The sight word card had one job. It was supposed to be simple. I held up the word. The student looked at it. We practiced it. We said it. We spelled it. We clapped for it. We probably gave it more attention than some celebrities get on a red carpet. And then, two days later, […]
phonics
Posted inElementary School, Featured, How to Fix Education, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Teaching to New Rules:Phonics for Upper Elementary
From the day children are born, the race is on here in America. Boy or girl? Weight? Length? And so it begins; how does your child measure up with “average” child their age? We watch for those important milestones. Rolls over, check! Sits up, check! Babbles, check! Crawls, check! Walks, check! The list goes on […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Literacy
In Balanced Literacy, Johnny’s Reading Means More than Decoding
Throwbacks in education are common. This time, Robert Pondiscio, a Senior Fellow and Vice President for External Affairs at the Thomas B. Fordham Institution is itching for a fight to reopen old “reading war” wounds.He has taken umbrage with the NYTimes (7/2/14) opinion piece Balanced Literacy Is One Effective Approach by Lucy Calkins: Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University and a proponent […]