What Reading Means Oftentimes at the secondary level, reading is getting meaning from text. Language arts teacher training programs almost exclusively focus on reading comprehension, with maybe a little fluency and vocabulary thrown into the mix. While this may seem to fit the majority of secondary readers, it doesn’t include all of them. It privileges…
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Assessing Text Complexity the Easy Way
Assessing Text Complexity Image: person sleeping in hammock and holding a book. Text: Assessing Text Complexity Teaching is a demanding profession–intellectually, physically, emotionally. Everything clamors to be the top priority. Assessing text complexity is something that happens for most teachers in an instant, and usually only the first time they decide to use a text.…
The Best Small-Group Games for Discussion
Best Small-Group Games Girl laying with book on her face. Text: When the teachers says, “Discuss,” and everyone goes in a circle and says what they wrote on their paper. The best small-group games can help with this phenomenon. I don’t blame students for having these circular “discussions.” They avoid the give-and-take of actual discussion,…
Helping Students Become 3-D Readers
My students set reading goals every six weeks, and over the course of the year, I want them to become readers who read along the x-, y-, and z-axes. If those math terms send chills up your spine, think of it as horizontal, vertical, and diagonal reading. All three dimensions are important to becoming a well…
Classroom Library Tips (with Penny Kittle)
I had the pleasure of speaking with Penny Kittle, who teaches freshman composition at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. She was a teacher and literacy coach in public schools for 34 years, 21 of those spent at Kennett High School in North Conway. She is the co-author of 180 Days with Kelly Gallagher, and is the…
How Freed Reading Turned My Underperforming Freshpersons Into Honors-Ready Juniors
During the 2017-18 school year, I got serious about data collection for freed reading. I’d heard enough doubts that what I was doing was making a difference that I wanted some numbers to go alongside the anecdotes and student quotes that I shared. Last year, I taught two classes, one for freshpersons that scored below…
