When I first started teaching, reading homework was the bane of my existence. I spent countless hours pulling worksheets that matched what we were learning, and using a good portion of my copy allowance. My fifth year teaching, I moved into a...
I love teaching reading, and figurative language is one of my favorite standards to cover. It’s not as easy to teach as it used to be, with new standards and testing requirements. Unfortunately, with the pressure of testing and rigor, reading...
I began teaching language arts exclusively two years ago. At the time, I imagined my classroom as one filled with students that loved to read. That was not the case. What came to me was a group of students that would do strange things like pretend...
Are you ready for more writing about reading in your classroom? I was recently asked to do a presentation for new teachers on the new Common Core ELA standards and how to fit it all in to our dwindling ELA block. The major issue that most teachers...
Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this post. You don’t have to buy anything, but if you do, it helps this blog for no extra cost to you! Thanks for your support! When the Common Core State Standards went live, a lot of teachers were seriously...
I jumped on the “close reading” bandwagon pretty early on, so I’ve had a lot of time to try it and reflect back on my complete and utter failures using it. And there have been failures, trust me. In my first lesson using it, I had...