All posts by leeandlowbooks

Goal Setting for Reading Success: Empowerment Post-Assessment

Empowerment Post-Assessment

Jaclyn DeForgeJaclyn DeForge, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching first and second grade in the South Bronx, and went on to become a literacy coach and earn her Masters of Science in Teaching. In this series for teachers, educators, and literacy coaches, Jaclyn discusses different strategies for ensuring students hit end-of-year benchmarks in reading.

Two weeks ago, I shared with you some resources to use when determining a reading goal for each student, and last week I talked about how to motivate students about their reading goal and about how to Girl Reading, from Destiny's Giftschedule out regular assessment.  Today, I want to get into the nuts and bolts of the running record assessment time, and how to create a post-assessment conference that really empowers students.

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Three Great Books to Celebrate the Olympics

It’s Olympics time! Have you all been glued to your televisions and various electronic devices for the last 5 days? Or, conversely, have you been dodging your televisions and electronic devices, trying to avoid spoilers?

Either way, the Olympics are one of my favorite things. And while it’s tons of fun rooting for all the current big names (Michael Phelps! Kerri Walsh! Gabby Douglas!) it’s also worth spending a few minutes remembering some great Olympic athletes from the past who paved the way. Here are three to start with:

Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds1. Sammy Lee (Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds): Diver Sammy Lee was born on August 1, 1920 in Fresno, California. Growing up, Sammy was barred from the public pool six out of seven days of the week because he was not white; despite that, Lee became a world-class diver and at the 1948 Olympic Games in London, became the first Asian American to win a gold medal. There’s a great picture of Sammy Lee, now 91, in this now-and-then piece on athletes from the last London Olympics.

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Goal Setting for Reading Success Part 2: Regular Assessment & Student Motivational Strategies

Jaclyn DeForge, our Resident Literacy Expert began her career teaching first and second grade in the South Bronx, and went on to become a literacy coach and earn her Masters of Science in Teaching. In this series for teachers, educators, and literacy coaches, Jaclyn discusses different strategies for ensuring students hit end-of-year benchmarks in reading.

Last week, I talked a bit about the importance of setting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-specific goals for your students in reading, and provided some resources to help you determine where to set them.  Today, I want to talk a bit about two  things that are imperative to student success in reaching their reading goals: 1) student motivation and 2) regular assessment.

1)    Using Goal Charts to build student motivation:  Students are super motivated when they can clearly visualize their goal, mark their progress and celebrate each milestone, so creating a goal chart can be a great tool!  Depending on your classroom culture and range of student reading levels, you may choose either to display this information as a large chart on a bulletin board and celebrate individual and class-wide achievements, or to keep separate charts in each student’s reading folder and celebrate progress individually.

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Announcing the New Visions Award!

New Visions SealCalling all aspiring authors! We are thrilled to announce the establishment of the New Visions Award, which will be given to a middle grade or young adult fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novel by a writer of color. Established by Lee & Low’s fantasy, science fiction and mystery imprint, Tu Books, the award is a fantastic chance for new authors of color to break into the world of speculative fiction, a genre that would benefit greatly from more diversity.

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Guadalupe Garcia McCall on how writing heals

In this excerpt from her 2012 Pura Belpré acceptance speech, Under the Mesquite author Guadalupe Garcia McCall shares how writing the book helped her heal and brought her closer to her father:

Guadalupe Garcia McCall as a teenager, standing with her mother
Guadalupe Garcia McCall as a teenager, standing with her mother

My life with my mother was full of love and acceptance. I was blessed to be her daughter, even if for a little while. That’s why I wanted Under the Mesquite to be a true reflection of her nature. I wanted it to do what she did best—to nurture young people’s dreams, to give them the courage and strength to pursue those dreams. Writing Mesquite was both wonderful and painful. For in the process of writing this book, I pulled out and dusted off memories I had set aside, memories I had tucked into deep crevices in my heart, put away for fear of losing them. I am glad they are written down now. My mother lives because this book exists. It is her nurturing spirit that resides in these pages, her wisdom, her love, and I am so happy to be able to share her with you.

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Goal Setting for Reading Success Part 1: Setting a reachable, standards aligned reading goal

Jaclyn DeForgeJaclyn DeForge, our Resident Literacy Expert began her career teaching first and second grade in the South Bronx, and went on to become a literacy coach and earn her Masters of Science in Teaching. In this series for teachers, educators, and literacy coaches, Jaclyn discusses different strategies for ensuring students hit end-of-year benchmarks in reading.

These days, the words testing or assessment tend to bring up many conflicting emotions among educators, but determining where your students need to be at the end of the year and how you (the teacher)are going to keep track of individual progress toward each standard is a key part of proactive planning.

With my students, it was really important to me that they feel ownership of their success by being able to clearly see how their actions affected their achievement, so we did a lot of individualized goal setting and consistently measured our progress toward said goals.  The result was a classroom full of empowered children who were aware of where they were strong and what they needed to work on, and confident in the knowledge that there was a plan as to how we were going to get there.  This transparency in teaching can absolutely yield huge rewards, but it does take some proactive planning.

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What does Ramadan celebrate?

from Sharing Our Homeland
from Sharing Our Homeland

Today marks the first day of Ramadan, a month-long celebration for Muslims around the world. Ramadan occurs during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and is a time for prayer, fasting, and self-reflection. According to Islamic tradition, Ramadan is when Allah, God, revealed the first verses of the Qu’ran, the holy book, to the prophet Muhammed.

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Cover reveal: DIVERSE ENERGIES

For a long time we’ve been talking about our upcoming anthology, Diverse Energies, and I am thrilled to be able to share the cover with all of you at last!

Diverse Energies is a YA anthology of dystopian stories with a focus on diversity, and features stories by several award-winning speculative fiction writers including Ursula K. Le Guin, Paolo Bacigalupi, Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, and Greg van Eekhout. So, without further ado:

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One More Sensational Summer Read Aloud!

For the last installment in our series on Sensational Summer Read Alouds, literacy expert Jaclyn DeForge shares one final title that has a high student-interest level, can be used to hit multiple Common Core learning standards, and is super rich in terms of content, just like A Full Moon is Rising and Silent Star.

Balarama: A Royal ElephantToday’s Pick: Balarama: A Royal Elephant

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Read the first three chapters of Summer of the Mariposas!

Loved Under the Mesquite? For a limited time, we’re sharing the first three chapters of Belpré winner Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s next book, Summer of the Mariposas, out in October! Summer of the Mariposas is a YA retelling of The Odyssey about five sisters who embark on a road trip through Mexico to return a dead man to his family, and come face to face with some monsters of Mexican folklore along the way. Enjoy, and let us know what you think!

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