Many teachers around the globe have classrooms that are increasing more globally diverse. Students are moving from around the globe to new places and bring with them a wealth of cultural information that may be new or different to their new home region and school. As teachers our goal is to get to know the student to make them feel comfortable and safe. In doing so it means we need to get to learn the cultural background of students and how those cultures see education, the role of the teacher and classroom, and how communication is used. By bringing in those aspects students can see themselve ..read more

It’s that time of the year…assessment time. Really teaching early literacy it’s always assessment time. We are constantly checking our students needs and reevaluating how we are meeting those needs to help them move forward. For me, I’ve been working on literacy intervention for various grade levels and have students still barely aware of letters as markers of sounds. I worked to create a little booklet that is used to help track students success with letter identification and their ability to write a the letter I saw. If they can read and write it they know it and that is success. I made a li ..read more

Welcome to Spring! The days are beautiful, the sun is out and the flowers are blooming. And our students are getting ready to head back to the classroom. Reading, writing and literacy are going to need some extra effort to bridge the gap that may have formed over the COVID time. My students are some of those in need of help this spring in the area of rhyming. Do you have that problem too? Some of my reading students in grades 1-2 cannot rhyme! This skill is usually honed in Kindergarten, but many of students who are learning English haven’t grown up with English nursery rhymes and rhyming sto ..read more

I don’t know about you but the needs of my students this year are vast! Covid has added more students with varying gaps in their literacy journey than ever before. The intervention has to be regular, targeted, and applied in multiple ways. YES!!! Multiple ways of intervention- what this looks like with my groups is 8 minutes of phonological awareness practice using Heggerty (because my students need phonological mastery- they are not there yet. Heggerty is affordable and does not require any other tools or preparation. Science of Reading is a wonderful way to look at the needs of early readers ..read more

Here we are back in the classroom enjoying the new year with our students. Some of you will walk in and get right back into the groove- reteaching some expectations and then hitting the ground running. Others of you will stop and contemplate where you should start…reteaching, special small unit on the season to get us back into the groove with small steps, some will start completely different- new year- new class. Me- well… I’m a bit of everything, aside from reteaching some class norms and rehashing expectations of course. I like to get back on track a week or after returning to the classroom ..read more

Bonus resource https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1neFo4MKBdeyer3xeCIiDdT-J2zeBB9iXHW5BgcGeaWo/copy ..read more

Here are some school truths: SEL is vital! Literacy is crucial! ELD/ESL is imperative! And these have always been…maybe your student population changed, life sure has changed, but people have always needed support learning, practicing what they have learned, learning about differences and similarities, appreciation, respect, and expressing themselves properly. All of these may leave a teacher to feel overwhelmed because they think they need to figure out how to fit these all in- individually, SEL, ELD/ESL, Literacy. But, never fear there is enough time to get them all in and sometimes they wor ..read more

Teaching language learners takes implementing research-based best practices into the classroom. Strategies and methods that help students learn, practice and use their English skills in every subject throughout the day. English Language Development or ELD is used to help students learn English based on language standards from the state. Those standards include collaborative conversations, building on others answers, presenting and comprehension along with standards that align closely with literacy Common Core Standards. Student levels are tiered based on their test scores and teacher input. Th ..read more

Our classrooms are becoming very diverse and this may include students that are coming from areas where English is not the native or secondary language. These students may need to spend time learning English by transferring the language skills they have or by learning the fundamentals and academic language together, Not all students come to our classrooms at the same level, and the same is true of students coming to our classrooms from other countries. Depending on student grade levels and areas where you teach students who need to learn to comprehend, speak, listen, read, and write in English ..read more

Many teachers around the globe have classrooms that are increasing more globally diverse. Students are moving from around the globe to new places and bring with them a wealth of cultural information that may be new or different to their new home region and school. As teachers our goal is to get to know the student to make them feel comfortable and safe. In doing so it means we need to get to learn the cultural background of students and how those cultures see education, the role of the teacher and classroom, and how communication is used. By bringing in those aspects students can see themselve ..read more