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Our Top Ten NARRATIVE Nonfiction Books for Teaching . . . EVERYTHING!
We are just back from the International Reading Association Conference in New Orleans and feeling energized and ready to continue our top picks for teaching EVERYTHING series. So far, we’ve shared ten...
View ArticleCelebrating Active Thinking
At this point, we believe most educators would say that they are familiar with the Common Core State Standards. There have been ample opportunities to read and unpack the standards and, as educators...
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No News is Good News
In February, Kim went on a twelve day trip to Israel. Over the course of those twelve days, she took two, ten hour plane rides and stayed in three different elevations which meant that packing was...
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Engagement: A Tale of Two Learners
Jan’s eleven year old son, Natie, plays the violin. Since school is already out in Georgia, in an effort to help Natie broaden his vision of the ways music can enrich his life, Jan signed him up for a...
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Bike Helmet Ideas
On Father’s Day morning, Kim decided to go for a bicycle ride. As a cycling enthusiast, this decision was not out of the ordinary for her. She tries to fit in a fifteen mile ride most days of the...
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A Writing Mini Lesson for Starting the School Year
Between us, we have six sons and they all LOVE Legos. In the process of organizing for back-to-school–something of a “fall-cleaning” ritual–Jan asked her six-year-old, Victor, to sort through his...
View ArticleCollaborative Writing (Part 1): A Co-Labor of Love
For the last couple of years, we have connected with Fran Haley, a K-12 ELA educator and literacy coach at a Title I school in North Carolina, via Twitter and some in-person conversations at PD we have...
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Seek and You Shall Find
As the first bell of the new school year rings, both teachers and students walk tentatively through the doorway. Breathing in the scent of newly waxed floors, they hug blank notebooks to their chests...
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Helping Students Engage with Complex Texts
In October 2012, we reviewed several texts useful in helping students engage with complex texts. These professional resources predated the Common Core, yet seemed to address many of the themes...
View ArticleHas Close Reading Gone Amok? (Part 1)
Social media response to the posts we write and share on this blog help us to keep our finger on the pulse of what really matters to educators. So, when Reading Today recently released its “What’s Hot”...
View ArticleParticipating in the National Conversation
One of our first efforts to write about the Common Core State Standards involved looking closely at the research behind the author’s suggestion that students should spend their time in...
View ArticleEvaluating and Vetting Common Core “Aligned” Close Reading Materials
As publishers continue to flood the market with “Common Core” aligned materials, the task of sifting through and weeding out the good from the bad becomes increasingly more difficult. Educators are...
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Guiding Reading with Great Books
We are constantly on the look out for beginning reading material that gives young readers substantial work with meaning. Unfortunately, too many of the beginning reading texts available offer minimal...
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Shameless Self-Promotion
Those of you who know us personally or follow us on social media know that the last few months have been filled with the emotional highs and lows that come along with writing and finishing a book....
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Challenging Instructional Dogma
When the Common Core Standards were released, “close reading” was a nebulous term that left many not only seeking to better understand what it was and how it served children, but also wondering what...
View ArticleOne Plus One Equals Three
In this article “Personal Best” from The New Yorker, Atul Gawande describes having some downtime while visiting Nantucket for a medical meeting. An avid tennis player, Gawande picked up his racket and...
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The Cold (Humid?) Truth about Words
As the cold grips most of the United States, we begin today by asking you to imagine “unbearably humid” weather. (Does this ease the bite of the winter chill?) If you were describing this to someone...
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Are We Measuring What We Think We Are Measuring?
Benchmarking, or taking running records with a series of books along a text gradient is a common practice in elementary schools. We are concerned, however, that these, as well as other measures of...
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10 Things Going to the Gym Can Teach You About Teaching
In a post we wrote some time ago titled Solving Education’s Greatest Challenges: Unconventional Collaborations , we told the story of Stephane Tarnier, the French obstetrician responsible for inventing...
View ArticleStaying the Course During Testing Season
On today’s blog, we reintroduce you to our friends and colleagues from North Carolina, Hope Reagan and Alice Oakley. Testing is a hot-bed topic in education and in this post, they share some of their...
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