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Are Picture Books COMPLEX Enough?

A question I am asked frequently, because of my use of picture books as mentor texts, is: “Are picture books really complex enough for my upper grade students?” And my answer always is… YES YES YES! There are many aspects that contribute to a text’s complexity- not just the “level” (whether that be Lexile or […]

Make Vocabulary Stick With These Five Activities

As you learned in my previous post, it’s time to throw the vocabulary list OUT! Students need the words in context, and they need practice with the words over the course of the year- not just the week you introduce them. This post is going to give you five ways you can keep vocabulary instruction […]

3 BIG Reasons Why You Should Throw Out The Vocabulary List

  Give a list of vocabulary words to look up in the dictionary, write a sentence, and then take a quiz on Friday…… these practices have come and gone! Not only do the students not enjoy this process, it isn’t a best practice. Research has shown that teaching new words without context (teaching just definitions) […]

Introduce Finding Specific Text Evidence With Do Unto Otters

Text evidence… those two words are so important for a reading teacher! We want students to be able to infer and draw conclusions while using text evidence to support their thoughts. But before we can lead them to these higher order thinking skills, they need to understand how to look back in the text to […]

Integrate With The Text: Come On, Rain!

One of the most common struggles teachers face is tackling TIME. There simply isn’t enough of it to cover all the skills and standards we need to teach! One way to address this problem is to integrate as much as possible. Being able to address multiple skills and standards through one or two lessons truly […]

Never Smile at a Monkey! Close Reading Practice

Nonfiction close reading can often be tricky for our elementary kiddos because many texts that we find are so long, it can be hard to help them truly focus on what’s important. I love introducing close reading by using mentor texts that include several topics in short paragraphs. One great book that does this is: […]