For many years, comprehension strategies centered on students making connections to their texts. These may have included: Text-to-Self, Text-to-Text, and Text-to-World. However, this continued strategy seemed to only produce readers who wanted to talk about themselves. Very few times were they connecting with other texts or with world situations. Hence, a deeper understanding of the text became elusive. Having the experience of desperately pulling deeper understanding of a text from my students, I was introduced to the strategy of "close reading." Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey wrote about this concept where they outline how to incorporate this "text dependent question" approach into your literacy time. The basics are:

Looking for resources for the 2020 Chinese New Year? Check out our blog post here. Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, has been celebrated for thousands of years. It is one of the most important holidays widely celebrated in many Asian countries and territories including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Thailand. Usually falling between January 21st and February 20th, this year's start of the Chinese New Year will occur on February 16th, and is the Year of the Dog. The celebration lasts for about 15 days. Gung Hay Fat Choy is a common Chinese New Year’s greeting in Chinese Cantonese, which means “wishing you great happiness and prosperity.” On Chinese New Year, the themes of happiness, wealth, longevity, luck and good fortune are celebrated. Some of the traditional celebrations include family gatherings, visiting friends and relatives (baai nin), exchanging “lucky money” contained in red envelopes (lai see), decorating homes with paper decorations and scrolls, lion dances, and fireworks. Chinese New Year is a special holiday to celebrate with your class while teaching them others’ cultures and comparing them to American traditions. I have put together a collection of fun, hands-on and Common Core-aligned lessons and activities, classroom decorations, and craft projects for you to explore and enjoy with your class, and I want to share them with you!

I’ve been particularly drawn to picture books recently, and not just because it was just Picture Book Month. Children of all ages love listening to a story, which makes a read aloud an engaging way to introduce a new unit of study at any grade level. As a language arts teacher, I frequently use mentor texts as a springboard for discussion about a topic, or to model reading and writing strategies I want students to emulate. Continue reading to learn how I incorporate picture book read alouds in my 6th grade Reading and Language Arts class.

Synonyms and antonyms are a vital part of a student's understanding of figurative language, and of words' relationships to each other. Learning the basics of synonyms and antonyms will give students the ability to express themselves more clearly, expand their vocabulary, and add emphasis to their speech and writing.

When you teach Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, high school students aren't exactly sitting on the edge of their chairs. In fact, they can be downright bored and frustrated.

If you haven't noticed, visual learning is kind of our "thing." We scour Pinterest every day looking for unique, innovative, and quality visuals created by teachers. We believe in the power of anchor charts and how important these visuals are to students.

The school year may be winding down, but that doesn’t mean that learning comes to a halt. Motivate your students to read this summer with decorative bookmarks, customized reading journals and more!

Inspire students to share their love of literature by creating a bumper sticker with their favorite literary quote using the VariQuest Awards Maker.