The Classroom Commute

But the reality is - most of our life is spent reading nonfiction text.  Whether it’s a dinner recipe or a manual to try to fix the TV remote control settings that your toddler screwed up (again!) — nonfiction reading skills are not just needed for the classroom, but REAL life!

We should be spending an equal amount of time on nonfiction reading skills & strategies as we do fiction.  

Because we read nonfiction texts differently than we do fiction, it’s a mistake to assume that what we teach about fictional stories will naturally translate into nonfiction.  These critical reading skills must be explicitly taught, modeled and practiced.

If you’re looking for simple, yet fun ways to teach your students to effectively read nonfiction, then check out these 5 must-try ideas that come straight from my elementary classroom to yours!

For complete show notes visit: classroomnook.com/podcast/67
-------------------------------

Podcast Episodes for the Reading Comprehension Strategies:

• EPISODE 41: Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies
• EPISODE 42: Reading Comprehension Instruction: How to Teach Making Connections
• EPISODE 47: Reading Comprehension Strategies: How to Teach Visualizing
• EPISODE 51: Reading Comprehension Strategies: How to Teach Making Predictions
• EPISODE 59: A Step-By-Step Guide to Teaching Determining Importance in the Upper Elementary Classroom
• EPISODE 64: Helping Your Students Make Inferences When They Read

POST: 3 Easy Steps For Teaching Students to Use Nonfiction Text Features

RESOURCE: Nonfiction Reading Guide Template 

Recycle! by Gail Gibbons 

Grab my FREE Text Features LINKtivity.

Years ago the textbook was all we had.  Textbooks…and workbooks that went along with the textbook. Ew.

But, we’ve come a loooong way since those days and it’s time to implement some 21st century teaching practices.

So, what does that mean?

It means we ditch the textbook.  Now, don’t get me wrong, we can still use textbooks as a tool for teaching.  It may guide us in the content that we need to teach, and may serve a purpose (a very small purpose) in the elementary classroom - but think of it as the starting point to get you where you want to go.  

And where we want to go is a classroom full of engaged, motivated kiddos who are interacting with you and one another.  And let’s be honest, textbooks don’t exactly evoke engaging conversation.

So allow me to give you 4 alternatives to teaching from the textbook.  In this week’s podcast I’ve got the solutions to your textbook woes (as well as some resources to make implementing these strategies a whole lot easier!)

For complete show notes visit:  classroomnook.com/podcast/66

-------------------------- 
LINKS & RESOURCES Mentioned in the Episode:

POST: Five Reasons Why You Should Use Reader’s Theater in the Upper Elementary Classroom

RESOURCES:  Discovery Learning Folders

• Native American Regions in North America 
• Daily Life for Colonists
• Political Decisions Made During the Civil War
• Biomes 
• Early European Explorers
• Major Battles of the American Revolution

POST: Engaging Your Students With LINKtivity Interactive Learning Guides (Plus grab a FREE LINKtivity!)

RESOURCES:  LINKtivity® Interactive Learning Guides Collection

Do you know what students love to do?

Talk.

Give them a hot second to chat, and pretty quickly your classroom will be filled with conversations about video games, and sports, and whatever the latest kid-trend is.

Unless you’ve asked them to talk about what books they are reading.  Theeeen you often hear crickets.

Kids simply don’t know how to talk about the books they are reading.  They often don’t know how to discuss the characters and plot and interesting facts.

Enter in: Literature Circles (or book clubs as they are often referred to)

Literature circles harness our students’ love of talking, and turn it in to a book-talking, thought-provoking, student-led conversation that is meaningful, AND builds stronger reader and thinkers.  

That is, if they are done correctly and with intention.

That’s where this week’s episode comes into play.  We’re breaking it all down with how to structure your book clubs, the roles your students will play, and how to make book-talking magic in your elementary classroom.

See complete show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/65

--------------
LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

EPISODE 57: Accountable Talk: A Teacher's Guide to Encouraging Deeper & More Meaningful Talk Among Students (Includes FREE Posters!)

POST: Giving Students More Choice in the Classroom

RESOURCE: Getting Started in Literature Circles (A complete teacher’s guide with teacher & student resources!)

Grab my FREE Literature Circle “Think Sheet” inside the Members Resource Library under “Reading Resources.”

How can teachers help their students to become stronger readers?

Simple.  Give them the tools (aka reading comprehension strategies) to help them make sense of what they read.

Ok, maybe not so simple.

Teaching students these strategies does take practice, intentional instruction, and loooots of modeling.  But that doesn’t mean we have to make it complicated in the way that we teach these reading strategies.

When it comes to teaching comprehension strategies, like inferring, we can provide our students with simple, concrete examples before turning them loose to try it on for size.

In this episode, we’ll break down reading comprehension instruction, specifically, how to teach students to make inferences while reading.  I’ll take a straightforward, step-by-step approach to make sure you know how to explain inferring to your students (and how to explain what it is not.)  I’ll show you how to seamlessly go from modeling concrete and tangible examples before transitioning into using this comprehension strategy in different texts.

It’s an episode that you’re going to want to tuck away in your teacher toolbox.

--------------------------------
LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

EPISODE 41: Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies

EPISODE 42: Reading Comprehension Instruction: How to Teach Making Connections

EPISODE 47: Reading Comprehension Strategies: How to Teach Visualizing

EPISODE 51: Reading Comprehension Strategies: How to Teach Making Predictions

EPISODE 59: A Step-By-Step Guide to Teaching Determining Importance in the Upper Elementary Classroom

Making Inferences LINKtivity

Here are some of my favorite books to use when modeling inferring (affiliate links):

• The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg
• The Memory String by Eve Bunting
• This  Is Not My Hat by Job Klassen
• The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson

Grab my FREE Inferring Bookmark inside the Members Resource Library under “Reading Resources.”

Writing conferences used to be a nightmare in my classroom.

They usually involved me and my trusty red pen going through a students’ writing, marking it up— adding suggestion, highlighting misspelled words or missing punctuation.  And, after about 5 minutes or so, I'd had the paper back to students and move on to the next student.

There was no talk of writing strategies, no mention of writing goals, no modeling methods to improve student writing.

Nope - just a bunch of red lines (and likely frustrated, disengaged students).

 Yikes, I cringe at those early days when I thought that writing conferences were all about me.

The thing about teaching (and really anything in life) is that you don’t do better until you know better. 

Now, I know better.  

The things that I know now are the things that shaped my entire approach to conducting a writing conference with students.  And you know what?  Meeting with my students to talk about their writing became SOOO much easier when I simplified my plan of action. 

If you’ve been getting a little too much mileage out of your red pen these days, too, then this episode has landed in your ear buds at just the right time.

LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

EPISODE 27: Developing a Strong Classroom Management System

EPISODE 30: How to Launch Writer's Workshop in the Upper Elementary Classroom

EPISODE 62: Why You Need a "Share Chair" In Your Reading and Writing Workshop

POST: Back to School Series: Launching Writer's Workshop

RESOURCES: 

• Student Writer’s Notebook (Printable & Digital)
• Getting Started With Writers Workshop Unit

There might be something missing from your readers and writers workshop.

A Chair.

Oh - not just any chair.  A ‘Share Chair.’  

If you’re not using a share chair in your classroom, you’re missing out - BIG TIME.

There is so much power in this chair.

It has the power to build a positive classroom community.  It has the power to help students develop the art of accountable talk, promote student engagement — and I haven’t even mentioned the fact that it will help create stronger readers and writers (well, now I have…)

No longer does the feedback come from just you, the teacher.  Instead this approach empowers students to be the experts, to own their abilities and tap into their knowledge and skills.  A share chair is your secret weapon to getting your students to BEG to share their thinking as it related to reading and writing.  

This episode is a must-listen for any elementary teacher who wants to build student thought-leaders in your readers and writers workshops.

See the complete show notes here:  classroomnook.com/podcast/62
------------------

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE

EPISODE 29: How to Launch Reader's Workshop in Your Classroom

EPISODE 30: How to Launch Writer's Workshop in the Upper Elementary Classroom

EPISODE 57: Accountable Talk: A Teacher's Guide to Encouraging Deeper & More Meaningful Talk Among Students 

How you end a lesson is just as important as what you do during the lesson itself.

If you’ve ever spent hours prepping and planning for a lesson in your classroom (and I know you have),  then after all that hard work you’re likely ready to just be done.  Close the teacher planner and move on to the next task.

How we end a lesson however, whether it be a mini-lesson, a whole-class activity, or even in small guided reading groups, shouldn’t be an after-thought.

But - it often is.

Teachers often think that 5 minutes at the end of a lesson couldn’t really hold that much weight.  You’ve already taught the important content during the actual lesson — just instruct your kiddos to close their books, put away their papers and get ready for lunch, right? What more is there to do?

PLENTY.

In fact, the final few minutes of your lesson could make a BIG impact on your students’ over-all understanding of what you just spent the last 30 minutes teaching them.

When you spend so much time planning for an epic lesson in your classroom - give it an epic ending!  And don’t worry, I’m not giving you just one more thing to do.  I’ve already compiled 10 plug-and-play lesson-enders that you can do right away in your classroom!

See the complete show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/61

----------------

EPISODE 44: Engaging Ways to Start a Lesson

POST: How to Quickly Check Your Students' Understanding

RESOURCE: Show What You Know Cards 

SONG: Do The Hustle 

Grab my FREE Show What You Know Assessment Cards  inside the Members Resource Library under “Student Assessment Resources.”

Students can't learn in crisis mode.

Before we can teach young minds, we must first teach students to tap into their feelings and emotions.  Social-emotional health is the foundation for all learning so it is impetrative that we address these needs in our students before we ask them to master academics.   

People today are more stressed and worried than ever before due to the pandemic and the impact that it has had on our schools is huge.  And if YOU’RE feeling that way, your students are, too.  

The difference between the two, however, is that your students likely don't have the coping skills to deal with feelings of worry and overwhelm.

But the problem is, many teachers aren't trained in teaching students coping skills.  Teaching strategies of calm wasn’t part of our undergrad work.  That’s why I wanted to bring a special guest onto the podcast who is trained and skilled in teaching young minds and hearts to breathe in the calm and breathe out the worry.

In this episode I'm interviewing Victoria from The Mindful Apple.  She's a school social worker working with elementary students and has some solid tips and strategies for classroom teachers to help their students grow their calm.

Victoria knows how to take a worried mind and plant seeds of calm there instead.

She's even got a simple strategy for teachers to help them take control of their own emotional command center — and she’s sharing it all with us inside the episode.

For complete show notes, visit:  classroomnook.com/podcast/60
--------------------------

LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

Connect with Victoria at The Mindful Apple: 

• Check out her Teacher and Student Resources
• Take a peek at her Website
• Follow her on Instagram

FREE Feelings Journal for Students: Grab a week’s worth of writing prompts to use with your students

More resources from The Mindful Apple to help support your students social emotional growth:

• Planting Seeds of Calm 
• Feelings:  Navigating Emotional Responses
• Student Feelings Journal

Students tend to think that everything they read is important.

But - the problem with trying to remember EVERYTHING you read is that you actually end up remembering very little. Our brains can only retain so much information before it goes into overdrive, so its critical to help little brains, aka our students, develop strategies to strain out the nonessential information from the books that they read.

How do we do this?  It should come as no surprise when I say that we need to explicitly teach them how. We need to show students how to separate out the important, must-remember information from the interesting, but not essential details in a text.

Teaching students to determine importance will help set the foundation for students to be able to master other critical reading comprehension strategies like inferring and synthesizing that they will need to pull out from their reading toolbox as well.  

In order to infer, students need to be able to pick up on the important details that serve as clues in making inferences.  They need to determine importance first.

Synthesizing requires students to collect all the important details from and textual “bread crumbs” left throughout a book in order to come to a much deeper and complete understanding of the story.  It starts with determining importance.

For complete show notes, visit:  classroomnook.com/podcast/59

---------------------------
LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
EPISODE 54: 6 GREAT Reading Activities to Use With Nearly ANY Novel!
Reading Comprehension Strategies: 

• EPISODE 41: Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies
• EPISODE 42: Reading Comprehension Instruction: How to Teach Making Connections
• EPISODE 47: Reading Comprehension Strategies: How to Teach Visualizing
• EPISODE 51: Reading Comprehension Strategies: How to Teach Making Predictions

Favorite Books to use for modeling Determining Importance (affiliate links):

• The Important Book by:  Margaret Wise Brown (this is a great book to introduce the reading strategy)
• Love Will See You Through by Angela Farris Watkins
• The Stray Dog by Marc Simont 
• Grandfather’s Journey by Allen Say

Grab my FREE Determining Importance Bookmark inside the Members Resource Library under “Reading Resources.”

There are a lot of moving parts in the readers and writers workshop model.

It takes a lot of coordination, planning, and modeling for reading and writing magic to happen.

Reading and writing centers seem chaotic and mismanaged, you’re constantly being interrupted during your small groups, and students still don’t seem to know what they should be doing during independent work time.

Is it really just too hard?  Should you just go back to traditional whole-class teaching?

Maybe. OR - you could make a few small tweaks and get back on track.

Chances are, with a few changes to your readers and writers workshop, you could have your workshops running like clockwork - and in return, help your students become strong readers and writers.

Sound like a dream?  It’s not!  In this week’s podcast episode I’ll share with your 7 common mistakes teachers are making during their literacy block AND how to fix them!

For complete show notes, visit:  classroomnook.com/podcast/58

-----------------
LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

EPISODE 25: It’s time to Fine-Tune Your Instruction with New Teaching Strategies and Best Practices

EPISODE 29: How to Launch Reader's Workshop in Your Classroom

EPISODE 30: How to Launch Writer's Workshop in the Upper Elementary Classroom

EPISODE 49: Pressing the "Restart" Button On the School Year

Reading Comprehension Strategies:

• EPISODE 41: Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies
• EPISODE 42: Reading Comprehension Instruction: How to Teach Making Connections
• EPISODE 47: Reading Comprehension Strategies: How to Teach Visualizing
• EPISODE 51: Reading Comprehension Strategies: How to Teach Making Predictions

POST: Setting Up Classroom Routines and Procedures

POST: Back to School Series: Launching Readers Workshop

POST: Back to School Series: Launching Writer's Workshop

RESOURCE: 

Getting Started With Reader’s Workshop (printable & digital)

Getting Started With Writer’s Workshop (printable & dgitial)

 LINKtivities Interactive Learning Guides

Grab my FREE Routines and Procedures Checklist inside the Members Resource Library under “Classroom Management Resources.”