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Posts by category
- Category: [Reading]
- Introduce close reading with complex text
- Teach constructed-response writing to boost test success
- Summarize stories with Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then
- Plan 3 components into every anchor chart
- Notice & note what the text says and means
- Practice note-taking with short videos
- Collect Snapple Facts—but focus on the important
- Equip students to attack prompts independently
- Teach 4 details that imply a text’s main idea
- Introduce Reading Voice and Thinking Voice
- Practice 2-step synthesizing with visuals
- Emphasize the 3 purposes of text features
- Strengthen text citations in 3 steps
- Rework the prompt to serve as an introduction
- Identify 4 reasons to take content-area notes
- Ask two types of after-reading questions
- Improve prompt responses with the Yes, MA’AM acronym
- Introduce a new comprehension skill with the right text
- Teach literature and informational text skills together
- Scaffold the K-12 argumentative reading standard
- Use the prompt to determine the genre
- Emphasize thinking when reading math story problems
- Decode a prompt in 3 steps
- Use longer basal passages after the mini-lesson
- Reveal 3 categories of character lessons
- Support summary writing with Information Pyramids
- Use previously-read texts to keep mini-lessons short
- Establish effective Turn & Talk procedures
- Use text to model the Distracting Voice
- Convert favorite Smekens resources into Google Jamboards
- Avoid direct quotes in summary writing
- Embrace the reciprocity among RACE, CER, & Yes, MA’AM
- Elaborate on basic constructed responses
- Explain the difference between main idea & topic
- Adjust annotation expectations for struggling readers
- Prepare students to synthesize when reading off a screen
- Teach explicitly—I do; You watch & listen
- Prompt readers when their inferences are off track
- Activate background knowledge when inferring
- Identify “relevant” textual details per reading standard
- Tie every comprehension lesson to the Inference Silhouette
- Clarify summary versus synthesis
- Mark new and contradictory information
- Focus on the little words in math story problems
- Explain the value of multiple sources
- Cross the Bridge of Fluency
- Balance on-paper and on-screen experiences
- Require students to listen during conversations with Talk Moves
- Broaden the meaning of
text-to-world connections - Return to annotations after reading
- Explore bell-ringer options
- Initiate a school-wide Root Rally
- Teach phonemic awareness without teaching phonics
- Target reading rate with closed captioning
- Consider alternatives to round-robin reading
- Seek magazines with short nonfiction passages
- Compare vocabulary study to dating
- Measure a text’s complexity
- Plan & ask text-dependent questions
- Introduce fluency to students
- Provide frequent opportunities to read visuals & videos
- Plan whole-class lessons using content-area text
- Annotate based on the reading purpose
- Go beyond highlighting—expect why-lighting
- Find the story within the problem
- Synthesize & cite evidence from multiple sources
- Troubleshoot evidence errors in reading responses
- Balance evidence vs. elaboration in reading responses
- Culminate a close reading with a writing task
- Identify text worthy of a close reading
- Follow explicit instruction with close-reading experiences
- Take advantage of root-word instruction
- Enhance learning with active instruction
- Increase word-study knowledge with sorts
- Alert readers to subtle misspellings in fake websites
- Define visual evidence as observable details
- Track individual ideas to analyze their influences
- Identify the skill first & the text second
- Assess vocabulary with cloze passages
- Apply connections back to the text
- Discern 3 types of syntheses
- Differentiate between themes and topics
- Integrate excerpts into comprehension instruction
- End a constructed response with an explanation
- Skim and slim portions of a novel
- Think beyond the text with Fat Questions
- Infer perspective with TV commercials
- Teach readers how to skim long texts
- Recognize cursor symbols to improve on-screen reading
- Create group products with Think, Ink, Pair, Square
- Self-monitor to mute the Distracting Voice
- Strengthen textual evidence for video-based texts while writing on a screen
- Translate technical symbols to words
- Introduce the purpose of annotation
- Identify 10-15 general academic words per grade level
- Master the 10 anchor reading standards with a Cheat Sheet
- Prove reader curiosity with the right text
- Omit examples from core vocabulary lists
- Generate narratives in response to reading
- Compare a book to its movie version
- Parallel summary writing with ESPN SportsCenter
- Starting literacy stations
- Find common ground when comparing texts
- Clarify character traits versus feelings
- Take some grades from Literacy Station products
- Build choice into digital learning
- Support summary writing with frames based on a text’s structure
- Follow 4-step predictions in science
- Introduce reader synthesis
- Communicate Must-Do versus May-Do tasks
- Simulate research-writing tasks during eLearning
- Integrate information across diverse media formats
- Support main idea with textual evidence
- Engage every student with ESRs
- Maximize on-screen reading time
- Identify the best answers
- Embed technology-enhanced items with Edulastic
- Compile assessment data with a Reading Data Tracker
- Follow 5 steps to make an inference
- Pre-teach only the most critical vocabulary
- Expect students to build their own background knowledge
- Capture ideas with emojis
- Evaluate text features for their added value
- Review terms & roots with Headbands
- Maintain vocabulary notebooks
- Organize supplies to maximize time in small groups
- Add editorial cartoons to science & social studies
- Apply transformation to complex concepts
- Add a tech twist to Marzano six
- Remain neutral when asking How do you know?
- Expose K-2 readers to annotation strategies
- Define evidence versus just a detail
- Restate the question in a constructed response
- Reflect, don’t revise, before standardized tests
- Vary text types
- Weave the What, Which, & Where into textual citations
- Find lower-level texts for upper-level readers
- Strengthen the organization of nonfiction notebooks
- Identify and evaluate an author’s ideas
- Build sound & letter knowledge within small groups
- Address word study/spelling for Transitional Readers
- Access top tools for digital annotating
- Locate high-frequency words in small-group meetings
- Improve comprehension of math word problems
- Adapt Yes, MA’AM (RACE or CER) for longer essays
- Clarify perspective vs point of view vs purpose
- Measuring the value of high-frequency words
- Ensure efficient literacy stations with Task Sheets
- Meet the multi-text expectation
- Teach parody with picture books
- Attack story problems with the 3 phases of close reading
- Keep track as students build reading stamina
- Tweak the purposes & uses of content-area notebooks
- Boost background knowledge to understand author allusions
- Use Word Spokes within word study & vocab development
- Distinguish between key terms and their synonyms
- Teach readers to discern 5 nonfiction text structures
- Narrow the focus within your core reading program
- Simplify annotation with marks, codes, & abbreviations
- Apply phonics & rhythm in a primary music class
- Maintain fluency despite difficult words
- Guide small groups through constructed-response writing
- Read & write on demand
- Summarize texts by creating Found Poems
- Differentiate small-group lessons based on reader needs
- Stop and say something
- Assess comprehension with Retelling Labels
- Provide boy-friendly texts & topics
- Temporarily suspend small groups in lieu of Book Clubs
- Build background knowledge with text sets
- Release responsibility to the students during the cycle
- Walk through the features of informational text
- Incorporate word-work games WITHOUT a lot of work
- Assess reader thinking with this simple handout
- Achieve close reading in technical text
- Organize your Classroom Library
- Minimize discussions about text-to-self connections
- Analyze historical characters & their motivations
- Use 5 strategies to teach cause & effect
- Teach main idea with titles
- Provide engaging text for partners to read in Fluency Station
- Use tech tools for classroom management
- Redefine fiction and nonfiction
- Get creative with Crafty Creamer Characters
- Choose a core reading program
- Build incidental vocabularies
- Decipher literal vs. inferential reading questions
- Communicate with QR codes in the classroom
- Gauge the length of typed responses
- Keep track of thinking and papers with a reader’s notebook
- Avoid robot readers with 3 key strategies
- Manage powerful classroom conversations with Talking Sticks
- Target students’ inferring skills in daily doses
- Teach spelling principles, not spelling words
- Demonstrate expert thoughts with Think Alouds
- Build stamina for readers and writers
- Review syllabication skills
- Incorporate The Kid Who Invented the Popsicle as a mentor text in reading
- Teach reading through your read alouds
- Facilitate a questioning spirit
- Plan text-to-text comparisons with a T-Chart
- Read movie scripts
- Use the Retelling Glove to summarize stories
- Provide math reading tips to aid all students
- Assess overall understanding with a cloze activity
- Visualize within Listening Stations
- Utilize photo files in your literacy classroom
- Infer beyond the text with Character Cubing
- Read for word meanings
- Inventory your readers’ interests
- Find figurative language in popular song lyrics
- Save reading materials for next year
- Provide oral fluency practice with joke books
- Organize a summer reading program
- Distinguish main idea from theme
- Help students identify the main idea of any text
- Write simple summaries and determine main idea
- Engage students with creative literature-response activities
- Use cutouts to depict vocab terms
- Collect research from images
- Utilize charts & tables as vocabulary strategies
- Introduce text features & conduct a Scavenger Hunt
- Generate genre-specific literary writing tasks
- Teach math extended-response writing skills
- Use high-interest scary stories
- Brainstorm details & take notes using the ABC Chart
- Stay engaged with during-reading questions
- Read punctuation to increase fluency
- Apply principles of question-answer relationship
- Make digraphs come to life
- Use visuals to support content-area vocabulary
- Review with action-packed strategies
- Practice reading for context with WordMarks
- Incorporate Answer of the Day
- Broaden character feelings beyond happy, sad, mad
- Engage more readers with highlighter tape
- Write strong 20-word summaries
- Create 3-D study guides
- Take notes visually
- Target automaticity with fonts and typestyles
- Use audio books to reinforce visualization
- Determine the important information
- Develop core vocabulary for each academic area
- Create a Character Life Map
- Manage students who read faster than the rest
- Review phonics with Year-End Awards
- Track words while reading
- Refer to vocabulary daily
- Note the author’s words that led to a visualization
- Use picture books in the content areas
- Set a purpose for reading
- Build phonics skills with Word-Maker Cups
- Improve constructed responses with Invisible Questions
- Develop reading vocabulary
- Tackle obscure proper nouns in reading
- Hear punctuation to improve reading & writing fluency
- Motivate readers to dive into the text
- Category: [Writing]
- Deliver 10 pictorial writing lessons with sentence-building benefits
- Boost writers’ sentence fluency with specific strategies
- Puff up the pre-write
- Push early writers beyond 1-2 simple sentences
- Organize persuasive writing using What & Why
- Customize a PK-2 writing rubric
- Follow 4 principles to add character dialogue to a story
- Punctuate dialogue with comic strips, candy hearts, & more
- Understand the difference between revising and editing
- Compare argumentative v. persuasive writing
- Master the 4-step mini-lesson
- Track writing skills with a yearlong 6-Traits bulletin board
- Teach letter writing based on the sender’s purpose
- Strengthen arguments with counterclaims
- Plan problems into narrative stories
- Pre-write in 2 Steps with the ABC Chart
- Overcome “listy” writing with idea development
- End writing units with a from-scratch product
- Persuade an audience with rhetorical devices
- Incorporate 3 literary devices into narratives
- Deliver information with 4 word-choice techniques
- Integrate 3 ingredients within every claim
- Focus on how writing is taught regardless of curriculum
- Make informative writing your year-end focus
- Create digital writing portfolios
- Consider a digital writer’s notebooks in the primary grades
- Teach from the “Launch” book all year long
- Utilize digital exit tickets to assess learning
- Introduce the Test Lady to students
- Adjust letter-writing skills to write effective emails
- Follow a 6-Traits introduction with genre-specific units
- Launch a digital writer’s notebook
- Incorporate evidence in a narrative response
- 6 Traits Of Writing Rubric
- Balance traditional research projects with shorter research experiences
- Vary the pace of the writing process
- Use writing prompts effectively
- Make notes during writer conferences
- Adjust the writing process for digital devices
- Reteach grammar skills in maintenance mini-lessons
- Target grammar skills within writing units
- Teach conventions in context
- Evaluate when to introduce a digital writer’s notebook
- Include idiom costumes in fall party
- Execute the 3 parts of a writer’s workshop
- Establish a “Done” List
- Develop independent first-draft spellers
- Support writers when they need help
- Communicate feedback within the writing rubric
- Tweak the Six-Traits rubric for different units
- Use a Six-Traits rubric for efficient assessment
- Clarify the role of Wikipedia
- Make peer-revision meaningful
- Encourage spelling risk-takers with a bulletin board
- Stretch spelling perfectionists
- Include publishing: The +1 of 6+1 Writing
- Adjust conventions expectations
- Teach one skill across 3+ days
- Create a writing curriculum of mini-units
- Build kid-friendly writing rubrics
- Juggle reader & writer workshops in 50 minutes
- Identify strong word choice with the purple highlighter
- Assess speeches
- Stop editing all student errors
- Generate more first drafts than final drafts
- Separate information by source & perspective
- Go beyond a model; reveal a Think Aloud
- Introduce 1-2 new skills per mini-unit
- Emphasize the “trump” traits
- Provide a listening purpose during Author’s Chair
- Adjust a T-Chart to fit various text structures
- Track main ideas and details within a Dissected Web
- Adapt the Storyboard to fit all chronological texts
- Maintain control during We-do experiences
- Align with the strongest position
- Push students beyond obvious descriptions
- Organize information collected from sources
- Hold writer-process conferences daily
- Define the purpose of every grammar skill
- Start and end persuasive pieces
- Scaffold You-do writing experiences
- Distinguish “reasons” from text-based “evidence”
- Integrate mentor text within writing instruction
- Connect modes of writing to author’s purpose
- Paraphrase author ideas
- Clarify that voice is a choice
- Convey tone & mood with sentence length
- Introduce “good” writing by defining the 6 Traits
- Piece together informative introductions
- Incorporate persuasive, informative, & narrative writing in PK-1
- See the 6 Traits within the College and Career-Ready ELA Standards
- Start with 2-word sentences
- Identify synonyms for the basic color words
- Develop paragraphs—one sentence at a time
- Require WHAT & WHY in primary opinion writing
- Advance students from opinion to persuasive to argumentative
- Download a list of picture books to introduce the 6 Traits
- Teach even the youngest writers about the 6 Traits
- Craft informative conclusions
- Convert rubric scores to grades
- Build students’ verb choice
- Upgrade the 6-Traits songs
- Teach 20 ways to develop an idea and add details to narratives
- Conduct multiple label-writing units throughout the year
- Connect ideas within paragraphs
- Develop school-wide/district-wide writing assessments
- Convey tone with word connotations
- Advance from transition words to phrases to sentences
- Add 6 types of supporting details
- Achieve consistency scoring school-wide writing prompts
- Target list-making as a writing genre
- See the traits within the writing process
- Define what makes a source “relevant”
- Motivate young writers with holiday topics
- Connect writing lessons to concrete triggers
- Conduct focused edits
- Digitize student portfolios with Seesaw
- Catch up students on missed lessons
- Make room to revise & edit
- Tap into curiosity with technology
- Practice punctuation with conversation
- Include feeling words in exclamatory sentences
- Define or describe nouns with appositives
- Play with prepositions
- Reach the digital generation with dynamic presentations
- Navigate the internet
- Increase writing fluency in primary grades
- Embrace the monster teacher inside
- Dissect rubrics for the 6 Traits of Writing
- Evaluate 4 factors in argument analysis
- Use a Cheat Sheet to recognize the 6 Traits
- Show students how to indent new paragraphs
- Create Traits Madness with basketball brackets
- Adjust writer’s voice for purpose & audience
- Build research & argumentative skills with ProCon.org
- Turn up the voice in primary writing
- Reinforce content-area learning with ABC Lists
- Put research topics to the test
- Expect students to edit a first draft
- Answer the great pronoun debate
- Check for writer understanding
- Plan a meaningful Writing Time to follow each trait introduction
- Write critiques based on 5 big questions
- Share voice with a moody pumpkin patch
- Spark writers with images
- Explain writing topics with the Bright Ideas Light Bulb
- Incorporate Kristina’s top 10 favorite mentor texts
- Rethink the possibilities when using search sites
- Integrate images for various instructional purposes
- Dabble with digital storytelling
- Celebrate National Poetry Month all year long
- Define differences between perspective & point of view
- Teach research writing in smaller mini-units
- Create multigenre research projects
- Kick off biography research unit with song lyrics
- Create a customized classroom thesaurus
- Maximize the benefits of Pinterest
- Teach primary students figurative language
- Build strong writing paragraph by paragraph
- Provide authentic writing experiences
- Use mentor texts to kick off a new unit
- Incorporate The Kid Who Invented the Popsicle as a mentor text in writing
- Hold Editing Games to boost student interest
- Motivate struggling writers to generate more sentences
- Teach compare-contrast writing
- Write in Physical Education
- Peruse these purple word paloozas
- Make every word count with micro-fiction
- Include descriptive writing in every genre
- Experiment with voice-filled lessons
- Brainstorm research topics with Desktop Graffiti
- Use texting to your advantage
- Engage students with how-to writing
- Provide efficient feedback with customized Post-its
- Set writing expectations with a parent letter
- Get students to Show, Not Tell with a Gotcha!
- Create simple flap booklets
- Remember story beginnings for writing
- Assess second graders who use pictures to start writing
- Focus on building writers, not simply illustrators
- Teach the power of word spacing
- Teach students to assess readability of their own writing
- Provide support for idea generating
- Use American Idol to inspire peer conferences
- Tie writing assignments to literature
- Crown a conventions court
- Make a summer to-do list
- Target close-up details in descriptive writing
- Let dead words R.I.P.
- Create a “spolder” writing folder
- Demonstrate the power of punctuation
- Pack in more details with Single-Sentence Contests
- Teach students how to omit cliches
- Use grammar to improve sentence fluency
- Provide kid-friendly 6-Traits reminders
- Dissect picture books for trait-based lessons
- Engage writers with highlighter tape
- Dabble with alternatives to the traditional research paper
- Write about conventions characters
- Identify expectations through anchor papers
- Develop acrostic poems for vocab practice
- Discover 6-Traits resources for the secondary teacher
- Write in cursive or print on tests
- Practice beginnings & endings for state writing tests
- Write letters from the perspective of concepts
- Strengthen student titles
- Use one of these books for word choice
- Stretch sentences with the Dice Game
- Celebrate strong word choice
- Reveal good writing before students write
- Remove pronoun “I” in research paper
- Find poems in previous writing
- Organize your mini-lessons
- Include all facets of the task
- Write endings that don’t merely summarize
- Move from personal narratives to memoir writing
- Notice great word choice—even at home
- Target detailed writing with Zoo Pals Paper Plates
- Teach parents about the 6 Traits
- Draft stronger literature responses with the 6 Traits
- Combine reading & writing in literacy notebooks
- Publish writing on the bulletin board
- Track student writing experiences
- Use anchor papers to teach 6 Traits
- Prepare for research papers
- Jumpstart a research-writing unit
- Manage writer conferences
- Teach students to read for the 6 Traits of Writing
- Give the gift of words
- Teach voice with picture books
- Let your voice be heard
- Check out 3 anchor papers with voice
- Create leprechaun adventure stories
- Focus on action verbs
- Choose high-energy words
- Stretch ideas in the primary grades
- Stretch sentences with 2 super strategies
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