Heinemann Blog

To foster a conversation and culture of collaboration, it is vital that assignments not be treated as though they were written in stone. How could they be when the kids and conditions we work with change so much each year?

Today on the Heinemann Podcast, we’re joined by author Maria Nichols. In her new book “Building Bigger Ideas: A Process for Teaching Purposeful Talk,” Maria drives home the growing importance of purposeful, face-to-face communication.

Janelle Henderson invites us to reflect on serving the needs of the boys of color in classrooms.

Consider your nonfiction collection in your own classroom, as well as the way that you use nonfiction texts with your students. Do you read aloud nonfiction for enjoyment? Do your students know how to approach different types of nonfiction reading with different strategies?

When student writers know how to reflect, they know how to learn from their writing experiences. It’s one thing to experience something, but if the experience is then forgotten or not connected in any direct way to other experiences, how is it useful?

Talk has a purpose—and that purpose is to tackle the unknown—to strategize, to innovate, to problem-solve, to construct understanding. This use of talk “in the wild” frames the “why” behind purposeful talk in the classroom—our rationale for designing teaching and learning that’s dialogic in nature.

Today on the Heinemann podcast author Tom Newkirk explores the value of creating worlds through fiction writing. As Tom says, “our minds were made for stories,” so he decided to sit down with high school students to hear about the fiction they write in and out of school…

Over the years, the “library” space came to be used for professional development, math labs, anything but literacy programming, and collection development slowed down significantly.

The Comprehension Toolkit series offers robust instruction to encourage students to develop the reading comprehension skills that lead to lifelong learning. See what's inside in this unboxing video!

How can we actively and intentionally involve students in the chart-making process so charts become an integral part of instruction? Let’s take a look at one way to involve students through the use of interactive writing.

When the reader stands in his or her own worldview, unable to see or conceive of any other perspective, a book can be a bridge. The right book, at the right time, can span the divide between where the reader stands in this moment and alternate views, new ideas, and options not yet considered.

The teaching of phonics is a means to an end. Children need to decode in order to independently read and write. Phonics shouldn’t feel like an interruption or detour away from these authentic experiences. Phonics should be the building of a curiosity.

While a whole book assessment is still a part of Complete Comprehension as it was IRA, there are numerous updates and improvements worth noting.

Today on the podcast, we’re talking with Anne Whitney, Colleen McCracken, and Deana Washell, co-authors of “Teaching Writers to Reflect: Strategies for a More Thoughtful Writing Workshop.”

Witnessing a roomful of students typing or scribbling away, occasionally pausing to ponder a point or reconsider a sentence—this is teacher bliss. But how do we guide them to a place where they are writing for more than their teacher, for more than a grade?

Thinking about your students through a developmental lens will enhance your teaching each and every day. It will also make your job more interesting and therefore more fun. You can do this in a general way by getting into a three-step habit.

Complete Comprehension operationalizes top-quality, peer-reviewed research and aligns with national and state standards of learning. Here's your access to all of the details.

Teaching Writers to Reflect is a book about reflection in the context of teaching writing. Anne Elrod Whitney, Colleen McCracken, and Deana Washell decided to start with themselves.