How I built a culture of reading in my classroom « Teaching the Teacher Image by CaptPiper used under creative commons licence Of all the accomplishments I’ve made in my second term of teaching the one I am most proud of is building a reading culture in my class. This may sound weird as most people seem to assume that geeks eschew books in favour of gadgets. While I have proclaimed my love for my iphone, I also understand the power of books. There’s something magical about cracking the spine on a brand new book or the smell that comes from picking up a treasure found in the back of a second-hand bookstore. Towards the end of my course last year I felt woefully under-prepared to teach senior literacy when @Kathryntrask reviewed the Book Whisperer on her blog. The Daily 5 gave me some concrete classroom management strategies in order to build the classroom environment which supports the student-selected reading. As part of the challenge each week the students write a letter reflecting on their progress. There is a downside to all this reading. Like this:
15 Oxymorons& An oxymoron is a combination of words that contradict each other. Here are some of our favorites. 1. virtual reality 2. original copy 3. old news 4. act naturally 5. pretty ugly 6. living dead 7. jumbo shrimp 8. rolling stop 9. constant variable 10. exact estimate 11. paid volunteers 12. civil war 13. sound of silence 14. clever fool 15. only choice Helen Davies, Marjorie Dorfman, Mary Fons, Deborah Hawkins, Martin Hintz, Linnea Lundgren, David Priess, Julia Clark Robinson, Paul Seaburn, Heidi Stevens, and Steve Theunissen All Aboard!: Implementing Common Core offers school librarians an opportunity to take the lead. By Rebecca Hill, 3/30/2012 OK, so school librarians weren’t invited to the party. When members of the National Educational Association, the National Council for Teachers of English, the International Reading Association, and the American Federation of Teachers met in 2010 to draft new benchmarks for language arts and literacy for our nation’s K–12 schools—the Common Core Curriculum State Standards (www.corestandards.org)—there weren’t any media specialists at the table. Even though school librarians have been longtime champions of information literacy, reading, and critical thinking—all prime pieces of Common Core—we weren’t asked for our input. And two years later, things still aren’t looking up for many of us. As a growing number of states and large school systems, including those in New York City, Boston, Cleveland, and Philadelphia, grapple with plans to implement the ambitious new standards, school librarians still aren’t consistently invited to pull up a chair. It’s a worthy goal.
Total Cruft Abandon all hope: 39 ways to die! [Updated with new insights] Growing up, the first taste I had for interactive media was through “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, which ended each scene with a choice that the reader must make. One choice may continue the plot-line, one might take you on a tangent, and the third would lead to certain doom. Each book varied dramatically in complexity and usually boasted on the front cover the vast number of possible endings… of which, most were death or detention. I loved those books. Given that Twitter limits all content to just 140 characters, how could anyone write a meaningful narrative, much less an interactive one? Planning Obviously the story would have to be broken across multiple tweets and linked by shortened URLs. Then, I needed a way to efficiently write and edit in only 140 characters. Chapter One--SPOILERS! Enter Apple’s Numbers app. Changing Background Images So that’s what I did. In my case, I wanted seven different backgrounds. Post Mortem
Grandiloquent Dictionary This is the result of an ongoing project to collect and distribute the most obscure and rare words in the English language. It also contains a few words which do not have equivalent words in English. At present, the dictionary contains approximately 2700 words, though it is constantly growing. Following a large number of requests, pronounciations are now being (slowly) added to the listing, although it will be a long time before they are all added. After almost three years of work, the new Third Edition of the Grandiloquent Dictionary is now available as a PDF File. Including ~500 Words Not in the Online Version! In honour of ten years of the Grandiloquent Dictionary being available online, a special edition print version has been published! The Author's Webpage You are visitor since this counter was added. Donate0 Donate0 Experimental Search The authors intend to eventually add a search box for searching this dictionary, but for the present we rely on a more general google search.
fldoe Katrina G. Figgett Director of School Libraries and Information Services 325 West Gaines Street, Suite 424 Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0400 About the Office of Library Media Services and Instructional Technology The mission of the Office of Library Media Services is to support district library media supervisors and other stakeholders; ensuring that school librarians create and maintain quality library programs that foster the love of reading and the effective use of ideas and information by both students and faculty. This mission is accomplished by building programs that: provide intellectual and physical access to materials in a variety of formats provide instruction to advance competence and stimulate interest in reading, viewing and using information and ideas involve other educators in designing learning strategies that meet the needs of individual students Instructional Support and Resources Professional Groups School Library Award Program Library Science Degrees
10 Quick Classroom Games to improve Literacy Skills - Edgalaxy - Cool Stuff For Nerdy Teachers A colleague of mine recently shard these 10 great ideas to impove literacy skills in the classroom. They are simple to play and can be applied to nearly all year levesl. Enjoy. Sentence Stretching Start with a short sentence or group of words. Rebus writing Students write sentences or longer texts and substitute drawings for the nouns. It’s in the bag Place an object in a bag- make sure the students don’t see it. Touch and tell An object is passed around a group of students. Alternative Students provide an adjectival phrase or clause to describe the object Verb Draw Students randomly select from a box a picture of an animal, person or objects that move. The students can supply verbs and adverbs They can supply adjectives or adjectival groups Hot Seat Read a text ( this case narrative) and at a particular point stop and ask students to select a character and suggest, for example: What the character is doing, thinking, feeling ( focus on processes) Change the meaning- change one word Toss and write
Year 6 Picture Book Study Another year of Mathematics draws to a close → As the school year slowly begins to come to a close, I have been reflecting on our mathematics program which I have blogged before about here. Overall I think for […] #ukedtravels – Day 1 → Why are schools printing so much? Google Docs in my classroom → Last week I found myself, sitting down on the job during a writing lesson, not the usual stance I take. Perseverence and Persistence → I have had this post in a half written form for some time now ever since in fact I read this quote.
The 10 Rights Of A Reader The 90-Second History Of Education 9.93K Views 0 Likes Well here's an insanely detailed infographic to peruse. The 10 Points Of View, Explained. 1.91K Views 0 Likes I don't know why I love this. Ten Ways to Cultivate a Love of Reading in Students As a teacher, I was obsessed with cultivating a love of reading in my students. I love to read, loved it as a kid too. I'm equally compelled to ensure that my own child loves reading -- and he does. I well aware that I'm on a mission -- but I also know it's a worthy one! Here are ten suggestions for how any teacher, teaching any subject can participate in this mission, and how parents and administrators can help. Read. There's so much more we can all do -- from the superintendent to the classroom teacher, the custodian to the parent's association. Teaches, how do you cultivate a love of reading?