Planning a Differentiated Unit of Study
Watch the video below to see how easy it is for our members to plan a differentiated unit of study for the students in their classrooms. One of the most important things you can do to increase reading achievement in your classroom is to provide each of your students with books matched to their specific needs. All of the books in our lesson plan library are leveled according to guided reading level. You can use our leveling guide to correlate guided reading levels to any of the standard leveling systems that...
read moreRunning Records: A Snapshot Assessment
Assess Oral Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension in Two Minutes or Less Using Running Records Running records are an excellent assessment tool for determining student reading levels. Running records work well because they allow teachers to observe a student’s reading behaviors in real time. Running records require students to orally read 100 words from a specific text. It is best if the text is semi – familiar to the student, meaning they have either read the text or have had the text read aloud to them. As a result or...
read moreReading Comprehension Activities
Need a Boost to Reading Comprehension Activities in Your Classroom? If your goal is to improve reading comprehension activities in your classroom, then you must engage your students in activities that will boost their ability to comprehend texts. The first step to improving comprehension in your classroom is to provide students with a variety of engaging books that are properly leveled and appeal to a wide range of student interests. When planning reading comprehension activities, consider including students when building your classroom...
read moreDiscussion: The Foundation of all Reading Comprehension Lessons
Improve Reading Comprehension Lessons through Conversation One of the best things you can do to improve reading comprehension lessons in your classroom is to encourage students to discuss the books they’re reading. It is human nature to want to discuss new information, to talk about new understandings and sort out misconceptions. That’s why one of the most important things you can do to improve the reading comprehension lessons in your classroom is to cultivate a community based on the ability to discuss text. One way to...
read moreReading Comprehension Strategies
What You Need to Know About Reading Comprehension Strategies Reading is not a passive activity. It is an activity that requires the brain to fully engage and think in order to comprehend the words on the page. When you begin to read, your brain naturally begins to use a variety of reading comprehension strategies to make meaning of the text. The reading comprehension strategies that you use have been developed through years of reading practice. You were either taught them in school or developed the strategies on your own to problem...
read moreFantastic Phonics Lesson Plans
We Make Teaching Phonics Lesson Plans as Simple as Click, Print, Teach Phonemic awareness and phonics have been identified by the National Reading Panel as essential to improving reading achievement. For many teachers, teaching phonics lesson plans comes down to teaching isolated skills. They give students a worksheet with examples of words that follow a specific phonics pattern or provide them with a collection of words to be sorted based on specific phonics rules. This type of phonics lesson plan is often tedious and is not ever...
read moreA Back to School Message for Parents
What’s In Your Child’s Back Pack? Every year your child walks into a new classroom where he will meet a new teacher and make some new friends. When he unzips his backpack he will proudly pull out his new set of markers and his all important lunchbox. He’ll quickly scan the room to make sure that he has everything he needs: Pencils? Check. Kleenex? Check. Hand Sanitizer, Eraser? Check. Check. Then he’ll take a seat at his brand new desk, take a deep breath and smile feeling confident that he has everything he needs...
read moreHow to Use Read Aloud Mini Lessons to Teach Reading Comprehension Strategies
Read Aloud Mini Lessons and Reading Comprehension A mini lesson, by definition should be mini. In other words, a mini lesson should last no longer than 5-7 minutes. The read aloud is an ideal place to use mini lessons because you can use an anchor text to introduce a reading strategy in a very short period of time. The key to an effective mini lesson is explicit, intentional instruction. It is important that you introduce the anchor text prior to the mini lesson. An anchor text is a book that you repeatedly read with your students...
read moreGet More Bang for Your Buck with Anchor Texts
How to use Anchor Texts in Your Classroom One of the biggest problems for most elementary school teachers is time. No matter what you do, there never seems to be enough time in the school day. You begin each day with carefully laid plans and the best of intentions. But inevitably, the end of the day comes, you review your lesson plans and discover that you skipped your phonics lessons for the third day in a row. Sighing, you cross out a plan for the following day and pencil in the overdue Phonics lessons. You shake your head in...
read moreThe Importance of Reading Aloud
When parents and teachers read to and with children, they establish a sense of literacy. When adults show books to children, read to them, and talk about what they read, they set the stage for their child’s literate development. That means that children will either learn to love and appreciate reading as a result of adult influence or they will learn that reading is a chore - something they have to do. We believe that all children should have the privilege of discovering, comprehending and enjoying books. When you read to...
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