The “Teaching TV: Television as a Story Teller” lesson, within Elizabeth Verrall’s comprehensive five-part unit, equips teachers with creative strategies for TV education in elementary classrooms. This lesson guides students in exploring television’s role as a narrative medium. Key learning outcomes encompass understanding how media products convey stories, recognizing elements like characters, mood, setting, and…
Watching this webinar from PaTTAN, you will learn why summarizing has been identified through research as highly effective for developing comprehension and writing. It defines a quality summary and how it differs from retelling or paraphrasing. Practical suggestions for explicitly teaching summary writing based on text and non-text sources will be shared, including scaffolds. The…
Sentence combining is an evidence-based practice that helps students improve both their writing skills and reading comprehension. In this valuable book, the author outlines the importance of the sentence and what sentence combining actually is, as well as how to teach and assess it. Also included: multiple examples at different levels that teachers from Grades…
When it comes to choosing texts for the classroom, educators have a lot of questions. Should we be looking at levels, lexiles or other readability criteria? Do we limit kids to “just-right” books? How can we scaffold instruction to help struggling readers access age- and grade-appropriate material? This book has answers! The authors cover quantitative…
This video brought to you by Stephanie Stollar will clear up any confusion about universal screening and diagnostic assessment. Not only will you understand the differences, but you will also learn how the two work together to help guide instructional decisions in reading.
This paper delves into informing how teachers can use scientifically based research to make curricular instructional decisions The article showcases how as professionals, teachers can become more effective and powerful by developing their skills to recognize scientifically based practice. Even in scenarios when the evidence is not available, educators will be informed on how to…
This book is “a comprehensive guide to what effective coaching looks like across the pre-K to 12 grade span and how to conduct powerful coaching cycles with teachers and teams”. It is research-driven, full of citations to support the coaching model (using alliance strategies, observing, modeling, providing performance feedback) and recommended practices. The section on…
This blog post by Joan Sedita of Keys to Literacy highlights the research behind creating specific product goals in writing, emphasizing that providing students with specific guidance on the task, audience, and purpose. A WAG template (Writing Assignment Guide) is provided, as well as completed samples to highlight how it can be used in instruction.
See how repeated reading, an evidence-based approach to building fluency, can be implemented in the classroom with this brief video from the Institute of Education Sciences.
Morphological awareness is a skill that helps students read and spell. Teaching English morphemes, and building students’ awareness of morphemes in oral and written language, is key to supporting vocabulary, spelling, comprehension, and writing.
Repeated reading is an instructional routine with plenty of research support. Learn more about how to use repeated reading in your classroom to build students’ fluency with this implementation guide from Dr. Stephanie Stollar.
This is a comprehensive guide for morphology instruction – it explains the layers of the English language, walks through a suggested sequence of instruction, and includes sample lesson templates complete with word sums and matrices.
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