Literacy Blogs

Two Teacher Asked Questions: I have a question that was posed to me be an elementary principal. Her question was, "How many times does a student need to write a high frequency word before they feel secure with it?"  I must admit, I have never been asked this question before, and I cannot find research that addresses this specific question.   The teachers in my school have kids copying missed spelling words 15 times. Is this a good idea? Shanahan response: Everyone knows that, in order to accomplish great proficiency, musicians and athletes must engage in a great deal of repetitive practice. It would ...

Teacher question:“My students talk about the stories through collaborative conversations and class discussions, but I hardly allow time for students to write written responses.  How often should I have students write a written response and should students be taking notes on the story?"              Shanahan response: Writing about text or talking about text… I used to consider that to be an impossible choice (like deciding whether to ask Heidi Klum or Giselle Bündchen out on a date). Then I read the research on it. Conversation and discussion about what students read is certainly valuable, and, yet, if your goal is to raise reading achievement, ...

            I know I’m supposed to write that tests and testing are bad things. I’m in education, and we all hate testing, right?              Lately, there has been much to hate about it, of course. More and more school hours are devoted to testing and test preparation. Weighing the pig more frequently doesn’t make it any fatter.             But what about SATs and ACTs, the college admissions exams? This is the time of the year when there are lots of news articles about them. Especially this year with the new SAT upon us.             Unlike so many of my colleagues, generally I’m a fan of these exams. Research has consistently ...

Teacher question: I am a Reading Coach at a Title I middle school serving a student population of 95% African American. Less than 40% of our students read at/or above grade level.  My goal is to increase the amount of individual time that our students spend reading novels.  My suggestion has been to add more classroom novels that are about African Americans, and African American culture. I feel that if we adopt a culturally responsive approach to literature, then our students may become more motivated to read. I am convinced that if minority students continue to read and learn outside of ...

Bonjour, cher lecteurs.  Oops…. Hello, dear readers.  Awhile back I set out to teach myself to read French, with neither teacher nor class. My goal was to be able to read the news from a different culture (or maybe I was trying to make up for being Mrs. Benstein’s worst French I student in high school).  I started with old textbooks from a programmed reader series, and then with the help of dictionary and Google Translate, I set out on a journey through flash cards, children’s books, grown up magazines, and heavily abridged French books.    I managed to learn French well enough that I’m ...

Blast from Past: This blog entry first posted on January 4, 2016; and it was re-posted April 19, 2018. Recently, I got a lot of criticism on Twitter for arguing that school time should be used for teaching--rather than engaging kids in independent reading. Last week, I watched Doug Fisher argue for having kids reading on their own at home--rather than school (the kids whose teachers focus on independent reading instead of teaching reduce the school year by 14 days of teaching!). Despite the complaints of the critics, I'm a big supporter of having kids read at school--within instruction. This ...