? Choose words based on the activities that you're doing in class and stories that you're already reading with students. Pull words that are familiar to students and play around with the words. Having some familiarity with the words will help students break them apart into their sounds.

Each of the above components above can be done with almost any set of words. Simply choose a few words from a recently read story and find some rhyming words, segment the sounds, identify the initial and final sounds, delete a sound, replace a sound.

One of the tried and true methods for developing phonemic awareness is the use of Elkonin boxes, also called sound boxes. They are basically just boxes for each sound. Students move an object into the box when saying the sound. In the above picture, using the word, cat, the /k/ has already been said. As I say the /a/ sound, I move the middle circle into the box and then move onto the last sound, /t/ when I say it.

You use the amount of boxes needed for the number of sounds in a word and the boxes are touching each other. Combining the boxes with picture clues, is also useful. Likewise, draw spaces or lines for each sound in a word and have students point to the lines as they say the sounds. The idea is that there is one space for each sound in the word.

Be sure you are pronouncing the sounds consistently and accurately. The stop sounds are the most difficult, because we want to put an /uh/ sound after them, like buh. Do your best to isolate the sound. Like for /p/, put your hand in front of your mouth and feel the air. It's quick. Likewise, exaggerate the continuous sounds more than usual. Like, /m/ should be mmmmmmmmmmmm . . . emphasize that it's a continuous sound. This over emphesis will pay off when you get to blending.

Use the letter sound, not the name, when you're working on phonemic awareness skills. Using the sound consistently helps students form a pattern isolating the sound.

Do not use letters or symbols. I said this earlier, but this is an important distinction. Phonemic awareness is the awareness of sound without letters. When you add letters, it becomes phonics.

Pictures help, especially for English learners or students with speech problems. If you can find a good source for pictures of common cvc words. Picture Sorting for Phonemic Awareness has some good pictures in it.

Use the full body. I often had students hold up their fist and then fingers to isolate sounds. I would have them put their hands together with the finger tips touching and draw them apart to blend sounds slowly. ( Slinkies are a great tool for this, too!) Have students hop each sound. Draw some boxes or dots onto floor and have students hop or walk the sounds. Clap hands for sounds or syllables.

Pay attention to your students. Assessments help to understand where a student is in their phonemic awareness journey. Can they rhyme? Identify initial, final, and medial sounds? Can they delete sounds? Substitute sounds? I know assessments are a lot of work, but they also give you a lot of information, if they're the right assessment, and can guide your instruction to make it meaningful, focused and valuable for the majority of students in your classroom. Assessments will also tell you which students are not successful so you can focus more targeting instruction with them in small groups.

Whatever works for your students, use it. If something is not working try something else. There is no right way to teach phonemic awareness for all students. Some things will click for some students and other things for other students. The point is that students are learning to play with sounds and learning how to blend and segment sounds, so that they can apply those skills to reading and phonics instruction.

These have been a few of my favorite resources over the years. They have a ton of fun activities or are great for small group instruction.

Phonemic Awareness: Playing with Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Reading Skills is one resources I keep going to year after year for word lists, activities, and games.

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum is just a classic phonemic awareness book. It has lessons and sequences of instruction for preschool / kindergarten classrooms. I tend to pick and choose what I use from it, but it's a very good book to learn more about phonemic awareness.

Picture Sorting for Phonemic Awareness is a great resource for pictures, if you don't have access to clipart.

Do you have any favorite phonemic awareness activities that you do in your classroom? I'd love to see and hear about them. As I'm working with my son at home this next year, I aways on the look out for good ideas.

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Phonemic Awareness is an important early reading skill for preschoolers and kindergarteners to develop. It is the ability to play with sounds in a variety of ways to manipulate, substitute, and hear isolated sounds. It is also an essential skill to develop before a student can learn to read.

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What goes on in the classroom often has little to do with what scientists have discovered about how kids learn. The obstacles are intellectual, emotional, and behavioral.
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Over the last several decades, psychologists have unearthed a wealth of evidence on how children learn. But for three basic reasons, it's proven hard to translate that evidence into classroom practice.

Cognitive scientists-those who study the learning process-have found that students retain information best through things like spaced practice (distributing learning over a period of time rather than cramming), interleaving (switching between different topics), and retrieval practice (trying to recall information that has been partially forgotten). But few teachers incorporate those practices into their lesson plans or suggest that students use them to study. More fundamentally, there's overwhelming evidence that, especially when students don't know much about a topic, it's best to provide information explicitly. But the prevailing theory in the education world has long been that it's better for even novice learners to "discover" or "construct" knowledge for themselves, often in largely self-directed groups.

Consistent with that theory, teacher-training programs encourage educators to value imparting skills over information-including supposed skills in reading comprehension and critical thinking. The idea is that students will be able to use the skills to acquire knowledge themselves, through their own reading. But scientists have long known that those kinds of skills can't be taught directly, in the absence of content. The more information students have on a topic, the better able they are to understand a text about it and think about it critically. And while it's true students need to participate in constructing or discovering their own knowledge, it's unrealistic to expect them to discover information for themselves, especially about topics in history or science that they know little about.

The reasons for the disjunction between the worlds of education and science are complex. But the obstacles to getting the findings of cognitive psychology into classroom practice fall into three basic categories. (I've borrowed this general framework from an organization called Teaching Lab, but the details here are mine.)

Intellectual: The most basic problem is that many educators simply don't know about these findings, largely because they were never told about them during their training. Schools of education have developed on a different track from the rest of academia, and as a result there's little communication between their faculty members and those in other disciplines. Rather than focusing on recent research, most ed schools teach as gospel theories of child development that academic psychologists consider outdated-like Jean Piaget's theory of developmental stages. Once on the job, teachers continue to get training, or "professional development," that has little basis in science. And their supervisors and instructional materials often assume the validity of non-evidence-based practices.

When introduced to evidence from cognitive science, many teachers eagerly embrace it. But others are resistant, dismissing the work of scientists as too ivory-tower and preferring to rely on their own experience. While teachers' experience is often valuable, it can also be misleading. For example, to a kindergarten or first-grade teacher it may look as though a child is learning to read without systematic instruction in phonics. But the child may just be guessing from pictures or memorizing words that appear in simple texts-especially because many teachers encourage those strategies. When the child reaches upper grade levels and is unable to sound out unfamiliar words, she'll be at a serious disadvantage.

Another problem is that educators are frequently directed to adopt new initiatives, many of which claim-often falsely-to be "evidence-based." As a result, teachers may view anything with that label as suspect, even when it's firmly grounded in science.

Emotional: Some teachers who understand the need for evidence-based techniques at an intellectual level are nevertheless held back by feelings. They may recognize, for example, that children need exposure to complex texts and concepts at an early age in order to be able to grapple with them more deeply later on. But they may still be afraid-based partly on their training-that such things are " developmentally inappropriate" or too difficult for their students to handle. Many teachers believe, for example, that historical topics are too abstract and remote for young children to grasp or become interested in. In fact, children can enjoy learning almost anything if it's presented in an engaging way.

Teachers also understandably feel anxious teaching subjects they don't know much about themselves-and given the deficiencies in teacher education, there may be quite a few of those. Sometimes those anxieties are projected onto kids. An instructional coach who helps implement a new curriculum that has students analyze works of art told me that one teacher in her district resisted a particular lesson because she thought children would be "scared by the art." The coach suspected the real problem was that the teacher herself didn't understand the painting, which was nothing more than a semi-abstract landscape. With a good curriculum and sensitive support, though, teachers can learn along with their students.

And it can be difficult for teachers to accept that an approach they've been using for years, in the belief that it was helping students, hasn't actually been working. They may feel tremendous guilt-or, in accordance with a well known psychological theory called confirmation bias, they may simply reject evidence that conflicts with their beliefs.

Behavioral: Even if teachers understand the need for methods rooted in cognitive science-and genuinely want to adopt them-it's often hard just to remember to use them. Teaching is an incredibly complex activity. With so many things to juggle, it's natural to revert to deeply ingrained habits. It's not impossible for teachers to change their behavior, but it can take time-and support from high-quality curriculum and instructional coaches.

The good news is that there are signs that classroom practice and science are edging closer. Groups of teachers, school district leaders, and even deans of ed schools are pushing for change, and some cognitive scientists are reaching out directly to educators. There are also new curricula, at the crucial elementary level, that focus on building children's knowledge rather than illusory comprehension skills.

Fundamental change in how and what educators teach can neither be imposed from on high nor spring solely from the grassroots; it has to come from both above and below. When education authorities announce a change in policy without clearly communicating the reasons for it and its value, teachers can simply close their classroom doors and continue to teach in whatever way makes sense to them-as they have done for generations. So it's crucial for teachers to understand and embrace a new approach. But teachers can't do it alone either. Even if they're eager to teach in a way that aligns with science, they don't have the power to adopt evidence-based curriculum and materials or to ensure that a new approach is consistent across a school or district. For that, teachers need the support of administrators and policymakers.

Given these obstacles, it's clear large-scale change won't happen overnight. But a growing number of schools across the country are beginning to adopt practices grounded in science, benefiting untold numbers of students-and making teachers' jobs easier.

For more on this topic, you can listen to an upcoming interview with me on the podcast Melissa and Lori Love Literacy, which will go live on August 6.

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Three Reasons Classroom Practice Conflicts With Evidence On How Kids Learn

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Over the last several decades, psychologists have unearthed a wealth of evidence on how children learn. But for three basic reasons, it's proven hard to translate that evidence into classroom practice.

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Available on Step-by-Step Learning Path "Love the progressive activities! I don't have to take the time to search for activities for my 3-year-old, and my 5-year-old just follows along when she's playing by herself... So I know everyone's doing the right things for their ages!"