Colleen, Erica, and I have been toiling away at our forthcoming book on literacy, Reading Reconsidered. One of the topics we discuss is non-fiction–the importance of reading more of it; the challenges of reading more of it; the importance of knowledge as both a cause and and effect of successful reading. One of the key ideas…
To succeed in almost any classroom it helps to have a management system, a nexus of small scaled consequences and rewards you can use to process under-productive behavior and shape positive behavior efficiently and consistently. When you add that to a classroom that includes: • Discipline–a commitment to teaching students the right way to do things…
Working on Reading Reconsidered this morning, my book on reading with Colleen Driggs and Erica Woolway. Found myself going a bit manifesto in this tiny–but strident–snippet on the power of teaching books–real books- the whole thing: We are strong believers in ‘the power of the book,’ of students building a sustained relationship with a text over…
First, a shout out to Martin West and Matthew Chingos for a really sensible and balanced assessment of the why and how of annual testing: why it matters so much and how it works, which in turn tells us why we need to do it every year. The net is this: It’s like spinach. We don’t…
This morning I got up early to write. At about 6:30 I wandered into the living room to find that my daughter was downstairs already, sitting quietly over the heat vent- it was negative five degrees Fahrenheit here this morning. I needed to get some work done, but my rule is, I work until my kids…