Narrative writing. What is it? From the perspective of an elementary school teacher, it’s the first genre of writing you teach of the school year. And it’s always the personal narrative. Students brainstorm and write about their trips to Disneyland, the beach, or playing video games for hours on end. While students should write about …
Category: Vocabulary
What the Research Shows About Teaching English Language Learners
Jennifer Jacobson, assistant editor, of American Educator, a publication of the American Federation of Teachers shares this article on what the research says and doesn’t say about teaching English Language Learners. It’s a lengthy report with the takeawy for me that it does seem that English Language Development (ELD) is best when taught as a …
Classroom Mangement Educational Technology Macintosh Tips Open Court Reading Reading Comprehension Vocabulary
Energize Your Classroom: How Jim Cramer Made Me a Better Teacher of English Language Learners
I’ve become a better teacher of English Language Learners by watching one of my favorite TV Shows, Jim Cramer’s Mad Money. This is a show about buying stocks. If you’re not interested in stocks you might be turned off already, but Jim Cramer is an entertainer. He takes what could be boring and incomprehensible and …
Student Audio Book Reviews
This from fellow Apple Distinguished Educator, Matthew Callison, an excellent tool for engaging students in reading. Mr. Callison works with a third grade population of English Language Learners. He has students record audio reviews of books they are reading and uploads them to this blog, BookLook.org. There are just a handful of reviews so far …
See Students As Individuals Not As Diagnoses
This post is a wish for a perfect world but if you agree with me, you can do something about it fairly easily. I am really trying to make a conscious effort to adjust my own thinking and the way I talk about students. I think we need to be careful not to refer to …
Teach Units, Not Stories
I’ve been noticing that a lot of teachers get bogged down by individual stories in the Open Court units and miss the big ideas of the units. While you do need to teach the stories in the anthology and will need to scaffold vocabulary just enough to give access to English Language Learners, the individual …
How to Scaffold Open Court Vocabulary for English Language Learners
an excerpt from Open Court Resources.com Here is an example from second grade “Look Again” unit of how you can scaffold difficult vocabulary/unit concepts for English Language Learners so that all students can participate in conversations and writing about a particular unit. Background for Teachers: Four Types of Camouflage: 1. Protective Coloration: blending in for …