The Literacy Dive Podcast: Reading and Writing Strategies for Upper Elementary Teachers and Parents

Let’s talk writing centers. Do you use them? If so, do you find them to be effective? Writing centers are such a powerful way to provide students with authentic and engaging writing experiences while also practicing important skills. Better yet, when set up intentionally, your writing center can run on autopilot with very little maintenance!

Today I’m answering all of your questions regarding writing centers such as, how do you set them up? How do you keep kids engaged? How do you keep it from looking like a hot mess? It’s not too late to perfect your writing center, even during the final weeks of school!

If you have a question that you’d like me to address on a future Q&A episode, send me a message on IG @missps_style!

In this episode I share:

-Tips that will make your writing center a success

-Storage ideas for writing center supplies 

-My favorite way to display resource materials

-What to do if your writing station becomes unorganized or neglected

-The importance of reflecting and making necessary changes

Resources mentioned:

-Writing Center Posters & Paper

-Monthly Writing Prompts

-Seasonal Literacy Sets

-Descriptive Writing Anchor Charts

-Writing Reference Helpers

-Writing Office

-The Literacy Dive Facebook Group

Connect with me:

-TpT Store

-Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!

-Instagram

-Blog

-Facebook Page

-YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode32

If you are enjoying The Literacy Dive Podcast, please subscribe, leave a rating, and a helpful review! It is much appreciated and thank you for listening!

For students who are acquiring the English language, writing can be an extremely difficult and intimidating task. Today we’re talking all about how to bring down the fear of failure in ELL students. Our guest, Beth Vaucher, is an expert in this topic. She is sharing so many amazing tips that will help you provide the very best writing instruction not only for your ELLs, but for your whole class. We’ll discuss using tools such as sentence starters, picture prompts, word banks, collaborative journals, and graphic organizers. As Beth says, when we teach with ELLs in mind, all of our students win!

Beth Vaucher is passionate about empowering teachers to equip the English language learners in their classrooms.  As a homeroom teacher who is ESL certified, she has been paralyzed by all the demands and lack of support, but she's also broken through the barriers to see ELLs have tremendous success in reaching English fluency and wants to help others do the same thing. She has successfully worked with all levels of ELLs both in the US and Internationally, as well as sold a curriculum created to teach newcomers in over 70 countries worldwide.

In this episode we discuss:

-3 tips for writing with ELLs

-Breaking down goals to make tasks more approachable

-Simple ways to differentiate writing activities

-How to help students who struggle to generate ideas in their writing

Resources Mentioned:

-Download your FREE intervention guide at inspiringyounglearners.com

-Beth's TpT Store

-Instagram: @inspiringyounglearners

-ELL Strategy Academy

-Writing Office resource

Connect with me:

-TpT Store

-Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!

-Instagram

-Blog

-Facebook Page

-YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode31

If you are enjoying The Literacy Dive Podcast, please subscribe, leave a rating, and a helpful review! It is much appreciated and thank you for listening!

Teachers, you’ve almost made it. The end of the year is so close! In all the excitement of summer break, there’s one thing that may cause some lingering concern. Summer slide. You and your students have worked so hard all year long and you know how important it is for them to continue practicing their skills over the summer. Doing so will set them up for success in the upcoming school year.

There are many thing you can do to ensure that parents are joining in and helping their child achieve their summer reading goals. Some key things to remember are to make it fun, let the parents know what you have planned, and celebrate what your student’s are doing during their break! I’ll show you how you can team up with your students and their parents before summer break even begins.

In this episode I share:

• Benefits of having individual parent-teacher conferences at the end of the school year

• How to continue school year routines over the summer at home

• Ways to embed literacy practice in board games and other activities

• The importance of discussing summer goals with your student

Resources Mentioned:

• Countdown to Summer Freebie
• 15 Ways to End the School Year
• Reading Log Freebie
• June Writing Prompts
• July Writing Prompts
• Summer Bridge Books

Connect with me:

• TpT Store
• Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!
• Instagram
• Blog
• Facebook Page
• YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode30

If you are enjoying The Literacy Dive Podcast, please subscribe, leave a rating, and a helpful review! It is much appreciated and thank you for listening!

Lesson planning, parent conferences, endless meetings, and working way beyond contract hours. The job of a teacher is truly never-ending. Feeling underappreciated on top of all of this can really negatively affect your mental state.

I’m here to help you find ways to stay motivated, even when feeling a major lack of appreciation. Rather than relying on others for validation of your hard work, it’s time to take control of your own joy! So, happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all of you incredible teachers today and every day! I’m always cheering you on.

In this episode I share:

• Actionable tips for staying motivated
• How to approach conversations with others when you aren’t feeling appreciated
• Fostering self-confidence even when nobody else is giving you the encouragement you crave
• Building a workplace culture that prioritizes appreciation

Resources Mentioned:

• Sign up for emails
• Follow on Instagram: @missps_style
• Join the Literacy Dive Facebook Group

Connect with me:

• TpT Store
• Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!
• Instagram
• Blog
• Facebook Page
• YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode29

If you are enjoying The Literacy Dive Podcast, please subscribe, leave a rating, and a helpful review! It is much appreciated and thank you for listening!

It’s that time of year again. Test season. Although it seems crazy to continue with testing despite the inconsistent year everyone has had, the show must go on right? This time of year is an important opportunity to fill in the gaps and squeeze in some extra practice. Let’s take a look at how we can best prepare your students while having a little fun too!

My number one piece of advice is to avoid overusing traditional test prep, which involves individually reading long passages and answering many questions in one sitting.  These test prep strategies I share today include tips that you can use all throughout the school year. This episode is all about helping you and your students feel confident for the test. You’ve got this!

In this episode I share:

• How to break up test prep to avoid student burn out
• My belief of effort over a high test score
• 7 engaging test prep strategies that will accommodate all learning styles
• Why you should be incorporating peer collaboration into prep

How are you planning to tackle test prep this season? Send me a message on Instagram @missps_style and let me know!

Resources Mentioned:

• Student Response Cards
• FREE Simple Student Response Cards

Connect with me:

• TpT Store
• Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!
• Instagram
• Blog
• Facebook Page
• YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode28

If you are enjoying The Literacy Dive Podcast, please subscribe, leave a rating, and a helpful review! It is much appreciated and thank you for listening!

How many times have you had a student begin a story with “one day” and close with “the end”? Probably more than you can count! Today is the day to finally put an end to the overused leads and conclusions. This episode is all about exposing your students to better leads and conclusions so they can begin incorporating them into their own writing. If you take some time to make leads and endings the focus of your lessons, you will be surprised at how quickly your students' overall writing skills will improve.

I have six strategies that will help your students generate attention-grabbing leads and jaw-dropping conclusions in their writing. After listening, just start small. Pick one strategy and give it a try! You can always revisit this episode if you need it. Are you ready to see your students' writing transform before your eyes?

In this episode I share:

• Specific examples of hooks and conclusions that you can model for your students
• How students can work together to craft strong leads and conclusions
• Engaging go-to leads that students can always draw from: climactic, the circular lead ending combination, sharing feelings and emotions, and dialogue
• Why reworking the beginning of a first draft is so crucial

Resources mentioned:

• Writing Hooks Anchor Charts
• Writing Conclusions Anchor Charts
• Descriptive Writing Anchor Charts Bundle

Connect with me:

• TpT Store
• Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!
• Instagram
• Blog
• Facebook Page
• YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode27

If you are enjoying The Literacy Dive Podcast, please subscribe, leave a rating, and a helpful review! It is much appreciated and thank you for listening!

We have an incredibly fun guest on the show today! It’s Shane Saeed and you may know her over on Instagram as Fantastically Fourth. Shane and I are chatting about all things inferring. Making inferences is something that we do all day long without even realizing it. When it comes to reading comprehension, inferring is one of those very tricky concepts for kids. Luckily, Shane is giving us all sorts of strategies to take back to the classroom. These are simple ways that you can help your students grow their inferencing skills while also having a little fun!

Shane Saeed teaches 4th grade in Colorado. She has a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Literacy and a Master’s Degree in School Leadership. She is currently working on her Doctorate in Educational Leadership with a focus on Equity.

In this episode we discuss:

• Helping our students understand how to make inferences
• The importance of building background knowledge and remembering that not everyone's background knowledge is the same
• How Shane uses a 3-column chart as a powerful strategy for isolating skills
• Tying inferring into writing using the “show don’t tell” strategy

Resources Mentioned:

• Inference 3-Column Anchor Chart
• Inference Task Cards

Connect with Shane:

• Teachers Pay Teachers
• Instagram: @fantasicallyfourth
• TikTok: @thefantasticallyfourth
• Twitter: @saeed_shane

Connect with me:

• TpT Store
• Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!
• Instagram
• Blog
• Facebook Page
• YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode26

April is National Poetry Month and I am here for it! Poetry is something that is not typically embedded in the curriculum all year long, yet exploring poetry with your class provides numerous learning opportunities. It opens the door to new reading and writing experiences that your students may have not tried out before. The more exposure that you and your students have to poetry, the better. If you feel like teaching poetry is scary, it doesn’t have to be!

As you may be able to tell, I love poetry so much! Through my experiences I have found that giving my students intentional exposure to poetry helped so much when it came to state testing. While test prep is always a good thing, there are many other benefits as well. Poetry is meant to be creative and exploratory, so have a little fun with it!

In this episode I share:

• 5 simple tips for teaching poetry
• The many benefits of teaching poetry
• Various ways you can incorporate poetry in your classroom daily
• Suggestions of famous poets to explore
• Key features of poetry to teach such as metaphors, similes, line breaks, and repetition
• My favorite common forms of poetry 

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Sign up for a poem-a-day: https://poets.org/poem-a-day
• Poetry Month Reading and Writing Activities 

Connect with me:

• TpT Store
• Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!
• Instagram
• Blog
• Facebook Page
• YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode25

Today we’re taking a deep dive into one of my favorite reading comprehension strategies…visualization. It seems so simple, yet it’s one that kids tend to really get stuck on! I believe that learning the skill of visualization can also help strengthen other challenging reading comprehension strategies such as inferring, predicting, and summarizing.

Essentially, visualizing is creating pictures in our head based on the text that we read or the words that we hear. However, it’s not just about seeing one single mental picture. We want our students to constantly be tweaking and adding to their mental images. I like to think about it like a movie we create in our heads. No matter if you’re teaching fiction or nonfiction, there are various things you can do to help bring visualization to life for your students and increase their comprehension as a result.

In this episode I share:

• 6 visualization strategies that you can get up and running in no time
• How to use each visualization technique with your students
• Why drawing from all 5 senses and each student’s unique personal experiences will help with visualization
• Creating a visualization station in your classroom
• Specific book title recommendations for teaching this skill

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Visualizing Reading Activities
• Owl Moon, Jane Yolen
• Puddles, Jonathan London
• A Bad Case of Stripes, David Shannon
• See the Ocean, Estelle Condra
• Creatures of Earth, Sea, and Sky, Georgia Heard
• Color me a Rhyme, Jane Yolan
• Episode 23, Using Centers for Upper Elementary Kids

Connect with me:

• TpT Store
• Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!
• Instagram
• Blog
• Facebook Page
• YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode24

If you are enjoying The Literacy Dive Podcast, please subscribe, leave a rating, and a helpful review! It is much...

When you think of literacy stations, what do you envision? It's likely that you picture a kindergarten, first, or second grade classroom. However, it's so impactful to use centers for your big kids too! I learned this after making the jump from teaching kindergarten to fourth grade.

By the end of this episode, I know that you'll be able to see the value in working centers into your daily routine for third-fifth grade. Not only do centers give you time to work in small groups or one-on-one with students, but they also help build independence. After some up-front modeling and planning, centers act as a great time to practice new skills and revisit past ones.

In this episode I share:

• 4 reasons why I love using centers with upper elementary students
• How to select the activities for each of your centers
• Getting your students' opinions on what is found in the centers
• Tips on making centers engaging for students
• Examples of ways you can make your centers evergreen and no-prep
• Managing your centers with ease

Resources from this episode:

• Reading Graphic Organizers
• Reading Trifold Brochures
• Reading Response Question Rings
• Writing Centers Poster and Paper

Connect with me:

• TpT Store
• Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group!
• Instagram
• Blog
• Facebook Page
• YouTube

For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode23

If you are enjoying The Literacy Dive Podcast, please subscribe, leave a rating, and a helpful review! It is much appreciated and thank you for listening!