Rita Moltzan is a teaching librarian at the Raffles American School, Johor. Read Write Speak it Meets SWI! My 4th grade ELL class and I have been using and enjoying the “Read Write Speak It” resources for this whole school year. In August, we started our school year online due to Covid 19 restrictions …
When this question was posed by Larry Ferlazzo for his column in Education Week, we were happy to respond with our strategy to engage students by encouraging them to see every piece of writing as an evolving document. (see below). He received four strong responses and we urge you to read the full context of …
How do you get students to want to revise their writing? Read More »
“You can’t improvise digital teaching.” Dawn Neely Randall, Grade 5 teacher, Elyria, OH. Our teachers are stretched beyond human limits. Attached please find (shared with permission) a Facebook post by our longtime friend, 30+ year teaching veteran, and spokesperson for kids and teachers in OH, Dawn Neely Randall. We stand with teachers and want you to …
Pre-planning a Social Emotional Lesson in a Digital Environment Read More »
When to teach vocabulary: Recently Sara and I were presenting at the Sunshine State Teachers of English as a Second Language conference – virtually of course – although a dose of sunshine would have been a great respite from the windy and chilly weather we’re experiencing here in Northeast Ohio. After we introduced our resource …
We sat down with fellow Ohioan, researcher/author Dr. Timothy Rasinski and his brilliant partner teacher Melissa Cheesman-Smith to talk about the importance of repeated reading aloud for students working to increase their reading and speaking fluency. We posed a series of questions to these experts and made 4 short videos of Tim and Melissa’s responses …
What about the standards? Okay – Sara and I know the reality of the teaching world and the love hate relationship with standards. Everyone can agree that standards are a good foundation to ground a curriculum. I mean every kid should know how to add and subtract, how to craft a grammatically correct sentence and …
We are absolutely gleeful when teachers take our ideas and make them better. Kari Boazman is an educator we have worked with in such faraway places as Harare, Zimbabwe and Budapest, Hungary. She just started at a new post in NYC at Nord Anglia International School New York (NAISNY) and used our ice breaker exercise, …
I Am to Be! Students Speak from Nord Anglia International School New York Read More »
“For language learners to be successful in schools, we have to do more than just scaffold instruction, reinforce students’ awareness of academic language and acknowledge and support their home language development. We also need to create instructional contexts where students’ identities are affirmed, and they develop the sense that they are capable of strong academic …
Know this: Perhaps more than any other time in education, kids are hungry for connections. They are missing time with friends and all the experiences that come from personal contact. We want to welcome them into a community where they can smile, interact, and offer ideas – and be confident that someone is listening. Ice …
Building Community in a Virtual Environment with RWS Read More »
Our favorite platform for online journaling is Google Slides. It is so easy to pull in images, the text boxes are not intimidating and infinitely customize-able, and of course they are just right for saving for personal use or sharing with others. We use a basic design with a title line, date and the student’s …
Proven Steps to Reading, Writing, and Oral Proficiency for all students.
