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

We all have those students who don’t like writing and have a lot of negative emotions surrounding writing in general. Even though winter break is coming coon, there are still things you can either try during these last few weeks or implement when you return in January. But either way, we want our students interested and engaged in writing. So in today’s episode, I’m sharing five strategies for engaging reluctant writers and some bonus tips for disguising writing. 

These strategies that I share are for creative writing and can easily be added or incorporated into your existing routine to spark desire for student writing. Some ways for engaging reluctant writers include including student interests, making shared time a natural and consistent occurrence, designating a special place, and involving yourself during student writing time. Each idea encourages student writing, makes connections, and creates positive feelings towards writing.

Implementing all of these ideas can be overwhelming, so I encourage you to focus on a few to start engaging reluctant writers during your writing block. Whether you choose to use these strategies before the break or when you return to school, make sure to check out my writing resources to get you started and develop a students’ love for writing!

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode150

Resources Mentioned:

• Free Writing Prompts
• Free Creative Writing Activities Sampler
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts Sampler

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here

Do you ever see students reading in your classroom that have great fluency and can recall the words on the page, but can’t give any details about what happened in the text? If this describes students in your classroom, it’s time to implement active reading strategies. This comprehension strategy is used to evaluate a students’ understanding of a text. In this episode, I’m sharing five active reading strategies that you implement in your classrooms today.

Each active reading strategy asks students to interact with a text on a deeper level. They require students to make predictions, identify key concepts, draw conclusions, look at what they notice about the text, reflect, and more. You will notice that each strategy builds on top of or compliments one another. By working together, they help students reinforce their understanding and make it easier for them to recall that information at a later time.

Our goal as literacy teachers is to improve a student’s comprehension, which these active reading strategies do. When you implement these in your classroom, you’re helping students take a step forward with text retention and improvement on understanding the material. By starting with these five active reading strategies, you can then explore other engagement strategies to improve student comprehension.

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode149

Resources Mentioned:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts FREE Sample
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts
• Writing Prompts Free Sample
• Small Group Reading Skills Activity Sets
• Reading Reference Helpers
• Reading Skills Anchor Charts

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here

I’ve loved going through the different stages of vocabulary from a basic understanding, misconceptions, strategies, and now how to use it as an emphasis in student writing. When we can merge vocabulary with writing, it’s an opportunity for students to use their literacy skills in writing, while also simulating real world communication and relevance. In the last episode in our series about vocabulary, I’m diving into the benefits of merging vocabulary with writing and the impacts it can have on your students. 

Through this series, you’ve learned why vocabulary is so important to incorporate in your classroom. As it pertains to student writing, it elevates the quality of writing students can produce, while gaining an understanding of how their language choices can be used to communicate with their audience, purpose, or context of writing. With the use of examples and vivid analogies, I show how merging vocabulary with writing also impacts the genre of writing a student produces and its real world application.

Vocabulary is truly a way to engage readers and communicate effectively for an intended purpose. When merging vocabulary with writing, your students begin to have a deeper understanding of the power of language and communication skills. After this series, I hope you intentionally introduce and utilize vocabulary in your classroom, for it can have lasting impacts on your students.

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode148

Resources Mentioned:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts FREE Sample
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts
• Writing Prompts Free Sample
• Descriptive Writing Bundle
• Episode 147, Strategies for Seamless Vocabulary Integration in the Classroom
• Episode 146, Debunking 4 Vocabulary Myths and Misconceptions in the Upper Elementary Classroom
• Episode 145, Unpacking the Role of Vocabulary Acquisition

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here

Over the last few weeks, we’ve done a complete deep dive into vocabulary acquisition, its importance, and debunking common myths and misconceptions. Now that we covered the background information, in part three of this series, it’s time to discuss practical vocabulary strategies. In today’s episode, I’m sharing how to seamlessly integrate vocabulary strategies in your classroom and already existing daily curriculum. 

In order for information to permanently stick in a person’s brain, they need multiple exposures and interactions. So the more we integrate vocabulary strategies throughout our day and through cross-curricular, the deeper their understanding and meaning of words will be. Throughout the episode, I share copious amounts of vocabulary strategies that range from games, visuals, technology, and thematic or content related ways to naturally incorporate vocabulary. 

Deepening vocabulary acquisition is not a one size fits all approach, which is why finding ways to make connections with words is so critical. When you can start to integrate vocabulary strategies seamlessly in your classroom, your students will be able to interact and use words organically in their writing and daily discussions. Stay tuned to next week’s episode, which is our last in the series!

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode147

Resources Mentioned:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts FREE Sample
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts
• Thesaurus Charts
• Thesaurus Website
• Dictionary Website
• Episode 146, Debunking 4 Vocabulary Myths and Misconceptions in the Upper Elementary Classroom
• Episode 145, Unpacking the Role of Vocabulary Acquisition

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here

Last week I brought attention to vocabulary acquisition and the importance of expanding your students’ vocabulary toolbox. But before you start incorporating more vocabulary into your instructional day, I wanted to bring awareness to some common vocabulary myths and misconceptions as you focus on this in your upper elementary classrooms. So in today’s episode, I’m debunking vocabulary myths and highlighting the need for structured vocabulary instruction, along with different ways to embed vocabulary.

Reading and memorization were always the standard ways for teaching vocabulary, but we have since learned those aren’t effective ways to learn new vocabulary words. Instead, incorporating vocabulary in discussions, stories, and explicit instruction will make vocabulary more memorable and meaningful for students. Additionally, I provide examples on how using vocabulary in context creates a deeper understanding of the word. 

In order to expand a student’s vocabulary, it’s more than just exposure while reading texts. It’s actually intentional instruction with application as the end result. By knowing common vocabulary myths and how to teach it effectively, your students will have more vocabulary words in their toolbox and use it in other contexts. Stay tuned to next week’s episode where I dive into strategies and actionable tips for vocabulary!

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode146

Resources Mentioned:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts FREE Sample
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts
• Episode 145, Unpacking the Role of Vocabulary Acquisition

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here

One of our biggest roles as literacy teachers is to improve their comprehension skills. However, we rarely focus on the one component that gives students the foundation of comprehension, which is vocabulary. Vocabulary is so much more than just words, for it transforms a story and is the key to communication. So in today’s episode, I’m sharing the role vocabulary acquisition has in your upper elementary classroom and the impact it has on students. 

At an initial glance, vocabulary seems to only affect reading and writing, but it truly does have an impact on all other subject areas as well. By being intentional about vocabulary acquisition, you will be creating an experience that involves students and an opportunity for a deeper level of comprehension and understanding. When students add vocabulary words to their toolbox, they are able to make connections that add to their overall learning experience. 

Knowing how to deepen a students’ vocabulary acquisition will directly impact their reading comprehension, writing, critical thinking, and interpersonal communication. With this critical background information, you will now be able to add to your knowledge with strategies and various methods for students to receive vocabulary. Stay tuned to next week’s episode where I discuss myths and misconceptions surrounding vocabulary.

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode145

Resources Mentioned:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts FREE Sample
• Vocabulary Writing Prompts

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here

Are you looking for fun, creative, and engaging ways to get your students excited about reading and writing? If so, this is the episode for you! I love coming up with creative ways that spark student engagement, and this time, they’re spontaneous activities that include reading and writing. So I’m sharing how two activities boost daily reading and writing excitement in your elementary classrooms.

I came to the conclusion that if I want students to enjoy reading and writing, I need to create opportunities that sparked joy in both of those areas. With that in mind, I remembered an activity from back when I was in school and adapted it to incorporate daily reading and writing that’s spontaneous and fun. With each routine, I discuss the importance of it, benefits, the structure and expectations, and how to easily implement it in your classroom.

We always create and develop lessons that focus on practicing and mastering literacy skills, but never develop ways that spark an initial love for literacy. However, with these two routines, you can spontaneously incorporate daily reading and writing in a way that increases their excitement and engagement with literacy.

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode144

Resources Mentioned:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise
• Writing Center Posters and Writing Paper
• Quick Write Creative Writing Activities
• Would You Rather Creative Writing Activities
• Pick 4 Writing Creative Writing Activities 
• Building Words Creative Writing Activities

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here

Our goal as literacy teachers is to develop skilled readers and writers, so we often implement strategies that have students work on those skills. And while those strategies are effective and work, for our struggling readers, it may not be enough. Therefore, by incorporating a think-aloud strategy, your students will be able to hear and see how a skilled reader interprets a text. In this episode, I’m sharing 11 think-aloud prompts that will level up your students’ reading comprehension.

Using a think-aloud strategy, teachers pause and share what they’re thinking while reading a text, which can include prediction, analysis, synthesis, and more. We want students' internal processing to become automatic, which is why it’s important to implement this strategy during times when it’s natural to think critically about texts. During those times, I also discuss what you should model, how to incorporate this think-aloud strategy, and examples that demonstrate how to model it with your students.

Incorporating this think-aloud strategy effectively will require you to be aware of your own thought processes while reading and verbalize them in a way that is accessible to students. By pausing for intentional think-alouds, you can share your thoughts to help all readers think critically about a text and level up their reading comprehension.

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode143

Resources Mentioned:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise
• Monthly Writing Prompts Free Sample

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here

As literacy teachers, our goal is to develop skilled readers and writers. And although we want our students to be independent in these areas, providing them support actually helps them master literacy skills to become independent. One of my favorite ways to support my students in writing is through using graphic organizers. In this episode, I’m sharing why using graphic organizers can be used to support quality written responses.

There is so much power in using simple supports that scaffold students into writing about reading. Graphic organizers are an easy support for students while also benefiting them as they structure their ideas to easily craft a written response. In order for you to use graphic organizers in the most effective way, I outline my process as to how I introduce them to students, ways students interact with them, and how it ultimately creates a well-developed written response. 

In upper elementary, we want our students to be strong in their written responses in regard to reading. As I’ve established, using graphic organizers is one of the best ways to do that. These visual tools provide a clear framework for analyzing texts and generating thoughtful responses. So, take some time this week and implement and practice written responses using graphic organizers and see your students thrive in their writing skills.

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode142

Resources Mentioned:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise
• Reading Graphic Organizers for Reading Skills and Reading Strategies
• Monthly Writing Prompts Free Sample

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here

As literacy teachers we want to create an environment that helps develop students into skilled readers and writers. And although they’re often taught in isolation, both actually compliment each other. One way to incorporate both reading and writing is through read alouds, which has the added benefit of exposing students to a variety of genres. In today’s episode, I’m sharing my very simple 5-step read aloud routine that helps students discover diverse texts.

Most students don’t venture out beyond their comfortability with book genres on their own, which is why it’s our job to expose them to more diverse texts. And since read aloud time is already incorporated into your literacy block, it’s the perfect opportunity to bring in various genres. My quick and easy 5-step routine models what students should do while also piques their interest in new books. Additionally, I share how your chosen read aloud book can be repurposed towards writing skills.

We know that exposing students to different genres can positively impact their reading and writing skills, which is why it’s so important to find an easy way to seamlessly implement it into your day. By choosing diverse texts to highlight during your read aloud time, you will begin to engage students in diversifying their book selections.

Show Notes: https://theliteracydive.com/episode141

Resources Mentioned:

• Join my Daily Writing Disguise

Connect with Me:

• Join The Daily Writing Disguise Membership here
• Shop my TpT store here
• Check out TDWD Collections here
• Receive emails from me here
• Follow me on Instagram here
• Read my blog posts here