Books Worth Reading: Endangered Minds
Books Worth Reading:
Every kid needs a champion – Rita Pierson
Fabulous! Simply fabulous. Are you an educator? This will lift you up! This woman speaks to my heart. I'm so grateful that someone posted this on Facebook today so that I might start my day feeling deep to my core why I chose to be a teacher and why I still teach. I've spent my entire career working [...]
General Education or Special Education and Response to Intervention
After co-teaching in inclusive classrooms and witnessing the benefits of inclusion done well in schools and school districts around the country, I am convinced that most students achieve more in the general classroom with an environment of excellent teaching. The trend towards tracking students in leveled classes based on test scores and ability has not been validated by credible research over time. The research on tracking/leveling is about as inconclusive and controversial as the research on homework. Find a study that claims students perform best in leveled classes and there's another one that states that students perform better in heterogeneous classes. Read how four schools faced the challenge of implementing RTI
Do You Know the Reading Level of Student Texts and Handouts?
Recently, I've found huge discrepancies between Lexile scores, DRA's (Developmental Reading Assessment) and Readablity formulas such as SMOG, FRY and when I asked a reading specialist to explain the difference at a conference recently, she evaded the question by telling me (and the audience) to simply pick one and stick to that one. I disagree.
Stigma Sucks!
Let's differentiate instruction in the classroom so that ALL kids learn "differently" and succeed to their maximum potential without the negative stigma most struggling learners experience in school.