Any great reading curriculum should be built around books, we think. Reading whole books, cover to cover, helps students develop a deep understanding of an authorial voice. It helps them build deep understanding of ideas and empathy for characters. It helps them sustain interest in a story for an extended period of time. It teaches…
If you’ve read this blog, or attended any of our webinars or workshops, you know that we believe in knowledge-based curriculum. Research shows that knowledge is a critical factor in learning to read, in building long-term memory, and in thinking critically. We’ve seen classrooms where knowledge encourages independent reading and where knowledge inspires wonder. Recent global…
Lately I’ve been posting some excerpts from Reading Reconsidered here on Field Notes. Today I’m posting a section from Chapter 2, which is about Close Reading. The segment I’ve chosen deals with the idea of Establishing Meaning–making sure that students understand the full text and its nuances before you jump fully in to analysis. Colleen, Erica…
We’re in Albany today with 150 amazing folks at our Reading Reconsidered workshop. Earlier this morning we discussed the five plagues of the developing reader–five common challenges that make complex text difficult for students and that are not captured by quantitative measures of text complexity such as Lexiles. We discussed the example of Lord of the…
This is kind of an exciting announcement. Maybe a scary one too. My team and I have decided to write a Language Arts (i.e. English) Curriculum. We’re going to start with the middle grades (4-8) and expand from there. With a little luck we hope to have it ready for schools to use a year…