Teaching Unscripted

When students, or any of us, find ourselves trying to make sense of a difficult text, it's easy to feel frustrated or even hopeless. In today's podcast, we'll hear about a simple strategy for supporting students when they encounter a text that is difficult for them, rereading. In this excerpt from the second edition of When Kids Can't Read - What Teachers Can Do, teacher, author, consultant, and former NCTE President Kylene Beers walks us through how to guide students how to reread productively. This selection from the audiobook is narrated by Meredith Beers, Kylene's daughter.

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Helping students to understand what they read is one of the most central academic aims of school. No matter what subject you’re teaching, students’ reading comprehension likely plays a big role in their success in your classroom.

Back in 1992, Dr. P. David Pearson and others identified six strategies that proficient readers consistently use as they read: using schema, inferring, questioning, determining importance, visualizing, and synthesizing. Explicitly teaching these strategies can improve students’ comprehension. The question is, how can these strategies be taught in a way that students can easily connect with?

Today, we’ll hear from teacher and education consultant Tanny McGregor. In this excerpt from her book Comprehension Connections, Tanny focuses on one of the slipperiest strategies: inferring.

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The number of bilingual students in the United States is growing, and most of those students speak Spanish at home. What can teachers do to help these students feel not merely included but centered in classrooms?

Doctors Carla España and Luz Yadira Herrera have named six essential practices for centering the voices and experiences of Latinx students. During today’s commute, we'll get to hear about two of these practices—getting to know students' journeys and understanding our students' literacy traditions—in an excerpt from their book, En Comunidad. You'll hear Carla and Luz share stories from their own lives that help illuminate the importance of these practices, as well as a few questions to connect them to your own classroom.

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Commuting is always better when you have a friend along. Let us join you on your commute with curated segments from Heinemann's audiobook library.

From guidance on creating a classroom where all students feel valued, to lessons on specific reading strategies, these short, focused podcasts will give you something to ponder during your commute or try out in your classroom after listening.

Join us on the podcast during your commute. Our first episode will be available on August 14th, with new episodes releasing every Monday morning. All you need to do is subscribe to the Heinemann podcast wherever you stream your podcasts.

Take us along for the ride as you start the new school year!

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What are some words that you would use to describe your math classroom?

Today we’re joined by Jen Munson, Faith Kwon, and Mary Trinkle. If your classroom looks anything like theirs, you might say things like collective, trusting, and vulnerable. Sound surprising?

Their new book, The Collaborative Math Classroom, guides readers through implementing easy and approachable suggestions to launch a truly student-centered environment, where students learn not just mathematical ideas, but also how to do mathematics together. They pose and make sense of problems and experience themselves and one another as mathematical thinkers.

As always, a transcript of this episode is available at blog.heinemann.com

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Today we are pleased to present the final episode of Conflict and Consensus, a three-part conversation led by author and educator Pablo Wolfe. Last episode, Pablo examined why preparation is so important for teachers, students, and caregivers to effectively engage with civic learning.

Today, Pablo is joined by Hillary Usher, a Montessori educator in South Carolina. She and Pablo discuss the importance of inquiry in driving civic learning. They explore how to navigate conflicting viewpoints, how to thoughtfully engage with the community outside the classroom walls, and how following the child can lead to the most fruitful inquiries.

As always, a transcript of this episode is available at blog.heinemann.com

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Today we are pleased to present part two of Conflict and Consensus, a three-part conversation led by author and educator Pablo Wolfe. Last episode, Pablo explored the meaning of the term “civics”, and the role it plays as a guiding value in our classrooms.

Today, Pablo is joined by Rachel Hsieh, an elementary educator in her 13th year. She believes in centering student voices and learning alongside her students. She and Pablo discuss the preparation needed to set both teachers and students up for civic learning, why self-reflection is so important, and how to move form debate to deliberation.

As always, a transcript of this episode is available at blog.heinemann.com

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Today we are pleased to present Conflict and Consensus, a three-part conversation led by author and educator Pablo Wolfe. In this first episode, Pablo explores the term “civics” and offers us a working definition for these conversations. He investigates how it’s interpreted differently from various perspectives, and how teachers who believe in the civic purpose of schools are navigating these turbulent times.

In this first episode, Pablo is joined by follow educator Ylisse Yepez. Ylisse has 36 years of experience in the classroom working with her readers and writers and is passionate about trauma informed practices. In this conversation, Ylisse shares two experiences where she needed to navigate conflict in the classroom from a civics minded perspective, how it resolved, and what she took away from each experience.

As always, a transcript of this episode is available at blog.heinemann.com

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This week we are joined by Carl Anderson and Matt Glover, two long time educators and authors dedicated to student writing. Carl and Matt explore what makes a strong writing teacher, and what we can glean from the writing process. They identity several principles and aligned actions that teachers can take to improve their practice.

If you enjoyed this conversation and want to learn more about improving your practice, sign up for Carl and Matt’s upcoming PD event “Becoming a Better Writing Teacher” on July 11-12, 2023, at Heinemann.com/PD

As always, a transcript of this episode is available at blog.heinemann.com

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The benefits of being outdoors for our emotional, mental, and physical health are well known. But how can being outdoors benefit literacy?

This week we’re joined by Valerie Bang-Jensen and Amy Ludwig VanDerwater as they talk about Valerie’s new book Literacy Moves Outdoors: Learning Approaches for Any Environment. They walk through five easy ways to move literacy class outdoors, and how we already engage with literacy outside the classroom every day.  

As always, a transcript of this episode is available at blog.heinemann.com

© Heinemann Publishing 2023

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