Spelling Inventory – Back to School Baseline Assessments
Lower elementary students won’t always spell words the right way. “Invented spelling” is a powerful tool to enable students to write words even when they can’t spell them yet. Still, spelling reveals what students know about phonics patterns. Students who spell the long e sound with just the letter e, a silent e at the…
Keep readingDiagnostic Decoding Surveys – Back to School Baseline Assessments
The first week of school is when you finally get to know the people who days before were just names on your class list. You get to match names to faces, and you get to learn about each student’s personality. The first week of school can also be a great time to do baseline reading…
Keep readingOnline First Week of School Lifesavers
I made it through my first ever online first week of school! It went much better than I expected it would. Not everything went exactly as planned, but I feel like I got to know my students and got to set up some routines. There were a few life savers that I don’t think I…
Keep readingJoy in the Growth
This is my fourth year of teaching. I had thought that by this point I would be doing many things for at least the fourth time. This year should have been my fourth open house and my fourth first day of school. I should be planning my fourth overnight camp and thinking about my fourth…
Keep readingDot Talks
A couple weeks ago, I posted about my “Dailies” that I do every day with my second grade class. This week, I want to share about a variation on Number Talks called Dot Talks. When adults count objects, they rarely count each individual thing. Instead, they subitize, or mentally put objects into groups of a…
Keep readingDailies in Grade 2
Does anyone remember playing Neopets? Neopets had certain activities you could only do once a day, so I would always go through the list of my “dailies” right after logging in. Most of the daily rewards were small, but getting them every day would help them build up into something more substantial. When I moved…
Keep readingSetting Goals
During writing class this week, I talked with my students about setting goals. I score their writing on a rubric, so I told them to each choose something on the rubric to be a goal for them during their revision process. When I conferenced with one student, he said, “I’m really good at filling a…
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About Me
I’m Cora, and I am an elementary teacher. I taught fourth grade for two years, and now I teach second grade. I have a M.Ed. in Literacy, which gives me a unique perspective on all the subject areas. My goal is to provide big-picture models for approaching teaching as well as practical steps for implementing those models.
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