Topic: Units of Study

This week is the August Writing Institute at The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. There, Thousands of educators from all over the country and world are learning, thinking and writing together.

As the saying goes, “Well done is better than well said.” Nowhere is modeling more important than in the teaching of writing.

If your classroom library is still a work in progress, don’t worry - with some planning, organization, and creativity, you can turn your classroom library into a truly inspiring place.

A classroom library is the at the heart of reading instruction. The kinds of texts students encounter in their library will help shape the kinds of readers they become.

Today on the Heinemann Podcast, Lucy Calkins, author and series editor of the Units of Study for Reading and Writing, shares in her own words the latest, groundbreaking work to come out of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project: the new Units of Study in Phonics for grades K–2.

This Wednesday night, TCRWP staff developers Samantha Barratt and Anna Sheehan will lead a chat on ways to integrate the learning of the June reading institute into new teaching practices and gear up for the best possible start to the coming school year.

This week, institute season kicks off at The Reading and Writing Project, as thousands of educators gather at Teachers College in New York City to reflect upon, reinvigorate, and refine their teaching of writing.

If you are an educator with some time away from school this summer, hopefully you are using a lot of it to recharge. This time to re-anchor to what energizes you is crucial and much-needed.

As we move into the summer months, many kids will have a lot of hours to fill. As teachers, we have a lot of power to make sure that at least some of kids’ time this summer is taken up with reading.

The whole class, teacher included, is feeling it: the approach of summer, marked by warmer days and possibly by shorter attention spans.

Helping students to reflect on all they’ve accomplished in a way that celebrates the leaps they’ve made and highlights what they’d still like to tackle will set them up for the strongest finish to the school year.

It’s a wonderful feeling when a new teaching resource arrives, along with it a sense of rejuvenation, creativity, and thoughtful anticipation about how one’s teaching will shift for the better.

In a recent series of short video interviews, Lucy Calkins and her TCRWP coauthors discussed the guiding principles they had in mind while creating the forthcoming Units of Study in Phonics. Watch the videos below to discover the why the authors paid particular attention to transfer and engagement.

For many teachers and students, the summer months are a chance to change pace, to dig in to projects of personal interest, and just…breathe. But for many kids, summer is also a time when learning grinds to a halt.

At this week's TCRWP Twitter Chat, phonics gurus and co-authors Natalie Louis and Rachel Rothman will lead a discussion previewing this exciting new series.

At this week’s TCRWP Twitter chat, Katy Wischow and Audra Robb will lead a discussion on recharging your workshops after testing. If you or your students are experiencing post-testing slump, don’t miss our experts chatting about how to combat that in fresh, exciting ways.

I'm hearing from lots of people whose schools are launching or preparing to launch Units of Study in reading, writing or phonics—and I’ve been getting many requests for advice on how to make sure the work is successful. Here are my thoughts.

Lucy Calkins and her colleagues have developed a new Units of Study for Phonics for K-1 that will release early this summer. This new resource will help early educators provide an accessible introduction to phonics.