I was in the fifth grade when I first met the word quadruped while reading a homework assignment about mammals (“live-bearing quadrupeds”). Miss Patterson showed us how to unlock the meaning of a long or difficult word - even if we had never heard the word before – by finding its roots. My big “aha moment” occurred in the fifth grade, but it can happen to any student at any age. It’s never too late to learn a few roots, and the sooner the better!

Teaching in today’s ever-changing classroom environment presents many challenges, including teaching civics, a complex topic that can quickly stir up emotions. Read more for 7 Tips & Ideas to navigate teaching the latest civics guidelines in engaging, informational, and practical ways.

Summer is on its way, and so is summer school. What to teach? Time is always limited for instruction and learning in the summer. The teaching of word roots (morphemes) in the summer offers great opportunities to help students in a number of areas.

As an educator, I have a firm belief that home can be an extension of the classroom. It wasn't until I was a curriculum specialist that I struck school-to-home connection gold! Read on to see the evolution of how a true home-to-school connection can be made…quickly!

If you're looking for authentic reasons to encourage your students to go back into a text and find evidence to support their thinking, we hear you. Monologue takes the skill of finding evidence to a new level. It is a literary empowerment tool for students. Drafting a powerful monologue invites students to read across a set of texts that includes different sources about one subject in order to glean an understanding from multiple perspectives.

School-wide strategies to support intervention programs involve the entire school campus and are consistent across grade levels. Read this article to take-away practical and easily applicable strategies that your whole school can use to help close the learning gaps that our students have sustained over the last few years.