In the online resources for A Teacher's Guide to Reading Conferences, you will find a variety of note-taking forms and other documents that will help you get started implementing—or refining—reading conferences right away in your classroom. (continue reading)
The classroom library is the home of a class’ reading community. Like any remodeling project, it is best to make a plan that is real but achievable for the situation at hand. We always advise not to take on more than you can finish in the amount of time you have to do it. (continue reading)
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. (continue reading)
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. (continue 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. (continue reading)
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. (continue reading)
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. (continue reading)
The overall design of an academic assignment, from the layout to the words used, is critical to not only how well a student preforms, but how they continue to learn throughout their academic journey. By taking a user approach, Jim Burke suggests that we can design better work for our students. (continue reading)
Getting Started with Beginning Writers is not a script you can follow, of course. But regardless of the children sitting in front of you, and regardless of whether it's the beginning of the year or sometime later, there are very specific big ideas and beliefs that can guide your practice. (continue reading)
While good readers are able to meet state reading standards and often achieve at the highest levels on standardized tests, they can be helped to become more thoughtful readers. (continue reading)
