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This blog addresses professional practices and critical learning issues of our day. Members of PLCs can select a blog post for text-based discussions to deepen professional practice.

Strategies for helping students read and annotate text.

"Glogster is a Web 2.0 tool that allows users to create virtual posters combining text, audio, video, images, and hyperlinks and to share them with others electronically. Using Glogster's educational site, Glogster EDU, teachers can establish class lists and monitor student activity while protecting privacy and anonymity."

"At the end of class, students write on note cards or slips of paper an important idea they learned, a question they have, a prediction about what will come next, or a thought about the lesson for the day. Alternatively, students could turn-in such a response at the start of the next day-either based on the learning from the day before or the previous night's homework. These quick writes can be used to assess students' knowledge or to make decisions about next teaching steps or points that need clarifying. This reflection helps students to focus as they enter the classroom or solidifies learning before they leave."

Dimension: Depth of Knowledge Rating: 3 - strategic reasoning SMART goal: Students will be able to solve an on grade level math task, that will require them to respond and defend their work to explain their reasoning 3 out of 5 times by the end of the 1st marking period. I believe that my team would be able to use this instructional tactic because we could use the exit card to see if students meet the SMART goal. I think that exit cards are a powerful tool for teachers to use because it shows instant data of student performance. It is a quick and informal way to see if students understand the concept or not. This video provides a unique way to students to use/take an exit card in the classroom. We could take ideas from this video and apply to it our own classroom.

I like the fact that students assess themselves (based on the learning target). They also give feedback to one another. In this model teachers can adjust instruction based on how students feel they reached learning targets. I am wondering, though, whether or not young students have enough self-realization to understand how they performed during a given lesson. If we're asking them to rate themselves, we have to hope that they understand how important this is, and what it really means. How does this video address dimensions in the 'Planning Protocol Rubric?' Since most of the dimensions were addressed (in other comments here), I'll comment on this video's ways of addressing 'Technology Integration.' No technology integration seen (though it's certainly possible that it may have occurred during the lesson and before this video was taken). Technology Integration level (based on the available video): 1. My SMART Learning Goal: "After three weeks of targeted instruction--and in concert with the content-area teacher--75% or more of our students will score at least one point higher on their ESOL RELA and ESOL math assessments. (The ESOL RELA [WIDA Access] pre-test was given approximately one month ago, while the baseline math pre-test was developed by our school's math department [and contains test stems from past PARCC exams].)" The 'exit ticket' approach can be used in any classroom, but with ESOL learners it might be more difficult to ascertain whether or not they have understood the question/s on the exit ticket sheet. And again, do they have the skills, understanding and self-realization necessary to rate themselves on how they do in a given classroom on a daily basis?

This is a power point the importance of improving comprehension of informational text. Including strategies and examples from the author.

This article gives proactive teaching strategies to use for all ELL learners regardless of their proficiency level. It even provides a checklist that ELL students can use independently.

"Reading Comprehension Strategies for English Language Learners," by Colorin Colorado. Type of post: Strategies (in a sort of blog)…. This is a very good read for ESOL/ELL instructors. For one thing, it discusses some of the reading comprehension skills that can be taught and applied on a daily basis. Among them: * Summarizing * Sequencing * Inferencing * Comparing and contrasting * Drawing conclusions * Self-questioning * Problem-solving * Relating background knowledge * Distinguishing between fact and opinion * Finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details Further, the article talks about why reading comprehension skills are particularly important for ELLs: "English language learners (ELLs) often have problems mastering science, math, or social studies concepts because they cannot comprehend the (language in) textbooks for these subjects. ELLs at all levels of English proficiency, and literacy, will benefit from explicit instruction of comprehension skills along with other skills." As an ESOL teacher (and support co-teacher), I can definitely relate to this notion. The article also discusses "Classroom strategies: Steps for explicitly teaching comprehension skills." Most ESOL teachers know that a lot of work on comprehension strategies; identifying important vocabulary; effective "partnering"; and other crucial steps mean the difference between having their ESOL students comprehend an important or main idea, versus having them suffer through difficult texts. (Even many so-called "native speakers" are often not good readers, and stand to gain a lot from instructional strategies outlined in this article. [If you took so-called "reading/literacy courses" to receive your teaching certification in any particular state, this will be clear to you.])

"Reading Comprehension Strategies for English Language Learners," by Colorin Colorado. Type of post: Strategies (in a sort of blog)…. This is a very good read for ESOL/ELL instructors. For one thing, it discusses some of the reading comprehension skills that can be taught and applied on a daily basis. Among them: * Summarizing * Sequencing * Inferencing * Comparing and contrasting * Drawing conclusions * Self-questioning * Problem-solving * Relating background knowledge * Distinguishing between fact and opinion * Finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details Further, the article talks about why reading comprehension skills are particularly important for ELLs: "English language learners (ELLs) often have problems mastering science, math, or social studies concepts because they cannot comprehend the (language in) textbooks for these subjects. ELLs at all levels of English proficiency, and literacy, will benefit from explicit instruction of comprehension skills along with other skills." As an ESOL teacher (and support co-teacher), I can definitely relate to this notion. The article also discusses "Classroom strategies: Steps for explicitly teaching comprehension skills." Most ESOL teachers know that a lot of work on comprehension strategies; identifying important vocabulary; effective "partnering"; and other crucial steps mean the difference between having their ESOL students comprehend an important or main idea, versus having them suffer through difficult texts. (Even many so-called "native speakers" are often not good readers, and stand to gain a lot from instructional strategies outlined in this article. [If you took so-called "reading/literacy courses" to receive your teaching certification in any particular state, this will be clear to you.]) Colorado, C. Reading Comprehension Strategies for English ... - LD OnLine. Retrieved March 31, 2018, from http://www.ldonline.org/article/14342/ L

Main idea is a difficult skill for many readers. In order to be successful students need to be able to make inferences and determine the importance. Those are tricky prerequisite skills for students to grasp as they require higher order thinking. However, being able to successfully understand the main idea of a text leads to other skills like comparing and contrasting multiple texts. So how can a teacher effectively help their students master this skill? This blog article breaks down the skill into seven scaffolding steps, which are then broken down into three areas (keywords, stated main idea, and inferencing). Also included are videos to help teachers create quality main idea instruction, worksheets, and additional resources. #mainidea #scaffolding #resources #inferencing #keywords #higherorder

Raz Kids is an online tool that students can use to listen to stories based on their reading level. The students can read the text to themselves or have the computer read it to them. Reading on a students F&P level is important for student success and will help the student make progress throughout the school year.

(Week 7: Benjamin, Cheney, and Gretchen) The journal article is accessible by the link above through the UMUC library services. The journal article discusses the ways that a classroom teacher can use Reading Recovery strategies within the guided reading small group instruction. Reading Recovery is an one on one intervention that is short term. The intervention provides one on one tutoring for first grade students. The article explains the effective strategies that Reading Recovery teachers use that can be implemented in small group instruction. The strategies that the article focuses on are fluency through rereading familiar texts, modeling fluent expectations, providing a strong book introduction, knowing when to prompt the students, and observing and analyzing. Teachers can use this article to understand different strategies in order to improve guided reading instruction such as using running records to help guide instruction. "Likewise, careful analysis of running records (formal or informal) helps teachers to further understand how students respond to difficult text."(Lipp & Helfrich, 2016) Teachers need to use running records as a way to locate the deficits in a students reading and plan lessons that will bridge that gap. Lipp and Helfrich(2016) also states that "interrupting a student who is reading must not be a lengthy process that breaks the flow of the story." It is important to explicitly and intentionally interrupt a student while reading with quick prompts that will help the student guide themselves to self corrections. References: Lipp, J. R., & Helfrich, S. R. (2016). Key Reading Recovery Strategies to Support Classroom Guided Reading Instruction. Reading Teacher, 69(6), 639-646. doi:10.1002/trtr.1442

This article argues that we, as a society, are misguided in our approach to teaching to the test, when it comes to critical reading. The author argues that it is not simply enough to teach reading strategies to students because research has demonstrated that there is an absolute necessity to teach context and content for essential background knowledge. This seems to stand in the face of the common tagline in education that it is not What we teach, but how we teach. To tackle this issue, it is recommended that teachers take a more curriculum based approach in reading tests. That is to say, that teachers don't simply choose texts arbitrarily, but rather, in order to teach to these high-stakes tests and core standards, that teachers very mindfully construct a curriculum which builds student exposure and study of key informational texts.

This is a Wikki that thoroughly provides strategies to close the instructional and learning gap around the skill of understanding the main idea of Informational Text. The 6.2 tab was very helpful when thinking about ELL, SPED, and multiple modality instructional considerations.

This article focuses on how a multi-strategy approach can assist students in learning new social studies content vocabulary. The article provides a case study that includes three groups of students which focused on different methods of vocabulary acquisition. The article notes that a multi-strategy approach is the best for assisting students in learning new vocabulary.

One of the things I found interesting was "students first learned to ask important questions about the text to guide their thinking and then used questions to help them develop a main-idea statement for a short section of text. They then learned to combine several main idea statements into a longer summary with the aid of a graphic organizer." These strategies were taught and practiced for six weeks at a time, before a new one was introduced.

This is an online platform for educators and students with the technology to create GLOGS - online multimedia posters - with text, photos, videos, graphics, sounds, drawings, data attachments and more. This would allow students to display knowledge and skills to create multimedia projects. It allows students to use animations, web cams, audio, attachments and blogs in the creation of their projects. It also has a feature that allows students to share their work with particular individuals or social networks. A subscription to this tool is as cheap as $10 for a whole year. They have other levels for pricing as well.

Express yourself with the ultimate Glog(TM) - graphic blog. Mix Web, Images, Text, Music and Video. Create your Glogster account today and publish in a new way.

This site is so much fun to design for students and even parents. It has awesome color themes and backdrops and offers a really fun way to get across information. It's like a homepage you can create with links to other sites, videos, pictures and more. Our school has a page and the kids really enjoy using it for library resources and etc. I am going to be using this for my class page this fall. I think this site is targeted for fifth grade and up. Younger students may be able to use some of the basic features, but it would require some instruction from the teacher.

I have used Glogster to replace a paper poster in the classroom. The students really enjoyed the chance to have a different presentation of a product.

Good pedagogy prescribes that effective programs "meet students where they are." For middle-school students, this means meeting them in adolescence. Adolescents are more concerned with social norms and more susceptible to peer influence than younger children. Additionally, the fact that these youth are still struggling after years of reading instruction suggests that their motivation to persist at reading is likely to have suffered. To fully support and engage such adolescents, reading programs must leverage social processes and include explicit support for motivation and strategy use.

Front Row is a website and an iOS application designed for K-8 students. The application was originally designed to help close instructional gaps in mathematics. This adaptive learning software allows students to work at their own pace as they earn coins and move up levels in all 5 of the Common Core math domains. Later on Front Row added an ELA component that provides leveed texts and quizzes for students. All of the activities that students do through From Row generate data for parents and teachers. One of the features that Front Row also has is free and paid IBL's (Inquiry Based Lessons) for grades 1-8. I actually created a screencast on how I use IBL's in my own classroom.Check it out here -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qot1wzQTd5o

Front Row is a great software that helps teachers fill learning gaps! It is an application that students have their own accounts where they can individualize their learning. They learn at their own pace and are not pressured to stay up to speed as their peers. There is motivation involved in collecting gold coins, and there are videos for students that need extra support on a certain content if they are answering the questions incorrectly.I have used Front Row in my classrooms through blended learning and it has worked great!

This is a guide for teaching students about writing a claim and supporting it with evidence can work with any English 6-12 class. I haven't used this yet, but I would definitely try it!