Teaching Topic, Main Idea, and Details Main idea skills are crucial for strong reading comprehension. Many students struggle with these skills, but it doesn’t have to be that way! Here are some of the most effective strategies that I used to help my students understand these important skills. Follow along to learn how to make teaching topic, main idea, and details less of a struggle. Scope of Main Idea Skills
You CAN Meet Rigorous Expectations with These Strategies I love to hear lots of positive feedback about my resources, but I also like to hear the occasional critique. One of the most frequent challenges I hear is about meeting rigor. Although my passage-based resources are professionally Lexile® leveled, some teachers comment that they are too hard for a particular group of students. These teachers say something like, “these passages are
Teaching Making Predictions Predicting is an important skill that is necessary for readers to fully comprehend and analyze text. Good readers are able to predict based on their own knowledge and information provided in the text. These skills are not always inherent, so it is important for students to build the necessary foundational skills to be able to predict successfully. Here are some strategies and resources for teaching making predictions.
Why You Should Consider Using Interactive Writing Notebooks Writing components now make up a large portion of the English and Language Arts section of many standardized tests. This is true even in the primary grades. Learning writing skills can be challenging and it is so important for students to remain engaged – but it can be difficult to find resources that focus on writing standards and keep students engaged at
The Journey to Teaching Summarizing When I first started teaching, my 5th grade students REALLY struggled with summarizing. It was a skill I expected them to already know, and I couldn’t figure out how to teach summarizing so my students could master this important skill. It seemed so simple to me yet it was so difficult for them. I discovered that summarizing requires the ability to recount and retell, and
Teaching the Truth about Thanksgiving From the food served to the people who celebrated, there are so many misconceptions about Thanksgiving. Many generally held misconceptions can seem fairly harmless. Unfortunately, misconceptions can perpetuate a cycle of oppression against certain people and cultures. Our understanding of history shapes our perceptions about the world we live in and the people we share it with, so it is important we push past generally
Teaching about Hanukkah Did you know that over 39% of the Jewish world population lives in the United States? Even though 5,700,000 Jewish people live in America, many people don’t know basic facts about Hanukkah. With the holiday starting Sunday, December 22nd this year, I figured now is the perfect time to break down some of the basics of this Jewish holiday and share some helpful resources for teaching about
Veterans Day in the Classroom While I hate to admit this, I never paid much attention to the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day until I became a teacher. Veterans Day, which is November 11 every year, is a national holiday reserved to celebrate all U.S. Military Veterans. (Memorial Day, on the other hand, is to honor those who passed away serving in an American war.) Teaching about Veterans
Implementing Reading Exit Tickets for Quick Assessment Using exit tickets is an easy and effective way to understand more about your students and your instruction. When used as an assessment tool, exit tickets provide teachers with valuable data about how well each student understands the skill they are learning. I love using exit tickets for assessment because they are easy and effective. Easy: Exit tickets are very short, so students
My Method for Teaching RI.2.1 & RI.3.1 – Nonfiction Ask & Answer Questions Skills Asking and answering questions in nonfiction is a core skill for 2nd grade and 3rd grade reading comprehension. Because these skills help students learn how to understand what they are reading, teaching these skills comprehensively is an important foundation for creating strong readers. I am sharing this teaching method because it was very successful in my
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