❄️ 'tis the season to be cozy ❄️
Arguably, one of the most beautiful and admired cultural centers in Europe is the city of Prague in the Czech Republic, founded circa 880. The capital of
Once again, let me tell you how much I LOVE summertime. I have been busy busy busy creating brand new products, including a new Fiction and Non-Fiction Anchor Chart, that I’m super excited about! So, last April, I created a set of Assessment task cards for Non-Fiction Text Features. I... Read more
Roll and retell nonfiction, reading comprehension
*fans self with book*
Art and history Pandas, you’re in for a treat today! Comedy lovers, get in here, too. We’re featuring some of the best new classical art and art history memes from the wildly popular r/trippinthroughtime subreddit.
Thrive Literacy Corner email subscribers get access to my library of freebies, which include the resources below. Subscribe below to get access! Current subscribers click here. You can find the password at the bottom of
"There are two kinds of people: people who use bookmarks, and monsters."
...is a sane librarian. Right? Right. So I'm going to post my favorite, hilarious book memes today. Because, yeah, Summer Reading is right ...
The characters may be fake, but the emotions are very real.
Teaching reading comprehension is such a challenge! Learn how I revamped my reading instruction (and my reading block) to inspire HUGE change in my readers!
Products, lesson plans, and other helps for the homeschooling parent, teacher, or other educator during the learning journey.
Educate yourself on "deceitful mouths," "selfish ears" and "gross, sensual chins."
Which one can you relate to?
Setting a purpose for reading can keep our readers from becoming overwhelmed by giving them a specific reason for reading. Helping students set a purpose for reading purpose also helps them understand the value of tapping into their prior knowledge. Today, I’m sharing some tips for setting a purpose and showing how to use it in ... Read More about Setting a Purpose for Reading {with Freebie}
It’s hard to wade through the internet searching for the most hilarious book memes, so we’ve compiled a complete list of all of our favorites right here!
Some interesting and funny children book concepts that probably wouldn't last too long on the shelves.
"There are two kinds of people: people who use bookmarks, and monsters."
This reading response worksheet is ideal for practicing story elements, reading strategies, comprehension, text connection, author study, vocabulary work and so much more!
At head of title: True occult knowledge gives you practical power and strength
Once my beginning English language learners have built some vocabulary and are able to decode their emergent level books, it is time to tackle the skill of retelling. It truly is the basis of reading comprehension. Plus, it's an excellent way to build their oral language skills! My upper elementary newcomers have been in school here for seven months. They've been busy building their knowledge of basic (and content) vocabulary, focusing on spelling patterns in Word Study and learning many sight words in context. It is now officially spring (YAY!), and the school year is on a fast downward-slope. To get my beginning ELLs ready for their end of the year reading assessment, the one that measures their reading progress for the year, they must learn how to retell a fictional story. Over the past few months I've been introducing and reinforcing the various parts of a story. My students have learned about "characters" and "setting," and we've talked about story "problems" and "solutions." The next step is to retell a story from beginning, middle and end. Depending on my students, I may need to scaffold the activity by using picture cards. They use these cards to sequence events and recall details. Although I am giving them the important events in pictures, they will use their oral language skills to recount the events. Once I feel that they have a solid grasp on retelling a story, I have a couple more questions that I need to teach how to respond. Students have to be able think beyond the text, so I want them to be able to 1- describe their favorite part in the story and explain why it's their favorite, AND 2- make a meaningful connection to the story. This usually doesn't take much more than me modeling for them. Usually;) During this past quarter, each time we finished a guided reading book, I'd ask them to orally share their favorite part and explain why, AND make a connection to the story. Sometimes they share whole group, and other times they turn and tell a partner. My "newcomer group" practices the skill of retelling frequently, but we do it in different ways in order to keep it fun, engaging and challenging. An additional activity I like to use is this "Read and Roll" activity. They love it, I think, because they get to roll big dice! Once big dice enter the picture, somehow it turns into a game! I love it too because it gets them talking about the various parts of their book. I'm always looking for ways to get my students TALKING about their reading. I know that this solidifies their understanding AND builds their oral proficiency skills, plus they get a lot out of hearing their group members talk about the story too. My students also love these retelling cards. I pass one or two cards to each student and they take turns asking each other questions about their story. A super easy way to get students talking about their books is by creating a "Discussion Starters" anchor chart. Sentence starters are a great support for your beginning ELLs. When I first introduced the chart, I asked the questions, but once they had some practice with it, I turned it over to them to ask each other the questions. They always start with the person's name they are directing their question to. The person responding always starts their response with the person's name who asked the question. For example... Angie - Student 1: "Michael, tell me about your favorite part." Michael - Student 2: "Angie, my favorite part is..." Since Michael was the one who just answered a question, he is the one to ask the next student a question. I'm telling you, they love this! I'm going to be honest here... I had zero time to prep a detailed lesson on this day, so I grabbed a bag of books and off I went. Luckily, I always have big and small post-it notes in my caddie, so I grabbed these BIG neon colored post-it notes and wrote a B-M-E on them. Viola! My students slapped these into their reading notebooks and we were all set! Sometimes, lessons off the cuff turn out to be really good lessons, right?! I also like to use a Story Map graphic organizer to help students organize the parts of their story. They use this to "share out" at the end of our lesson. Usually I'll have each student pick one part to share out. They might share out to the group, while other times they might share out with a partner, depending on the time. FREEBIE There are lots of ways to develop retelling skills, and I recommend using different strategies and methods to get students comfortable with the various components of this skill. For beginning ELLs, of course they are just learning this new language while simultaneously learning the skills needed to orally retell a story, so lots of scaffolds and supports along the way are a must. We know that the achievement gap can be great for beginning ELLs, and that their reading comprehension skills moving forward will depend on their ability to recall and retell stories, and other types of texts. Focusing on this skill from the get-go is essential in getting our newcomers to where they need to be in a few short years. As soon as they have enough vocabulary to talk about their emergent level books, start explicitly teaching and reinforcing "how to retell." Here are some of the resources I use to teach retelling skills. (My intermediate ELLs love the Retelling Practice for Fiction cards and the Read and Roll activity as well.) Retelling Practice Cards Story Elements Retelling and Sequencing Cards Read and Roll Fiction and Nonfiction Credit: the "dot dudes" graphic in the title is by Sarah Pecorino.
A Quick Guide to Russian Literature - Comics from around the Web
Sean Tejaratchi of LiarTownUSA has posted "The Big Book of Online _____," a collection of PSAs in the form of book covers addressing various aspects of
Have you ever had a practically perfect day of teaching? You know what I mean… the kind of day where the kiddos are right on point. The conversation is academically juicy, kiddos are engaged, and you’re wondering why your admin isn’t picking today to come do their observations! 😉 It’s been a while since things have gone […]
Too many books or not enough bookshelves?
Find out what Kristy and Jesse have been up to this week - and get a look at their house plans!
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books I Loved that Made Me Want More Books Like Them — whi…
It’s no secret that I love reading. I’ve always got a few books on the go and at any given moment am a part of two to four different book clubs. I don’t just enjoy reading though, I also enjoy making book lists, talking about books, writing about books, shopping for books, scoring a cheap…
Shakespeare has been dead for over 400 years, but his plays are still being put on every day by theatre companies all over the world. If you're not sure where to start, this flowchart can help you decide which play you should see first. The flowchart, from artist Mya Gosling at Good Tickle Brain, starts […]
Sarah Andersen knows what it is to be a bookworm. Here are 3 times she nailed it in her webcomic.
It’s no secret that I love reading. I’ve always got a few books on the go and at any given moment am a part of two to four different book clubs. I don’t just enjoy reading though, I also enjoy making book lists, talking about books, writing about books, shopping for books, scoring a cheap…
