I, like many educators, cannot believe how quickly summer passes! Nevertheless, back-to-school time is here, and many teachers are putting the final touches on their classrooms for this year. I thought it might be helpful to answer a question we received on Facebook a few weeks back about classroom library and book organization. Corey asked, […]
Created by teachers for teachers, Literacy Footprints is a complete guided reading system cocreated by myself and fellow literacy expert, Jan Richardson. Hear directly from Jan and I as we detail the program’s components and successes. If you are interested in getting a sample of Literacy Footprints, please visit the Literacy Footprints website.
Students love seeing their own names in print, and that’s one reason that I love creating stories for BookBuilder Online. It’s simple to add names, print out the book, and assemble the story for classroom or home use. To celebrate the beginning of spring (even if it’s still winter where you are), here are two great FREE seasonal […]
Learning to compare and contrast different ideas deepens students’ understanding of what they read. How should you begin? Have students think of a question that compares and contrasts concepts, characters, or story elements. This can work for both fiction and nonfiction books. You can introduce this during a whole-class read aloud. You might ask students […]
One of the most important things for an emergent reader to learn is to check that what they read makes sense, looks right, and sounds right. This is called self-monitoring. Often the teacher does the monitoring for the student, but it is critical that students learn to check themselves. One of the first ways that […]
In my last post, I shared a video of educator, Amy Ferris, sharing about the data-driven teaching methods she is implementing at her kindergarten-only school in Richmond, Kentucky. My next data story comes from Julie Allsworth. Julie is a former literacy coach in Pinellas County, Florida, and also a Pioneer Valley Books consultant. She is currently working on […]
Many years ago, I was sitting in the Columbus, Ohio, airport after presenting at the National Reading Recovery conference. I eavesdropped on a conversation across the aisle, and that’s how I met Maryann McBride, a Reading Recovery Teacher Leader from Virginia. She was showing Excel data about Reading Recovery students to a group of teachers […]
Teaching students how to locate cause and effect in the text can help them learn how to analyze relationships between people, events, and ideas. To begin, introduce cause and effect to students using very simple stories. Familiar tales such as The Three Little Pigs can provide a great starting point. After reading the book, ask students, […]
Beginning readers need to learn to check one kind of information with another; this is called cross-checking. Students might check meaning (via the picture) with visual information (via the first letter of the word). They also may check that the words they say match the number of words they point to. Cross-checking leads to self-correction […]
[This post is a guest post from our Marketing Coordinator, Rachel. Rachel handles lots of the marketing and social media business for Pioneer Valley Books. Today she’s sharing some awesome updates from a couple of their digital projects.] At Pioneer Valley Books, we love doing whatever we can to ensure that teachers have as many […]