Heinemann Blog

Lester and Katie offer a framework that can both deepen and broaden students’ understandings, insights, and empathy for the greater human family.

A good demonstration is specific, focused, and clear. Thinking aloud while demonstrating is an important way to show not just what we are doing but also how we are doing it. Modeling is not the same as demonstrating. Modeling is an important part of high-quality teaching, but in a focused strategy lesson, demonstrating is more effective.

When we investigate history, it is often clear which parts we wish not to repeat. But simply knowing history is not enough.

To learn together, children need to figure out how to live in the confined space of a classroom, developing processes that enable them to navigate their environment, and each other, with care, respect and trust.

What does it really take to help students learn their math facts in ways that allow them to access and use these facts fluently and flexibly to solve rich and challenging math problems?

In her new book, The Right Tools, author Towanda Harris lays out a path that teachers and administrators can use to make informed decisions abut what resources and practices they need for the students they teach.

April is a time of year the time of year when seasons change. From winter to spring for some. From basketball to baseball others. From fiction to nonfiction for others. However, when seasons change, it doesn’t mean we throw out everything and start all over again from scratch.

Anne Whitney, Colleen McCracken, and Deana Washell think that young kids can reflect and, once they know what it does for them, usually want to reflect. However, this doesn’t mean they know how to reflect. We need to teach reflection, not just expect reflection.

Creating a visual image of a process as dynamic in nature as purposeful talk is challenging at best. But visuals are incredibly helpful for both internalizing the process, and pushing against misconceptions.

Think about aligning beliefs and practices not within the classroom, but in your personal life.

Today on the podcast Lester Laminack and Katie Kelly want students and teachers to learn the ways that reading can change lives. In their new book 'Reading to Make a Difference,' Lester and Katie build a framework for diverse and inclusive literature practices.

In what ways might middle-grade students’ math agency deepen by writing about their learning or discoveries in math class, including, but not limited to, journaling, explaining math ideas, and writing conjectures and proofs about their mathematical discoveries?

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.