One of my projects for this summer was to sort and reorganize my classroom library.  After 24 years, I have accumulated a lot of books, in fact there are almost too many choices.  For several years my books have been sorted according to genre.  They were displayed in baskets, and labeled with the genre.  We [...]

This summer I’ve been reading the book, Focus:  Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, by Mike Schmoker.  It was given to each of the teachers on our staff by our principal for summer reading.  Schmoker advocates Simplicity, Clarity and Priority.  By this he means we need to simplify our curriculum by cutting the number of [...]

Does reading instruction change frequently in your school or school district?  This is my 24th year of teaching.  When I started, we were using a basal reader.  Since that time I’ve been through the whole language phase, reading and writing workshops, literature circles and the use of trade books for all small group instruction.   Before [...]

One of the things that I am required to do at the beginning and end of each school year is to administer ARI testing to all my students.  If you are not famililar with ARIs, ARI stands for Analytical Reading Inventory and it is completed one on one.  The student reads the story out loud, [...]

School has only been in session two days, and we’ve done the usual start up activities; establishing routines, reviewing school rules, and getting to know each other.  Those two days have been very productive and we’re already up and running.  There are a few activities that I thought went particularly well. Our Social Contract At [...]