I’m your host, Elizabeth Morphis and for today’s episode, I’m sharing a mixed bag of topics, stories, and examples you can use in teaching literacy. 

Running Records 

Running records are informative assessments that tell the teachers what the kids are doing so they can make informed decisions about what to teach their students. They provide teachers with what they need to know to make wise teaching decisions. 

Here, the students read the text out loud, and the teacher marks what the student is doing as they’re reading. Do they need to work on their vocabulary? Their phonics? Are they struggling with comprehension?  

These assessments usually last 5-10 minutes, but what would you do if they lasted 15-20 minutes instead? What if the student doesn’t say much or seems unwilling to participate? This is the exact situation I witnessed recently, and I share how the teacher handled it fantastically. 

Long-Term Planning 

I get it. Planning your lessons for a long period of time is a guarantee that things won’t go according to plan.. Field trips happen. Students get sick. Classes get canceled. So long-term planning can seem futile. But long-term planning helps you create lessons that are related to each other and actually helps your students develop the literacy skills they need.  

Rather than thinking of your lessons and activities in isolation, you can design them to progress and build on one another. And when the time comes that things aren’t going according to plan, it will be easier for you to adjust because you have a long-term goal to guide you. 

Writing Activities 

I also share several writing activities such as writing centers, and opinion writing, that you can use and apply in your classroom to increase engagement. These ideas are fun for the kids, but challenging enough that it would keep their attention, and they’ll still learn the skills they need. 

I hope you find this episode useful, and that you’ll find more than a few things you can apply in your own classroom. 

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