# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Educational Hip-Hop Songs & Videos for All Subjects, K-12

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Flocabulary is a library of songs, videos and activities for K-12 online learning. Hundreds of thousands of teachers use Flocabulary’s educational raps and teaching lesson plans to supplement their instruction and engage students. Our team of artists and educators is not only committed to raising test scores, but also to fostering a love of learning in every child.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Children's Book Review, Book and Ebook Reviews of the Best Kids' Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Growing Readers (SM). The Children's Book Review is the kid's, parents, publishers, teachers, and author, illustrator, source for children's book reviews on

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | Content and assessment platform

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Excite, encourage and engage kids to read! Check out Biblionasium, where young readers connect & share book lists and good reads with friends, teachers & parents. Look up the reading level difficulty of thousands of books and find the right fit books. A powerful teacher tool and valued parent resource.

# data[].attributes.body
They are the bosses of reading.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Welcome to the Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Community

Designed for teachers, literacy leaders and district administrators - Make fountasandpinnell.com your daily literacy retreat to reflect, recharge, research, and redefine your literacy instruction.

Become a member and gain exclusive access to tools, resources, conversations, videos, tips, inspiration, transformative thinking and so much more.
Join Today for Free!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fountas and Pinnell Information and Teacher Community

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to the Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Community Designed for teachers, literacy leaders and district administrators - Make fountasandpinnell.com your daily literacy retreat to reflect, recharge, research, and redefine your literacy instruction. Become a member and gain exclusive access to tools, resources, conversations, videos, tips, inspiration, transformative thinking and so much more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Why does a child have to repeat kindergarten? The decision to repeat this first school grade is never taken lightly and usually the people working with the student and the parents make this difficult decision together. Sometimes a second year is deemed necessary to improve the child's language development.

Do you have a child or student that is repeating a second year of kindergarten? The team at Special Needs Book Review recommends this perfect children's book: My Second Year of Kindergarten by Rebecca Eisenberg, MS, CCC-SLP.

We thank Ms. Eisenberg for her guest post introducing her book and look forward to learning more parenting tips ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Why does a child have to repeat kindergarten? The decision to repeat this first school grade is never taken lightly and usually the people working with the student and the parents make this difficult decision together. Sometimes a second year is deemed necessary to improve the child's language development.

# data[].attributes.headline
International Literacy Association: "The Reading Teacher" Magazine

# data[].attributes.subject
International Literacy Association: "The Reading Teacher" Magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ILA NEWS

ILA News | November 9, 2023
Submitted students' perspectives on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice for a chance to be included in the 2024 AERA Annual Meeting.

Research Advisory | Oct 2, 2023
Additional resources, including webinars, available now.

Digital Events | Sept 19, 2023
Free ILA Webinar About Dyslexia
Registration is now open for a new, free ILA Webinar: Dyslexia: What We Know and What We Want to Know.

Free New Resources for JAAL
First set of the new JAAL Literacy Insights available for download.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ILA is a global advocacy and membership organization of more than 300,000 literacy educators, researchers, and experts across 86 countries.

# data[].attributes.headline
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards: For Teachers by Teachers 

# data[].attributes.subject
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards: For Teachers by Teachers 

# data[].attributes.body
Follow @jseravallo and @MisterMinor. Look for #TCRWP chats and follow @sljournal and @nerdybookclub! See you there!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Tweets by MisterMinor

# data[].attributes.body
Read an interview with Grant Wiggins on the power of backward design

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As a result, I had a very encouraging chat with Dr. Wiggins, President of Authentic Education, about his views on assessment and I'd like to pass on to you the insights that Dr. Wiggins shared with me.

Edutopia: Dr. Wiggins, state assessments have been in the spotlight so much that focus on the regular every day assessments has been pushed to the back seat. We know that the state assessments are a curriculum magnet, (i.e. the standardized assessment encourages the states to match their curriculum with the test) how can teachers use every day assessments to drive the curriculum up from the minimum standards?"

Grant Wiggins: Elementary teachers seem to do a much better job of this than secondary. For example, I was just visiting a second grade classroom this morning and I saw that the teacher was able to structure her classroom so that literacy could be better developed through individual feedback. Some students work independently at stations, while the teacher spends time providing critical feedback to individuals and small groups. Such formative feedback is essential to literacy success. In the upper grades, teachers tend to do more whole group instruction than small group instruction and find it difficult to give that critical feedback.

Edutopia: What are some ways to get around that difficulty?

Grant Wiggins: Some high school teachers use Socratic Seminars to provide students with feedback on their thinking and literacy -- similar to an athletic coach that has to stand on the sidelines while the athletes perform. There are other effective formative assessment strategies such as personal white board paddles and clickers (individual response remotes) that I have seen teachers use to assess understanding at deep levels. Good teachers understand that for students, the mere act of receiving the feedback that they do not know something begins the process of "learning by trying to learn." This reveals the true nature of formative assessment.

Edutopia: Teachers could spend all of their time crafting assessments-- making sure that there are questions that challenge each cognitive level, maintaining a culturally neutral vocabulary, designing questions that cover both readiness and knowledge, and matching each question with a taught standard. What is the best way for teachers to keep assessment in perspective with all of their other duties?

Grant Wiggins: Formative assessments are not just for the students...the teachers also must have continual feedback to guide their instruction. These assessments do not have to be elaborate. For example a simple exit slip done every day, will reveal the likely misunderstandings and misconceptions that have the may block student progress. A forward-thinking teacher will check for the likely misunderstandings to be able to eliminate them. Some teachers are not good at doing this, but are smart enough to turn to their grade level or content area colleagues for assistance in designing and debugging formative assessments.

Edutopia: The topics of formative and summative assessment have been revisited so many times that the terms are starting to lose their effectiveness. How do you help teachers keep them straight?

Grant Wiggins: You are correct, many teachers continue to be confused about the difference between formative and summative assessments. Many teachers think of formative assessment in terms of the typical 4 weeks interim test where the questions will never be asked again. This is actually summative. For tests to be truly formative, students need multiple opportunities to be tested on the same information.

A formative assessment does not look backwards but it focuses on the present of where the student is right now, it looks to the future. For example an English test. The teacher gives the students six essays, the first five are formative and the sixth is summative, just like in sports every non-conference game is formative, and every other game consist of endless formative assessments that prepare the athletes for the championship game. Summative means there is no opportunity to "re-do", it is for real, like the championship game. Students need this type of formative performance feedback.

Let's consider the Common Core sixth-grade content in fractions and decimals. The "Practice Standards" are basically endless formative assessments that lead students to mastery. Secondary teachers tend to think that every thing has to be graded, but non-graded is formative, too.

Edutopia: In Understanding by Design, you establish that assessment is intimately involved with planning for effective instruction. It makes so much sense that the expected learning outcomes should first be established in the form of the evaluation, and then be evidenced as the instructional plan is designed around them. What is your take on how well teachers have made the switch from the traditional teach then test to design the test then teaching?

Grant Wiggins: Following the concept of preparing the evaluation first (backward design), as proposed in Understanding by Design, is not a natural instinct and teachers are not doing as well as I might have hoped. On the other hand UbD doesn't mean that you have to design the entire assessment before the lesson design, but at the very least you must think about the assessment before you design the instruction.

For example, in preparing lessons on Speaking and Listening, in the Common Core. A teacher should ask himself, what will count as evidence of learning? A teacher who originally was thinking on doing public speaking as a more traditional assessment, but when he asks the question, "What will count as evidence of learning?" then he might change his mind and consider Socratic Seminars because they definitely produce a lot of evidence of how much the students have learned simply by tracking their questions and the answers.

Edutopia: What is the role of the administrator in regards to testing in the classroom? How can the administrator best support effective assessment?

Grant Wiggins: When I visit a class, I have the teacher fill out an "UbD Observation Form" for supervisors. Some of the questions on the form include: What counts as evidence of learning success? What do you want me to look for in this observation? When teachers have thoughtful answers to these questions, the results are easily observable in the lesson delivery. When I talk to teachers about their lesson plans and they do not have a good answer for these questions, this is a warning sign that the teacher will probably need some help in lesson design and this is almost always evident in the observation of the lesson delivery. Administrators can help the teachers focus on how and why they measure learning and especially, they can help teachers to remember to think of assessment in terms of the road to mastery rather than tests or grades.

Edutopia: Am I correct in stating that administrators evaluate teacher performance by using authentic assessment strategies like the UbD supervisor form and then they provide critical feedback, similar to what the teachers should be providing their students?

Grant Wiggins: That is an insightful question. Yes, administrators should start their evaluations with conversation concerning what counts as evidence of student learning, and what the teacher wants them to be looking for in their lesson, both of which questions demand that the teacher do some effective lesson planning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
An Interview with Grant Wiggins: The Power of Backwards Design | Edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As a result, I had a very encouraging chat with Dr. Wiggins, President of Authentic Education, about his views on assessment and I'd like to pass on to you the insights that Dr. Wiggins shared with me.

# data[].attributes.headline
Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

# data[].attributes.subject
Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

# data[].attributes.body
Visit this site and find lots of great resources for RW and WW.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Resources | Teachers College Advancing Literacy

# data[].attributes.body
This timely blog will inspire you as a teacher, and a writer!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Knowing My Writers

September is a get-to-know-you month. A community-building-ice-breaker-month. September is a settling-in month, a becoming-comfortable month, a building-relationship month. It's an ask-the-parents-about-their-child month. A stack of papers month. Artwork created month. September is a launching month, a set-the-vision month, a build-enthusiasm for the work ahead month.

September is an exhausting month, but a month that reveals much about the 24 third graders who inhabit room 215 with me this year.

In the past, I have asked parents to fill out surveys about their children and asked children to fill out interest inventories. I've asked them to bring in All About Me bags where they share items that are important in their lives. I've watched as they filled cups with marbles to show the areas they are strong in and the areas they don't feel as confident. I've heard stories from summer vacations and listened to them say their favorite foods, places, and family members they enjoy spending time with during our Morning Meeting share.

Up till now, I haven't really organized all this information in one place. It has floated around my brain- many children, many bits of information about each of them. This year, my plan is to write down these bits of information in my conferring notebook. One page will have all the information I've learned about the writer- what parents have shared, what I've observed, what the child has said about himself- anything and everything that tells me who this child is as a learner. The next page will be where I jot down my observations, feedback offered, and teaching points shared during conferences. As I pull up next to a writer, I can quickly review all I know about him or her. My hope is this will make our conversations more personalized, more meaningful, and lead to a more constructive conference that will move the writer- not the piece of writing- forward.

A few weeks ago, I announced a TWT Voxer group to study Patty McGee's Feedback That Moves Writers Forward. This past week, we've been discussing Chapter 3, which discusses Feedback Fundamentals. One of the fundamentals, according to Patty, is "Discover the Writer's Identity." She writes, "Let me define what I mean about writer's identity. To me, it's a self-concept a student has, that is comprised of current skills, curiosities, insecurities, memories, and experiences as a writer. Much like a snail carries its shell on its back, a writer has inside a shell full of interests, talents, particular likes and dreams- and it's our job both to discover and enhance them throughout the year. Essential to effective feedback is to know our young writers- who they are, what makes them tick, and how they identify their strengths and challenges" (53).

Brian Kissel also wrote about knowing our writers in his fabulous book, When Writers Drive the Workshop. Brian writes, "To teach children, you must know them. To know them, they must reveal. To reveal, they must feel safe and secure. To feel safe and secure, they need agency. To have agency, they must have choices. When they choose their writing topics, children's lives unfold onto their pages" (6).

And, of course, so many of us are inspired by the work of Donald Graves and his message of knowing your students before you attempt to teach them anything about being a writer. As I explored this idea of knowing your writers, and looking at what the great literacy leaders have written on this subject, I found A Sea of Faces: The Importance of Knowing Your Students by Don Graves. It is a book I plan to read and it is a message I have come to believe in whole-heartedly.

September is a get-to-know-you month. It is a time-well-spent month as my notebook fills with notes and observations, facts and anecdotes about my students' lives. I am getting to know them as people- learners, thinkers, readers and yes, writers. How do you build relationships with your students to lay the foundation for the writing work ahead?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
September is a get-to-know-you month. A community-building-ice-breaker-month. September is a settling-in month, a becoming-comfortable month, a building-relationship month. It's an ask-the-parents-about-their-child month. A stack of papers month. Artwork created month. September is a launching month, a set-the-vision month, a build-enthusiasm for the work ahead month. September is an exhausting month, but a month that reveals...