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Home  »  Education Articles  » ELA

  • Teaching the Alphabet

4 Engaging Strategies to Teach the Alphabet

March 19, 2019|

Identifying and writing the letters of the alphabet is a foundational step in every learner’s literacy knowledge. There are countless ways to practice these skills and it can be challenging to know which ones are most effective and engaging. We’ve explored hundreds of strategies and decided on our top 4 favorite ones. These engaging activities will give your young learners plenty of opportunities to grow their alphabet knowledge and practice identifying, writing, and using letters in a variety of ways.

Keep in mind as you read, we have also provided a number of great free resources below to help you teach your students the alphabet.  We will discuss each resource in this article, so please take a look at these tools as you read!  So, here we go!

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  • CER-in-Science-min

Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER)

January 29, 2019|

Have you ever had students respond, “I don’t know. It just did,” when asked to analyze and interpret their classroom lab results? We all want our students to “think like a scientist,” but often they fall short in connecting the dots between the lab results and the science concepts. Claim-Evidence-Reasoning or CER is a writing strategy that can develop a student’s analytical thinking and argumentative writing skills to turn that “I don’t know” into “aha, so that’s why we got those results in the lab.”

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  • The One-Pager: A Literary Response Activity For Grades 3 - 8

The One-Pager: A Literary Response Activity For Grades 3 – 8

January 29, 2019|

The dreaded book report. Students don’t enjoy writing them, and if we are honest with ourselves, we as teachers don’t enjoy reading them. Yet we still need an effective way to assess our student’s knowledge and depth of understanding when they have completed a novel study. This article will provide you with one simple activity you can use with your students that can be customized based on specific skills you need to assess.

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  • Expository Writing Essays

The Importance of Planning for an Expository Writing Essay

December 20, 2018|

Are your students facing an upcoming writing assessment, with a focus on expository writing? Do they struggle with how to begin this style of writing? This article will break down how to teach the skills of analyzing a writing prompt and creating a solid plan that will give your students the confidence to write a well-organized expository essay.

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  • Improving Writing Fluency in Reluctant Writers

Improving Writing Fluency in Reluctant Writers

December 19, 2018|

In a typical classroom of elementary or middle school students, writers can most likely be grouped into three categories. First (and usually the fewest in number) are those students that have a natural affinity for writing. They never have a shortage of ideas and will write for as long as you allow, often wanting more time! Then there are the students who may not love to write, but they can usually do what is required of them without much prompting. Finally, there are the reluctant writers. You know the ones…they complain they can’t decide what to write about, they use every stalling tactic ever tried, and they may even be outright defiant, simply refusing to work. This article will teach you three basic, but key, strategies that you can easily implement into any grade level classroom, which will encourage writing. The strategies include building stamina, writing across the disciplines, and writing for authentic purposes.

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  • The Value of Rubrics for Assessment

The Value of Rubrics for Assessment

December 17, 2018|

In what year did World War II begin? What type of energy is generated from the sun? How many cookies are in 15 boxes if there are 6 cookies in each box? These types of questions are easy to assess. The student response is either right, or it’s wrong. You can simply assign a point value to each question and easily determine a grade. But what about when your students are sharing an oral presentation and slideshow about an endangered animal they spent an entire week researching? Or if they are writing a personal narrative about a special moment in their life? How about if they are conducting a scientific investigation on the states of matter and submitting a detailed lab report? How do you assess these types of assignments fairly where there is so much room for variation in quality? In these cases, a rubric is exactly what you need.

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  • Pre-Reading-Strategies

Pre-Reading Strategies: Setting the Stage for Successful Reading

December 13, 2018|

What is done before a student begins to read a new text is critical to their reading and comprehension success. This article will describe important pre-reading strategies you can use in your classroom to ensure the success of your readers. In reading this article, you will learn how you can you ensure that your students get the most out of their independent reading time. Set the stage for success with practical pre-reading strategies you and your students can implement right away!

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  • Explicit-Instruction

Choosing a Skill for Explicit Instruction in Reading

October 30, 2018|

As a classroom teacher, it can be overwhelming to see all of the curriculum standards we are responsible for teaching. Reading instruction in particular ranges from the basics of decoding words to improving oral fluency to deeper comprehension. From time to time, it is critical that we take time to step back, look at the big picture based on data and observations, and refocus our instruction on the skills that are most needed. There are often small groups of students who might not understand a concept when it is taught via whole group instruction, and those students would most likely benefit from explicit instruction that is focused on one particular skill.

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  • Using text evidence

Using Text Evidence to Respond to Questions

September 17, 2018|

I regularly tell my students, “Reading tests are completely manageable. The evidence is right in front of you, you just have to take the time to find it.” So often, students rush through a multiple choice test, not giving much thought to each individual answer and just choosing one that sounds accurate. Or they may have to draft a written response to a short answer question, and instead of pulling specific details from the text, they write a too brief, generic response in very vague terms. If you find this is the case with some of your students, you can teach them specific strategies to use when they are tackling any reading assessment.

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  • Independent Reading

How to Support Effective and Engaging Structured Independent Reading Time in Your Classroom

September 11, 2018|

Independent reading is a student’s reading of a text on his or her own. It can occur anywhere- as part of an activity in a school classroom or at home and includes books that are appropriate for the student’s reading level. Independent reading has shown to be an effective complement to other reading programs in school, not only in helping students practice and develop reading skills but in fostering a greater love for reading that may carry through at home. This article discusses how to foster reading skills and strategies through independent reading.

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