Heinemann Blog

I still believe that conferring is where the magic happens—it’s the heartbeat of the literacy block. It’s an essential time for teachers to meet with students, tailor instruction to their individual goals, provide them with meaningful feedback, and grow relationships.

Today on the Heinemann podcast, we’re joined by Kristin Ziemke and Katie Muhtaris to explore how we can make the most of technology with our students. They believe that digital literacy is necessary, and must grow from student ownership and creativity.

Bring the empowering messages from We Got This to your classroom walls with these free, printable posters! The colorful six-piece set will brighten your room and inspire your learning community. Download your set here!

Heinemann fellow Julie Kwon Jee has this question: In what ways does a continuous exploration of identity via literature and personal reflection increase engagement and encourage students to become active participants in choosing the books they read both inside and outside their classrooms?

What if preparing for tests could look, sound, and feel like your favorite units of study for reading and writing? What if they could have the confidence and the tricks-of-the-trade to make it possible for them to do their best work on every test they take?

We already accept notetaking as a part of classroom life, so let’s welcome sketchnotes into the notetaking family! Notetaking as a practice stands the test of time, and for good reason. Research suggests that taking notes in real time and thinking about those notes later boosts student learning.

To practice reading skills either as a student or a teacher, you can download the skills and strategies bookmarks that accompany A Novel Approach. Each set is available for free download and filled with steps that readers can take with them in whatever text they're currently reading.

Today on the Heinemann podcast Jennifer Serravallo introduces A Teacher’s Guide to Reading Conferences, which is part of Heinemann’s Classroom Essentials series. Jen says that while conferring with readers might seem intimidating or out of reach, it is attainable -and necessary- in every classroom.

Writing workshop is not a time where where students prepare to someday write a letter to the editor, or prepare a speech for their local school board. They are doing it right now, every day, in ways that shape their schools and communities in important ways.

The ability to listen will not make teaching easier. It will not take the painful parts away, but listening can give us our children back. If we listen to what children and communities are saying, and we respond accordingly, we can be ourselves again. We can be people.

Lucy Calkins's leadership is rooted in her practice of reading and writing workshop instruction, but where did that instruction begin and how was she called to literacy work to become the leader we know today? How has Lucy Calkins nurtured her own culture of continuous study?

This month's PLC series, we examine impacting pedagogy with identity work.

Doing well can mean many different things. It’s only in recent years that psychologists have begun to tease apart the big glob we casually think of as motivation.

Book clubs provide an authentic purpose for reading closely, note-taking, and writing about reading--to prepare for great conversation. When book clubs meet, the conversations are usually open-ended and completely student-directed.

When you confer, you tailor your instruction to each student’s strengths and needs. But you do so much more than that. Conferring is where the magic happens. It’s the heartbeat of the literacy block.

Conferring is built on learning what students are doing and how they are thinking. In the first stage of a math conference, the teachers looks, listens, and asks with the goal of building an interpretation of student thinking.

This week on the Heinemann Podcast we’re learning about the importance of personal identity work in education. To understand this work better, and its impact on teachers, we’re handing this week’s podcast over to Heinemann Fellow, Minjung Pai.

In reading and writing workshop, strategic partnerships can help us provide an audience, built-in feedback provider, and peer-reviewer for every student. While we can’t clone ourselves and have a teacher next to every student, we can set up partnerships that support, motivate, and inspire.