Today I decided to do a quick post for teachers, highlighting what hopefully are some new resources you don't know about. I believe great teachers today have to be creative, intuitive, and always on the lookout (and I want to help make that latter activity easlier). I thought it might be fun to share some resources with you, starting with my current hometown on Huntsville, AL
1) The U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Some of you may be interested in a field trip to Space Camp but even if you can't come with your class in person, they've put together a great set of resources for you: Check out these
teacher resources.
2) Do you know that Maupin House (the publisher of The Literacy Ambassador's two print books (Anytime Reading Readiness for parents of 3-6 year olds and the partner title, Before They Read, for educators working with children the same age), has a wealth of quick, free videos to watch from the talented pool of authors? Check them out at:
http://www.maupinhouse.com/.
3) Need a little encouragement and solid advice to motivate you? Visit
Inspiring Teachers. From e-books, to advice for first time teachers, and those who have been around the block a few times, you're sure to find something there for you.
4) Hands on museums are always fun but many of them have online resources you can tap into as well like Exploratorium's
Evidence website and of course the
Smithsonian. .
5) Need supplies, materials or technology for your classroom? Check out the
Thinkquest competition. The Deadline is April 24 for the year 2011. Check their website for updates in future years.
Finally, don't forget how zoos can combine fun and learning. Many have webcams so you can watch the animals live from your classroom and find fantastic
online games for growing young brains.
I'd love to have your feedback. Did you know about these resources?
Do you have others to share?
Nonfiction writing for children represents a pool of unique tools for educators teaching knowledge learning areas. Certainly nonfiction gives educators ways to build content knowledge. Don't forget that it also serves as a window of opportunity to motivate all students, to turn them on to reading. I've always said, "there's a book for every child" and, when you open the selection to include nonfiction texts, you raise the likelihood that each student finds that book.
I know educators and librarians don't have a lot of time to find these gems on their own so here are a few great new resources that will help you in your search:
My friend, and author, Vicki Cobb, and many of her fellow non-fiction authors just this week introduced a brand new database, website and blog, dedicated to helping busy educators and librarians tap into this world. To quote their introduction on their INK THINK TANK website "The real world has never been so interesting!"
Search this resource by subject area, national standard, grade level and much more on the database included here. There are more than 20 different contributing authors on almost any subject matter you can think of. They also have a corresponding blog where the authors of these great tools visit, share ideas and thoughts, and help us all maximize resources.
Ever feel as though your students have no hook, no foundation of knowledge, on which to build new content area knowledge? Need a quick tool to find picture books to use when introducing that content area subject matter? Powerful Picture Books: 180 Ideas for Promoting Content Learning is an environmentally-friendly, easy-to-use resource you can reference all year long. An annotated list of over 180 quality picture books, suggests one title to read for every day of the typical school year. Most of the entries represent picture books readily available in your local public or school libraries. Read aloud book 1 to book 180 in your classroom or use the interactive index to help you select the content area you need.
Each annotation includes the title, author, and publication details plus ideas (and some hyperlinks) for extending the learning. These recommended reads cover such content areas as history, writing, the arts, geography, science and more. You can find picture books applicable for use with elementary, middle and high school students.
Get your media specialist involved! Sharron McElmeel, from in Cedar Rapids Iowa Community School District, shares some great ideas for promoting nonfiction with the youngest readers in her article entitled A New Section for Young Readers: J is for Junior Nonfiction.
Maximize the use of nonfiction with your students and turn more of them on to reading as a tool for life, a way to feed their interests and explore new worlds.
Do you miss read alouds? In many of today's classrooms, reading aloud with children has been squeezed out or, perhaps even worse, has become a clinical, teacher-directed instructional piece to the point where it's lifeblood and impact have been depleted.
Take a look at an abbreviated list of values for reading aloud with students:
Pure enjoyment of great stories/growing motivation and interest in reading
Taking students to a different level of understanding of the story (Bloom’s
Taxonomy concepts)
Discussion and reinforcement of story elements
Reflecting on the text and searching for multiple meanings
Exploring the elements and format of print and story
Practicing and modeling specific comprehension strategies such as questioning,
predicting, clarifying, etc.
Building and activating background knowledge
Using inference
Understanding of the writing process, use of grammar, point of view,
writer’s voice, word choice and other writing-related skills.
Introducing and reinforcing vocabulary
Reinforcing content area learning
Modeling and Practicing “think-aloud” and visualization
Introducing and/or reinforcing summarizing skills
This list reads like a list of standards. I expect you can find at least a few of your state's embedded here.
So what's the deal? What I recommend to many teachers is to step back. Look at what you do as a reader when you read text. It is an active and interactive process. You draw on all you know about how to figure out those squiggles on the page and the meaning behind them, almost effortlessly. Our students are still learning about those through comprehension strategy instruction, decoding instruction and fluency practice. So open up your brain. Get off the "lesson" channel and just explore, think, wonder, figure out and celebrate great writing.
It doesn't have to take 30 minutes - try 5 or 10 (most picture books can be read in that length of time). Evaluate the "down times" in your day - waiting for students to arrive, during the "morning meeting"/first few minutes of class, before or after lunch, closing out the day. There IS time.
When you take this approach to reading aloud with your students, it will have an incredible impact.
Do you know about the research behind read alouds (there is actually quite a bit)? Dr. Wesley Sharp has written an excellent article summarizing some of it on Educationworld.com. Dr. Maryann Manning's take includes not only references to research but also personal experiences. My favorite principal of all time, Dr. Reba Wadsworth, has great insight into this area as well. One more resource: Katherine Goldner's action research in conjunction with her graduate studies. It so clearly illustrates the value of such "in the classroom" experiments and evaluation.
I'd love to hear from real teachers out there using (or not using) read alouds. What have your experiences been?
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