Teacherof20

I felt so honored/nervous/all the feelings you feel when you’ve gotten your dream job, but now the anticipation of what’s to come is looming over your shoulder. It was exactly the same way I felt when I first graduated from college, and got my first teaching job. There are so many feelings all bundled up: fear, joy, pride, nervous, etc. I was finally a reading specialist! Sure, in the past I had provided intervention to my grade level team, I had completed my masters, I had tested and gotten my Reading Specialist certification on my teaching certificate. However, I had never actually held the title of reading specialist until now. I couldn’t believe people actually got paid to meet with reading groups all day! That was by far my favorite thing to do during my teaching day. Then the nerves and apprehension set in. How well would I know my students if I wasn’t spending all day with them? How do I provide intervention to 4 th graders if I’ve only taught kinder and 1 st in m

How do you implement Words Their Way into a classroom? It is very simple. The first step is to give students the initial assessment: it is basically a spelling test. After you have given the spelling test, you use the score sheet to score student’s answers. The score sheet looks like this: The column that your students miss the most (the ones I’ve circled) is the one where you being instruction. The column they fall under will determine what WTW book you will use. The books are: Letter Name-Alphabetic, Within Word Pattern, Syllables and Affixes, and Derrivational Relations. I have broken down the classroom instruction so that each day we are doing an activity with our Words Their Way sorts. Here is what my groups look like in the second grade classroom I’m mentoring. I’ve changed the names of the students for confidentiality purposes: Short vowels: John, Sam, Jane, Sally, Audrey Digraphs and Blends: Arron, Greg, Katie Long vowels: Mary, Marlene, Josh, Nicole, Christi

I've heard it said that cooperative learning strategies are hard to implement in the general education classroom. I believe that not only can it be done, but that it’s impossible to teach without these! Here     is a link on the research that supports these in the classroom. The research Marzano has done has greatly impacted my teaching philosophy. As he notes, it is important when utilizing these strategies to be systematic in their use. It is important to embed individual and group accountability, as well as ensuring the interaction and interdependence within students is positive.  I think teachers may shy away from these strategies because we can feel out of our comfort zone at times. Most of the teachers today were traditional students of yesterday. We sat in rows facing the teacher, and didn't have many opportunities to share our learnings with our peers. Even as teachers, the professional development we attend rarely implement the strategies they so adamantly teach!