It is very important to teach students about other cultures, no matter what population of students you have. Having a classroom library with diverse, multicultural books is a must for any classroom teacher.

This website has multicultural books lists and related websites for classroom teachers to use. They have lists including African America, Chinese American, Japanese American, Jewish American, Korean American, Hispanic American Native, and Native American. I am very excited that they just added a Middle Eastern list because that is the make-up of my classroom population.

By reading books based on your student's cultures, they are more likely to be engaged in reading and will be able to write connections related to their own lives.

http://www.multiculturalchildrenslit.com/

 http://teacher.scholastic.com/poetry/

Last year, my students (1st graders!) wrote beautiful cinquains. Students really seem to enjoy listening to and writing poetry.

April is National Poetry Month! Scholastic has many wonderful resources to inspire students to read and write poetry. You can find videos, lessons, prompts, and book lists. Challenge and motivate your students in April with poetry.

http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/index.html

This website has many lessons and resources for early childhood/kindergarten educators. They have resources/lessons for literacy, math, and social studies.

They have many printable books that can be sent home with students to practice. There are even word family and sight word books. Our kindergarten classes use these a lot. I have even used some of them for 1st grade.
If you teach early childhood or early elementary aged students, this website is excellent!

http://www.educationnews.org/k-12-schools/is-cooking-in-the-classroom-making-a-comeback/

Personally, I love cooking in the classroom with my students. Cooking involves reading, directions, and sequencing. It also involves math, science, and social studies. Plus, these experiences turn into awesome stories!

This article discusses schools brining cooking back into the classroom. Have you cooked with your students?

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

The last 4 years I have taught summer school for students that are below grade level in reading and writing. These students have trouble writing a basic simple sentence. Their stories usually do not contain a beginning, middle, and/or end. In my experience, it is also really difficult to get the boys interested in writing.

I decided to try incorporating comic books into the classroom. They LOVED reading them. I also found this awesome website for my students to create their own comic strips. They loved doing this! Plus, comics are very simple. But, they need a beginning, middle, and end just like any story. It was very easy for my students to picture because we used the comic strips with 3 frames. They wrote basic simple sentences, using the correct punctuation within the speech bubbles.

I would recommend trying this with students (especially boys) that are hesitant to write!

Is this book geared towards any specific level (elementary, middle, high)? Looks motivating!

This book is a wonderful! The students become very independent and teachers are able to work with guided reading groups or individual conferences. It amazing what students can be trained to do with good modeling and instruction.

Book Review:
The Leader in Me by Stephen R. Covey

Summary/Main Idea:
Stephen Covey is also the author of the world recognized book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In this book, schools integrated the 7 Habits and leadership skills into their curriculum to help improve behavior and academic skills. It is inspiring for principals and teachers that need to improve their school's culture and moral, as well as student confidence and work ethics. This approach instills a sense of pride and leadership in every student.
Through the 7 Habits, students become in control of their own decisions and goals, which changes the way they think about learning and life. When students have a "7 Habits Attitude," their motivation soars and quality of work increases. It is not just a system, it is a mind-set.

Organization:
This book begins by giving you a peek into a "Leader in Me" school called A. B. Combs. The school is well-known and respected for its high-achieving students and few discipline problems. However, the school was not always known in a positive way, but for poor test scores, bullying, and other issues. By learning about the school's past, the transformation into a "Leader in Me" school is remarkable.
Then, the book goes into detail about what parents, business leaders, and teachers really want from a school. The book continues to talk about A.B. Combs and other schools around the globe and how the attitudes of teachers, students, and parents have changed through this process.

7 Habits
If you're not familiar with the 7 Habits, they are:
1. Be proactive.
2. Begin with the end in mind.
3. Put first things first.
4. Think win-win.
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
6. Synergize.
7. Sharpen the saw.
To read about these habits in more detail, here is a link to Stephen Covey's website:
https://www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits.php


Recommendation/Personal Connection:
I would recommend this book to any teacher that is having behavioral and/or academic problems. I think it can be very inspiring for individuals teachers, but would be most effective/valuable if everyone in school (principal, teachers, support staff) is on board.
In my school, we started by having a book club. We all agreed that this would great to try in our school to boost our school moral and student attitudes. Then, we became trained in the 7 Habits. A group of us visited a "Leader in Me School" in Michigan. It was inspiring. Our school has begun introducing the habits to our students and their attitudes are already beginning to change. They are using the vocabulary daily and are taking more control of their learning. I can't wait to see what the future of our school holds!

The book:

http://www.amazon.com/Leader-Me-Schools-Inspiring-Greatness/dp/1439153175/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329105728&sr=1-1

Website:
http://www.theleaderinme.org/

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/33830/

This article caught my eye because my school has a great population of ELL students. The first paragraph compared reading to riding a bike, it is a complicated process. There are many things happening at once for this to occur. This process is even more complex for English Language Learners.

The article explains why ELL students have a harder time learning how to read. The focus is on phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. A definition for each of these categories is given as well as an explanation of why it is an important part of reading. This article not only discusses the challenges in the five categories, but gives strategies to use to help overcome these challenges. One point I found very interesting is that some ELL students have difficulties because they do not have the same sounds in their home language as English, so they are unable to make the sound. I also learned about cognates, which are words in English and other languages that have similar meaning, sounds, and spelling. Using cognates can help with comprehension.

This article reminded me of some strategies that I learned in my undergrad courses that I need to use with my ELL students, such as sound boxes to help with phonics. The strategies in this article would help teachers of ELL students as well as struggling readers. It is important to understand why these students face certain reading obstacles and what can be done to rise above them.

Professor Clinton- It also makes me realize that teaching these students the position of their mouth/tongue/etc when producing these sounds is extremely important. When speaking to a Title I Aide that spoke the same language (Arabic) as my students, I learned that it is very difficult for them to learn rhyming words because they do not have rhyming words in their language. That was a real a-ha moment for me!

I was drawn to the title of your article since I work with ELL students. I really enjoyed it and laughed when I read about the difficulties ELL students face when they read "expressions". My students last year thought I was "so silly" because I used expressions all the time like "Times flies when you're having fun!" and "Hold your horses!" One of my students ran up to me and said, "Everything you say is in my book from the library!" He then opened this great book about expressions and pointed to all the phrases that I use. This book is called, "My Teacher Likes to Say". (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-teacher-likes-to-say-denise-brennan-nelson/1006124095) I have been meaning to buy it! This is a great resource to use when teaching ELL students expressions.

Beauchat, A. K., & Blamey, L.J. (2011). Word Walk: Vocabulary Instruction for Young Readers. The Reading Teacher, 65.1, p 71-75.

For my first journal critique, I chose to read an article about vocabulary instruction. This topic interested me because most of my students are English Language Learners that lack vocabulary. My students often do not understand basic vocabulary that most students would know and often do not retain new vocabulary easily.

The article introduces and explains a strategy called Word Walk. This technique was adapted from the strategy Text Talk because it was too challenging for the younger ages. Word Walk is a strategy that helps students construct and comprehend new vocabulary during read-alouds. It explains step by step how to teach students new vocabulary through a two-day process, explaining word-by-word the exact language a teacher should use before reading, during reading, and after reading. The repeated exposure of the vocabulary makes sense especially in the early elementary setting, as well as only introducing two words at a time.

Even though this article is geared towards pre-school and Kindergarten aged students, I can see using this at any grade level with English Language Learners. Without the same background knowledge and experiences as other students, vocabulary is harder for these students to learn. This would be a great strategy to use during guided reading with my ELLs. I read aloud to my students every day and would love to try this strategy during whole group lessons. We often focus on story elements and only discuss vocabulary during the reading. However, I need to put more focus on vocabulary instruction during my read-alouds in my classroom.