Category Archives: Educator Resources

Lesson plans, activity guides, and helpful tips from our literacy specialist and guest educators.

Using Children’s Books to Teach About Love and Belonging

Guest blogger Katie Cunningham is an Assistant Professor at Manhattanville College. Her teaching and scholarship centers around children’s literature, critical guest bloggerliteracy, and supporting teachers to make their classrooms joyful and purposeful. Katie has presented at numerous national conferences and is the editor of The Language and Literacy Spectrum, New York Reading Association’s literacy journal. 

We know love when we see it. The best mornings I have as a parent are when I see love between my sons. Moments like when my one-and-a-half year old spontaneously hugs my four year old, and he hugs him back. The best mornings I had as a teacher were when I saw love between my students. When a second grader high-fives a classmate for taking a risk with a math problem or when a student sits by someone at lunch who looks alone. As a parent and an educator, I am always on the look out for stories that center love in ways that enable young children to immediately but deeply understand what love is.

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Remembering My Grandfather on Memorial Day

To be honest, I don’t usually think very much about Memorial Day. It was designated by the federal government as a national holiday to remember Americans killed while in the military service, but most of us, myself included, usually associate the holiday with lighter things: days off, BBQs, warm weather, white shoes.

This year, though, I’m thinking about the holiday a little differently. Last month, I went down to Florida to visit my 99-year-old grandmother, Ruth. Although age has drained her of much of her physical strength, mentally she is still very much herself: she can tell jokes, beat me at board games, and recount in great detail some of the major world events that she lived through. And, since she was born in November 1913, the number of things she’s seen firsthand is a pretty impressive list.

I’d known she lived through World War II, and that my grandfather, Pop Jerry, had fought in the army. But you know what? In the 26 years of my life, I’d never thought to ask her what it was like before. In school we analyze primary source materials over and over, but we so easily forget that our own family members, especially older generations, are often walking primary sources.

So I asked: what did it feel like to live through WWII? And the story I got was not what I expected.

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10 Great Resources for Teaching About Racism

It’s been 59 years since Brown vs. Board of Education overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine in schools, but that doesn’t mean discrimination has disappeared from the classroom. Teaching children about race can be a tricky topic, but luckily, there are many great resources and books out there. Our new picture book,  As Fast As Words Could Fly, takes a unique look at school desegregation, following an African American family in North Carolina in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. Based on the experiences of author Pamela Tuck’s father, it’s proof that just one young person could – and still can – make a big difference.

10 Resources for Teaching About Race
illustration by Eric Velasquez from As Fast As Words Could Fly

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Unpacking the Common Core Standards Horizontally: Informational Text

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 her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about the importance of looking at the standards horizontally as well as vertically, and in this final installment in the series, I’m going to do just that as I walk you through what effective close reading questioning can look like, unpacking one strand at a time using texts of varying complexities.  Last up:

READING STANDARDS FOR INFORMATIONAL TEXT K-3, Craft and Structure, Strand 5

LIVING-IN-AN-IGLOO

In Kindergarten, the strand reads:  Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

Example text:  Living in an Igloo by Jan Reynolds

genre: informational text

Strand-specific questions:

  • Point to the front cover of the book.  What information can you find on the front cover of the book?  Why is that information important?
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Unpacking the Common Core Standards, Part 3: Thinking Horizontally

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 her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking talked the importance of looking at the standards horizontally as well as vertically, and in today’s post, I’m going to do just that as I walk you through what effective close reading questioning can look like, unpacking one strand at a time using texts of varying complexities.  On the docket for today:

Reading Standards for Literature K-3, Craft and Structure, Strand 4

Pencil-Talk-And-Other-School-Poems cover

In Kindergarten, the strand reads:  Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

Example text: Pencil Talk and Other School Poems by Anastasia Suen & illustrated by Susie Lee Jin

genre: poetry

Strand-specific questions:

  • Look at the poem “Pencil Talk.” Which words were tricky for you to sound out?  Did you come across any words where you weren’t sure what they meant?***What does the word scratch mean? Bonus:  What does the poet mean when she writes “Pencils can talk…but we can’t!
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Unpacking the Common Core Standards, Part 2: Thinking Horizontally

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 her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.  

Last week, I talked about the importance of looking at the standards horizontally as well as vertically, and over the next few weeks, I’m going to do just that as I walk you through what effective close reading questioning can look like, unpacking one strand at a time using texts of varying complexities.  Next up:

Reading Standards for Literature K-3, Craft and Structure, Strand 6

Unpacking the Common Core Standards

In Kindergarten, the strand reads:  With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.

Example text:  Elizabeti’s Doll by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen and illustrated by Christy Hale

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Books for children with autism: Jay and Ben

Katharine Swanson photoGuest bloggerIn this guest post by special education teacher and Jay and Ben co-author Katharine Swanson, she explains how the book can be used as a tool when reading with children with autism.

During Autism Awareness Month (and all year round), teachers and parents alike think about the importance of educating their child with autism in the most effective way.  The most effective method of instruction varies from student to student and is as wide as the spectrum itself.  However, one universal method revolves around written words being broken down into picture symbols to represent words and sentences.

In my experience in the classroom, students benefit from texts and questions being broken down into pictures to make them more visual and concrete.  People with autism tend to think in visual, concrete ways.  The added visual element enhances their comprehension of the material being presented to them. Therein lies the main benefit of a book like Jay and Ben.  The story is simple and already broken down into manipulative picture symbols to help students of all levels comprehend.  The picture symbols with the book are removable and can be manipulated as needed for different students.

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Unpacking the Common Core Standards, Part 1: Thinking Horizontally

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 her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.  

For many educators across the country, this has been our first full year of adapting our instruction to meet the rigor of the new Common Core standards.  One of the best pieces of advice I’ve received lately regarding planning under the new standards is a simple concept that can be a bit challenging to apply:  think horizontally.

It’s so easy to become fixated on the standards *only* for the grade we’re teaching, but thinking horizontally through the strands allows for so much room for "It's so easy to become fixated on the standards only for the grade we're teaching, but thinking horizontally through the strands allows for so much room for differentiation."differentiation.  Most students have only had the benefit of one year of instruction under the new standards, and may not have yet mastered the skills that the Common Core envisions as prerequisites.  For example, the Common Core is written as if this year’s third grader has been receiving Common Core-level instruction since Kindergarten and has mastered all the standards leading up to third grade.  Chances are, this hypothetical third grader probably hasn’t, and may need further instruction around some of the skills and strategies found in the standards. An effective way to fill in the gaps is to work horizontally through the standards using increasingly complex text.

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