Are you tired of writing in the margin “give more detail”, “please expand”, “elaborate on this idea” or “not enough detail”? How many times have you taken off points on an assignment because a student did not give enough detail?
Getting Students to add strong supporting details in their explanations and in their writing can feel like pulling teeth.
“Give me a second. I know this. Hold on. Uuugghh! It’s on the tip of my tongue. I know it but I can’t explain it.”
Have you ever heard something like this from your students? It is frustrating for students and for teachers.
The school year is well under way. Teachers are teaching. Students are learning. Inevitably, the grading is beginning to pile up. It happens to the best of teachers. Unfortunately for students, the learning opportunity tied to a specific assignment has already passed if they didn’t receive timely feedback.
Are students’ attention spans shrinking? That’s what a new study suggests. Teachers have always been able to use chronological age +1 as a guide for the length of a student’s attention span for learning.
This means an 8-year-old typically can hold their attention for about 9 minutes. That would also mean that a 14-year-old should be able to hold their attention for about 15 minutes. Interestingly, the research is now leaning toward 10-minute attention spans.
Does this mean you can’t use chronological age +1 as a guide any more? No. You can engage students in a way that helps increase their attention span. (more…)
Quick and simple to use, T-Charts have become a staple in teachers’ toolboxes. Using a T-Chart, however, may be wasting valuable instructional time. If you simply want to capture information, a T-chart is a great tool and so is a piece of notebook paper. If you haven’t already figured it out, students can complete a T-Chart and have no idea what the information means.
Capturing and organizing information is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. The “end” is that students understand the information and are able to draw conclusions. When teachers use T-Charts solely to capture information, and do not push their students to make sense of the information, teachers forfeit an incredible learning opportunity for students.
Don’t despair. You can transform your T-Chart into a powerful instructional strategy. (more…)
ReadWorks® is not just for reading teachers. If you are an educator, this website is for you. You may be surprised by what you find.
Have you ever searched the internet late at night looking for the perfect downloadable resource that you can use with students tomorrow? Do you find something you like but then realize you have to modify it because it’s not quite what you wanted?
I can easily become frustrated sifting through websites looking for great content that results in student achievement and is free to use. It’s easy to find a zillion lessons and activities to download, but are those “activities” anything more than a time-filler?
I need resources that academically pack a punch, are visually appealing, engaging to students, and easy for me to use. Often it can be like finding a needle in a haystack.
With so many websites out there, educators don’t always have the time to scour the internet and find the best websites. I’m adding a new feature to the blog—60-Second Reviews—to give you the highlights of a great resource.
This week’s 60-Second Review highlights the 10 top features of the new ReadWorks.org.
The creators of this website are committed to filling in the reading gap for students across content areas and grade levels. They’ve done a fantastic job! If you haven’t looked at this website recently, then it’s time to take another look.
1. Find a wide variety of literary and non-fiction passages, including primary source documents, for almost all subject areas and all grade levels (K-12), including the areas of physical, emotional, and mental health.
2. Incorporate articles related to social emotional learning, such as dealing with feelings, anxiety, learning disabilities, shyness, friendship difficulties, etc. into your lessons.
3. Search the database of articles by skill, strategy, grade level, Lexile, informational text, literature, paired texts, Article a Day and more. Build a customized list to easily keep track of articles and passages by adding them to “My List”.
4. Download these high quality resources without any need for modification.
5. Use the question sets (with answers), and vocabulary resources that accompany each article.
6. Support students with audio versions that are included with all articles.
7. Differentiate instruction by selecting articles that contain one or two additional passages, which are less complex versions of the original article.
8. Create classes and assign articles to students. Students do not need emails for the teacher to create classes.
9. Save time. Have students log in to ReadWorks.org to complete and submit assignments online. Students do not need emails to submit assignments. The multiple choice portion is graded by the computer and the short answer/essay portion is graded by the teacher within ReadWorks.org.
10. Check it out. Readworks.org is still FREE!
This is one of those best-kept secret websites out there. Check it out!
If this 60-Second Review was helpful and you would like more of these, let me know in the comments below.