Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

03.16.17 Lessons in Practice from the Seattle Seahawks

My Practice Perfect co-author Katie Yezzi recently came across a pretty amazing video of Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll talking about practice and his approach to it.  Beyond the key takeaway that practice is incredibly important to any performance profession–“Practice is everything,” Carroll says in the video–there are a ton of useful lessons for those…


03.16.17 A Postcard from a South African Classroom

Found this picture in a blog post by an organization that supports teachers in South Africa, Edupeg. It’s of a teacher named Ms. Shezi who teaches grade 4 at Bonisanani Primary in South Africa. I found it both informative and inspiring: The blog described her class this way: Ms. Shezi already has well established Entry and Exit…


03.05.17 About that Tweet: The Difference Between Information & Knowledge

Recently I posted on Twitter a picture a friend had sent me of work a young student did in the classroom.  The post went a little viral (or as viral as something can in my tiny corner of the universe) and people seemed to interpret it in different ways. I thought I’d write a quick post…


03.02.17 Pairing Reading Reconsidered Techniques with Cognitive Science, Part II—A Guest Post from Ben Rogers

This is the second of a pair of posts by Ben Rogers of Norwich Primary Academy (NPA) in Norwich, England. In his first post, Ben described the tools he and his colleagues have been using from Reading Reconsidered and cognitive science to bolster students’ reading and writing skills. In this post, he reflects on the power of intentionally building students’ background knowledge and vocabulary. By the way, we…