In today's digital age, online learning has become an essential part of education, enabling students and educators to connect and collaborate from

Hands-on pre-reading activities that encourage your elementary students to access their prior knowledge and make predictions.

Pupils will know more facts about the seven continents . They will read the passages and answer the questions to measure their understanding. This will improve their reading skills. Asia is the w

Asking questions before, during, and after reading comes very naturally to skilled readers, but for struggling readers, this skill can be just the opposite. Asking questions of varying depths is arguably the most important reading

If you are looking for some high-interest activities, try using animated shorts to teach inference. Free handouts focus on student learning.

Fluency tends to be a commonly overlooked skill, but you can change that by learning about strategies for teaching fluency with your elementary students!

In the digital age, technology has become an integral part of education, providing teachers with innovative tools to enhance their teaching and streamline

This post contains the animated short film "Glued." Download the accompanying handout leveled for upper elementary students to teach theme.

With the Common Core Standards in place, students are being asked more and more to use critical thinking skills to analyze literary and informational text. Inference is a prime example of a critical thinking skill used in classrooms today. Students are asked to read text and analyze it by

An alphabet arc can help develop students' letter knowledge, sequencing, automaticity, and more. Read on to learn how to use alphabet arcs.

Sign up for our mailing list to receive a FREE set of Fall Themed Bookmarks!SubscribeWe respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime..formkit-form[data-uid="92d6ae9dab"] *{box-sizing:border-box;}.formkit-form[data-uid="92d6ae9dab"]{-webkit-font-smoothing:antialiased;-moz-osx-font-smoothing:grayscale;}.formkit-form[data-uid="92d6ae9dab"] legend{border:none;font-size:inherit;margin-bottom:10px;padding:0;position:relative;display:table;}.formkit-form[data-uid="92d6ae9dab"] fieldset{border:0;padding:0.01em 0 0 0;margin:0;min-width:0;}.formkit-form[data-uid="92d6ae9dab"] body:not(:-moz-handler-blocked) fieldset{display:table-cell;}.formkit-form[data-uid="92d6ae9dab"]

Pixar short films are a great way to target essential literary elements and techniques from characterization to theme to conflict to symbolism. These Pixar short films inspire class discussion and analysis, and students can then in turn write essays based upon these films. They are an excellent to

Preschoolers can learn counting, subitizing, one-to-one correspondence and addition with this oversized domino math printable worksheet.

I can’t believe I’m already sharing the 2nd breakout edu |escape the classroom game! And I will be sharing one EVERY MONTH! The first one I’ve shared has been downloaded many times! I can ensure you, kids are having fun and they are learning at the same time. If you are not familiar with these […]

Use this color-coded schedule to help your five groups navigate through Daily 5 Rotations. The "meet with teacher" time is built in to facilitate guided reading.

Discover 10 fun activities to build pre-reading skills in preschoolers. Develop print awareness, motivation, listening comprehension, letter knowledge, and phonological awareness for early literacy success.

A LOOK AT LEXILES and Text Complexity While delivering PD yesterday, a teacher asked me, "What's a Lexile?" I wanted to say, "where have you been?" But the reality is--I commend her for not being afraid to ask what we think is such a basic question. We forget that some people have been so busy working in the trenches that they haven't been able to keep up. (They've been too busy administering tests, Student Learning Objective assessments, state exams and more.) So, listed below are the basics of LEXILES 101. Essential understandings: The Common Core has defined where "college and career ready" (CCR) students should be reading and it's a 1450 Lexile. Therefore, they scaffolded in reverse levels to graduate students at the appropriate level. These Lexile levels are more difficult than where typical students are reading. Lexile is an algorithm. It is a mathematical assessment of a linguistic product. Lexiles (and other readability statistics) are fallible. (For instance, it is not valid for prose or drama and is less valid for fiction in 1000+ Lexile range.) The parent organization to the CCSS, (CCSSO formally called the Governor’s convention) recently released a white paper verifying the validity of text complexity. Therefore, we have to pay attention to this essential shift to embrace "rigor" in reading. To read the recent white paper from the Council of Chief State School Officers click here. This article compares a number of algorithms and the summarizes text complexity for the CCSS. Text complexity formulas were meant for instructional purposes. Pleasure reading should be allowed at any level and this is validated in the Common Core, Appendix A, page 9, paragraph 1: It is very interesting, to compare the variables used among the six different "approved" complexity measures. Metametrics (Lexile) uses the simplest measure of only word count and sentence length. (Lexile.com provides a search tool for books, but many are missing.) Other companies including Accelerated Reader (ATOS) and Pearson, DRP, etc... add additional measures of review such as punctuation, a 100,000-word vocabulary match, and more. Therefore, we would conclude that the ratings of the latter companies would be more accurate picture of complexity and appropriateness. This quote from page 17 of the white paper puts it diplomatically: "There is no clear "gold standard" measure of text difficulty against which to compare the various metrics. Instead, we compared each metric against various reference measures based on grade level and student comprehension data for five sets of passages gathered for the study. These are defined and discussed in the sections following. Although there are limitations in the validity of these indicators as measures of text difficulty, the variety in their construction allows us to observe the robustness of the metrics and consider how different reference measures might affect their performance." Be sure to note that Microsoft Word's Flesch-Kincaid measure has also been proven valid. This picture shows how to "turn on" readability statistics within Word: Readability statistics, is only one characteristic to examine for instructional materials. Please see the charts below to identify correct grade levels and Lexiles - or level of complexity. The Common Core has asked teachers to evaluate classroom materials for quality as well as quantity. Complexity is only one piece of the puzzle. In addition, a teacher, librarian, or educator, has to pay attention to: • Complexity - Lexile, vocabulary • Qualitative measures -value • Reader and the task -is there enough in the text to foster good discussion, value -added assignments, and begin a knowledge exploration. How can I use this novel or passage to foster critical thinking skills? Every reading program (F and P, AR, Reading Counts, etc.) uses as its baseline, some metric to measure difficulty or "readability". Here is a chart by Perma-bound, which correlates the different reading measures:

data:blog.metaDescription

This worksheet is a great way for students to learn how to break down words into syllables. It's also a fun way for them to practice clapping out the syllables. Syllables Worksheet

Reading comprehension activities that are engaging to students are a must! These reading comprehension games and fun reading comprehension activities to improve reading comprehension will help your students learn reading comprehension skills while having fun at the same time.

This is a fun worksheet about adjectives and their antonyms. Students match each word in Twin Tom with its opposite in Twin Tyrone.

English Detailed List of Contractions Word Contraction are not aren’t cannot can’t could not couldn’t did not didn’t do not don’t does not doesn’t had not hadn’t have not haven’t he is he’s he has he’s he will he’ll he would he’d here is here’s I am I’m I have I’ve I will I’II I would I’d I had I’d is not isn’t it is it’s it has it’s it has it’s it will it’ll must not mustn’t she is she’s she has she’s she will she’ll Word Contraction she had she’d should not shouldn’t that is that’s there is