Wonderful Websites

http://www.storylineonline.net/ Studio Actors Guild members share quality children's books; this month featuring Lou Diamonds reading Polar Express

http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/index.asp Interactive tools can be used to supplement a variety of lessons and provide opportunities for students to use technology while developing their literacy skills.

http://www.colorincolorado.org/homepage.php Bilingual site is part of Reading Rockets, WETA's multimedia initiative that provides information, activities, and advice to Spanish-speaking parents to help their children learn to read.

http://www.rif.org/ The RIF Reading Planet section provides educational games and activities for kids.

http://www.starfall.com/ For beginning readers; interactive books and rhyming word family games that teach phonemic awareness, comprehension, vocabulary building, and spelling skills.

Adolescent Literacy

Stuck in the Middle: Strategies to Engage Middle-Level Learners By: Traci Maday (2008)is one of the many relevant and interesting articles I've read recently in the newsletter published at http://www.adlit.org/. Maday describes three strategies that can help create a meaningful curriculum to engage middle-level learners. Drawing from effective classroom practices across grade levels as well as from research about the social, emotional, and physical development of middle-level learners, Maday offers practical
and meaningful suggestions...that may have been easily overlooked in the rush to finish the curriculum. http://www.adlit.org/article/27334.

This resource is a wealth of information for parents and educators of kids in grades 4-12.

Engaging ALL Students In Learning

Too often students wait and wait and wait for their turn to talk during instruction. While many teachers are striving to maintain a structured and disciplined classroom environment, they may unintentionally prevent students from elaborated responses, asking higher-level questions, and pigbacking thoughts based on other students' statements and wonderings. Granted there is a limited amount of instructional time and way too much content to cover, but if teachers must severely restrict student-teacher and student-student interaction so teacher talk is always predominate, then learning/achievement does not happen with all students.

As Marica Tate says, "Sit and get doesn't grow dendrites!" Her terrific book, Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites, offers many suggestions about ways to actively engage all students in the learning process. Some of them include using humor and telling stories, integratating games into lessons, using mnemonics and metaphors to prompt memories, and purposeful movement.

Think, Pair, Share and Search, Find, Tell/Show are two routines that can be used to focus students' attention on getting meaning from print and then discussing it with another student.

As a society, we can't afford for our students not be be successful learners. If the "best and brightest" are bored during instruction, they will discover ways to entertain or to challenge their minds! If those students who are struggling to learn don't have a clue as to how to begin an assignment, they will discover ways to escape the classroom! Schools reflect excellence when everyone...educators and students...focus their discoveries on learning!

Besides, active engagement in the learning process if fun!

Student Center Activities Search Tool

Have you used the great new Search Tool from Florida Center for Reading and Research? http://www.fcrr.org/SCASearch/ facilitates access to the 500+ individual K-5 Student Center Activies as well as to instructional routines from Empowering Teachers.

Don't forget ALL activities in a student center or workstation should be PAINLESS PRACTICE, skills they have previously been taught!

Storybook Project

During a recent trip to my neighborhood Barnes and Noble, I learned about the Women's Storybook Project of Texas. I chose to donate Runaway Bunny to this project; it will soon be in the hands of a child whose mother is incarcerated. The project volunteers take donated books to the prisons; record each mother reading a specific book; then mail the book and that tape to the mother's child. Although they won't be together, some child will get to listen to his or her mom reading Runaway Bunny.

Statistics indicate that 1 of 5 children of incarcerated parents end up in prison. This project hopes that by developing stronger relationships between imprisoned mothers and their children, these numbers may be changed. The Women’s Storybook Project of Texas started in Austin, Texas in 2003 and currently targets the children of women who are imprisoned at Gatesville prisons.
http://www.storybookproject.org/

Browse http://www.fcnetwork.org/storybook.pdf to learn the origins of this project in our country and for suggestions on starting a Storybook Project in your area.

Awesome Books for the Holidays

Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Christmas, Jane O’Connor continues to expand our vocabulary in her splendiferous book that describes the challenges of decorating for Christmas. Heirlooms, delectable, and devastated are only 3 of the fancy words that Fancy Nancy uses as the Clancy family prepare for a Joyeux Noel (that’s French for Merry Christmas). Besides the great vocabulary, Nancy also shows us how we can create our own heirlooms! ISBN#978-0-06-123590-0

Kids in 3rd grades and up will enjoy the rich details in Audrey Wood's text and Robert Florczak's illustrations in A Cowboy Christmas~The Miracle at Lone Pine Ridge. The challenges of surviving the spectacular, yet harsh realities of ranching in the pioneer West, plus the trusting bond between a cowboy and a young boy make this a great read for girls and boys! ISBN#0-689-82190-5

Cynthia Rylant, author, and Diane Goode, illustrator, share a beautiful account of how many celebrated the joy of the holidays with homemade ornaments, Christmas Eve service, and brown bags with candy, nuts & tangerines. It makes one yearn for Christmas In The Country! ISBN#0-439-76985-X

These are only 3 of the many awesome books that reflect the joy and wonder of the holidays. What are some of your favorites?

Differentiated Instruction is a Way of Thinking, Not a Formula

With strong, informed instructional leaders, schools can focus to establish mechanisms to increase student achievement. A coherent school-wide plan for high-quality instruction, organized resources and personnel to support that instruction and frequent and on-going observations of classroom instruction with specific feedback teachers and consistent clear communication between all staff members are all vital components for successful and systematic implementation of differentiated instruction.

Professional development can be used to strengthen and enhance knowledge and skills of teachers and staff as they plan and deliver differentiated instruction so every student may become successful.





The following describes an all-day professional development session that can be customized by Reading Instruction Co. to meet the needs in your schools.

Putting Differentiated Instruction Into Practice
Responding to student data means intentionally planning and delivering differentiated reading instruction. How to organize data-identified, flexible small groups for instruction that targets the most important components per grade level, yet follows the same scope and sequence and instructional routines as the core reading instruction will be discussed. Participants in this workshop will learn how to appropriately plan differentiation within any or all of the following four components: content, materials, activities, and instructional delivery. Participants will have opportunities to practice differentiating lessons for all students, including those struggling to learn to read well, those successfully reading on grade level, and those easily reading beyond grade level.

Looking for more information on RTI?

The National Center on Response to Intervention, http://www.rti4success.org/, provides a wealth of resources, plus evidence-based tools/interventions.

The RTI Action Network, http://www.rtinetwork.org/, shared documented ways to fund RTI strategies by effective use of ARRA funding. The free RTI Action Network webcasts may eithr be viewed in real time or accessed in the listed archives. Presentations by national experts, including Don Dresher, Jack Fletcher, and Lynn Fuchs, clearly share specific findings from recent research. These webcasts can be a valuable tool in professional development.

Reading Instruction Co. offers the following sessions to support full implementation of RTI in your school district.

Using SBRI and RTI TO Help ALL Students Become Successful Readers
Scientific-Based-Reading-Instruction (SBRI) and Response-to-Intervention (RTI) are not simply current "buzz words" in reading education, but reference realistic ways that schools can significantly increase student achievement in reading, especially for those students struggling to learn to read. School leadership teams, including superintendents, principals, and district/school Special Education and Title I professional staff will have an opportunity to further develop and enhance their knowledge of how they can systematically implement RTI so it becomes institutionalized within their schools and consistently improves student reading achievement.

Implementing Tiered Instruction: Meeting Literacy Needs of Diverse Learners
Tiered reading instruction holds great promise for reducing overall reading problems in the elementary schools. School-wide approach to effective reading instruction includes:

• Tier 1 where the teacher uses the core reading program (or basal) to provide instruction to all students, both in whole group format and in small, flexible groups.


• By analyzing assessment data, the teacher identifies those students who need additional, targeted instruction delivered daily in a small group (beyond time and place designated for Tier I instruction). While Tier 2 instruction is often delivered by the classroom teachers, some schools use other professionals to provide Tier 2 reading instruction/intervention.


• Progress monitoring of students receiving instruction in both Tiers 1 and 2 can result in the identification of the students whose reading achievement has not yet met expectations. These students are then identified for Tier 3, a more intensive and more sustained level of additional reading instruction/intervention. In most schools, students in Tier 3 are provided the additional daily instruction by interventionists.


• Remember: Students served in both Tier 1 and Tier 2 OR students served in both Tier 1 and Tier 3 you may see, But students served in both Tier 2 and Tier 3, may never be!

The Angry Thunderstorm

In The Angry Thunderstorm, author Carol Henson Keesee and illustrator Rachel Henson show us a glimpse into both the world of a frightened child and that of a thunderstorm who wants to be understood! Parents will have fun sharing this book to calm youngsters’ fears of booming thunderstorms. While gaining accurate information about weather, children can also gain great appreciation for the role of the particular thunderstorm in this charming story.

The illustrations clearly reflect the changing emotions of the young child and this thunderstorm. Keesee’s use of rhythm and rhyme make this a delightful read-aloud! Plus, the robust vocabulary makes it outstanding for discussing word meanings and descriptive language.

Details about ordering this book are available at www.picklebearbooks.com.

Classroom teachers of Pre-K through 3rd grade students have enjoyed using The Angry Thunderstorm to develop and extend students’ vocabulary, fluency and comprehension skills. Teachers have also effectively used this text to model of personification as they honed the writing skills of older students. Secondary school teachers have used it to review the story elements of a short story.

Information about the customized curriculum (including vocabulary study, graphic organizers and Readers’ Theater)from Reading Instruction Co. may be obtained by emailing abfiala@sbcglobal.net.

Purposes and Intentions and Actions

I'm excited about beginning to blog! This is another step in my adventure to let the world know about my passion and purpose...I recently It's Not What You Sell, It's What You Stand For by Roy Spence and Haley Rushing. On the front of the book jacket, Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, comments on the this book's focus on the passionate pursuit of a purpose beyond money.

That really struck a chord in my heart!



I am PASSIONATE about enhancing and extending the knowledge and skills of educators (PreK-12) so ALL children will not only be successful readers, but will learn to love to read. High literacy skills in today's world (and certainly even more so in the world of tomorrow) are absolutely vital for personal and community success.



Recent research indicates that the happiest people in the world are not those with the most money, but those who realize their own sense of purpose, plus a sense that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves.



This blog reflects my own sense of purpose. More details to come soon!