Explicit (adj.) means stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt.

 …explicit instruction is helpful for all students, harmful for none, and crucial for some (Snowling & Hulme, 2005).  

Mary Stowe, our SIM strategy instructor, had this quote in her email signature. I loved it the moment I first saw it and it lead me down a learning path that I was excited to share with you. It's been on my heart for a while.  

I have questioned my own explicit talk when teaching. Sometimes, I think I use too many words and what I am saying is not clear. Brene' Brown would tell you that unclear is unkind. And that is so true. It is unkind to be teaching others something and have it be confusing. That leads to frustration and no learning. Definitely not the goal of this instructor. 

But how does one get better at explicit teaching? We have heard it said. Good instruction is explicit and systematic. As a systems girl, I get that part. But how do I become more explicit? 

In my own personal quest to learn more, here are some resources I have found. My heart is that you have found them as helpful as I have and will grow your skills as a teacher. #knowbetterdobetter

1) Teach Explicitly—I do, You Watch & Listen video by Smekens Education (5:32 minutes). 

2) To start, watch this Explicit Instruction video from VLP (Virginia Literacy Partnerships, new PALS) (3:12 minutes).  Then, view the Module from VLP  on Explicit Instruction (28:56 minutes). This will go more in-depth. Here is an infographic from VLP as well that complements both resources. 

3)  Anita Archer is the queen of explicit instruction. Here is a blog post from The Measured Mom, describing Archer's elements from her book shown below. I absolutely LOVE her elements....like there are too many that would be my favorite. 

Why teach grammar?

This kept coming up in my Twitter feed...

Interested? Read more here.

And this one. 

Dyslexia Awareness Month-October 2022

 

https://www.freepressjournal.in/viral/i-can-make-in-life-10-year-old-girl-goes-viral-for-writing-inspirational-reverse-poem-about-dyslexia

While there are MANY sources of information on Dyslexia, here are 3 resources I highly recommend checking out. 

1) Dyslexia in the Classroom: What Every Teacher Needs to Know (International Dyslexia Association)

2) 9 Films that Feature Dyslexia 

3) Our #isleREAD#isleWRITE website! 

Also, please attend our SEAC-Special Education Advisory Committee meeting on Wednesday, October 19th from 6:00-7:00 p.m. at Westside. I will be sharing information with families and the community. Please help spread the word! 

Happy Learning! :) 

Valley of Latent Potential

You all are doing the very hard work of teaching our learners all about school! 

Please keep fighting the good fight of teaching your students those routines and habits for literally everything (decoding, tying shoes, going to the bathroom, lining up for recess, adding, comprehension, identify context clues, etc., etc., etc.) 

Those routines take time. It is really hard to teach them. It is not simple, nor do we want an easy, fast fix. Right now, you are experiencing the valley of latent potential because it is SO difficult right now to keep teaching those routines when students aren't learning them as quickly as you would like. However, when the routine has been learned over time, the actual result will be even better than what you expected!!!! 

https://twitter.com/PepsMccrea/status/1570110143509188608

​You got this and I got you! ​Please don't give up. Our most vulnerable learners need YOU! :) 

Book Talk Tuesday: isleREAD Book Recommendations

Need a new book to read for fun?

Have a book you think others would love to read? 

Check out and add to the #isleREAD Book Recommendations Padlet!!! 

Anchor Charts

My favorite definition of an anchor chart comes from this Learning for Justice. "An anchor chart is an artifact of classroom learning. Like an anchor, it holds students' and teachers' thoughts, ideas and processes in place. Anchor charts can be displayed as reminders of prior learning and built upon over multiple lessons." 

Anchor charts are a fun, visual reminder for the students who, quite frankly, haven't learned what you are teaching yet. They are a scaffold to support a student who needs the reminder of what you are teaching. In fact, it's one of my favorite teaching tools to display around the room. 

Want to learn more about the BEST way to use them in your classroom for EVERYTHING?? Check out this post by We Are Teachers. Since this is a post about favorites I guess, my favorite line is, "It’s very important not to create the entire poster ahead of time. They are best used as an interactive tool." When created with the kids, they view it as their own and will actually use it rather than that grammar poster you bought and displayed. No offense. They are just not my favorite. ;) 

Both/And

Some folks think in terms of black and white. There is not gray in their world. I have always appreciated the finite thinking of, "It is this or it is this. There is no in between." My world has ALWAYS seen both sides of the coin. My world has ALWAYS seen gray. My world has always though, "It could be this or this. So much in between." I am not an either/or girl. 

Image from: https://medium.com/creating-the-life-you-want/either-or-vs-both-and-2490611b5a5

Because of this, my heart and mind struggle immensely against all the controversy in reading currently.  It is not balanced literacy OR science of reading. It is not word walls OR sound walls. It is not kids should only read leveled texts OR kids should never read leveled texts. To be honest, these are just a few of things that are not either/or for me. I could have kept going forever....

My both/and thinking really roared it's head when I listened to this podcast, "A Little Bit of Myth Busting: The Pet Peeves of Reading Experts" by Literacy Talks. 

How about you? Are you either/or or both/and? 

Reflection is a MUST!

Congratulations! You have just finished another hard year in education. While you may NOT want to think about school at all (I truly get it; avoidance can be amazing), I urge you to pause. And reflect. Reflect means to think deeply or carefully about something. You care deeply about teaching, otherwise you wouldn't be in this profession. So...before you completely block out the year ask yourself these questions. 

What do I want to keep doing next year because it worked?

What do I want to stop doing next year because it didn't work? 

What do I want to start doing next year because you have always wanted to do it?

What do I want to change next year because it didn't quit work but it has potential? 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/blavandmaster/51360759097

I actually reflect on these questions throughout the year as well. I have a running list titled "Next Year". But you gotta start somewhere. Please pause. Today is a great day to start. 

Happy reflecting! :) 

Did you know there are 44 phonemes in the English language?

The answer is most likely, nope! And, you may not even know what a phoneme is. Guess what? That is a-ok. You weren't really taught what a phoneme was in your undergrad unless you have a speech and language degree. 

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound heard by our ears. We associate phonemes or sounds with letters. Wanna know something else? Those letters that spell the phonemes are actually called graphemes. Here is an example. The short /i/ phoneme can be spelled with the grapheme i as in pig. The long /I/ phoneme can be spelled with the graphemes i, igh, ie, and then of course iCe like in the words hi, light, pie, and nice. 

Students need to know all 44 phoneme sounds and their corresponding graphemes in order to spell and read. Here is a great 2-pager that lists the most common phonemes and their corresponding graphemes. How many did you know? How many do your students know? 

Happy Learning!