I just finished listening to Emily Hanford's podcast entitled, "At a loss for words, what's wrong with how schools teach reading."  I feel agitated.  First, at the heart of reading is meaning. If you read an article or a book, and then someone asks you what it was about, and you have no idea, did you really read it? I teach my students that this is an example of fake reading. If I pulled one of these kids to confer with me, I may listen and hear them read all the words accurately. If they cannot talk about what the author said, I do not believe they read the text. This point - the compr ..read more

Another school year is upon us! I'm not going to lie, last night I was feeling the Sunday Scaries pretty bigtime. Coming back after a two-month hiatus isn't easy, especially when you've been on beaches with friends and family, at day games at Wrigley, staying up all hours of the night (when I say this, I mean 11pm, ha!) and redecorating your apartment. Even for those of us who have been doing this a long time, that transition can be difficult. But then I came into Heritage for a team leader meeting this Monday morning, and was flooded with hugs, and catching up, and the excitement amongst t ..read more

You are going to love Responsive Literacy: A Comprehensive Framework! This book will not only explain in great detail what this framework is all about, but SHOW you in a multitude of colorful photos about every aspect of this framework. If you're familiar with balanced literacy, you're right on track with responsive literacy. This framework is all about providing structures for students to engage in literacy via reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but thought a multitude of modalities. Students will find these experiences in the Reading, Writing, and Word Study Workshop formats. The ..read more