Teacher Created Materials

Helping our students learn to write across the curriculum and across genres is a powerful way to provide lifelong skills. We want to give them confidence and the desire to write. But making the transformation from idea to composition can be intimidating to many students. So how can we make writing a fun learning experience? Powerful teaching strategies are the answer! Here are three things you can try tomorrow.

There’s a book, isn’t there, that you loved as a child? Just thinking about it brings back a flood of memories. Either the story itself delighted you, or the memory of reading it with someone you love sealed that book in your heart forever. Either way, the book sparked something in you‚ and the fire that was lit is a love of reading that you carry with you to this day. Every child deserves that spark, don’t they? The great news is that there is a book like that for every reader. One that will st

There are literally millions of texts that are there for the reading, right at your fingertips. Not so with all other forms of art! To see the Mona Lisa, you must travel to Paris and pay the entry fee into the Louvre. To see the Taj Mahal, you must make your way to India, pay your entrance, and step only where allowed to tread. And whether Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, or The Wiggles, that concert is going to cost you. But to read the works of the masters through time and the present day? Nothing.

Have you ever wondered why some kids become voracious readers and others avoid reading like it’s a laundry basket full of stinky socks? We asked top literacy experts around the country what they feel is the key to building a love of reading in students. Here is what they had to say.

Do you ever feel like you do too much talking in the classroom? If you do, well then, you probably are! It is definitely time to turn control over to the students. Let your students lead the discussion. Yes, it is our job, as teachers, to make sure the class is focused on the topic. But, we can absolutely let the students do the majority of the talking.

The very best teachers we ever had as students involved us in the learning process. They drew us in and got us making our own connections to what they were teaching. They may have also created a sense of cognitive dissonance, or mental discomfort, that we wanted to resolve. Creating an environment of active learning that engages students promotes deeper understanding and long-term retention of the concepts we are teaching.