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Archives for July 2017

Lunch book clubs provide opportunity to challenge advanced readers

 • Classroom Tips

When students want to challenge themselves more in their reading, advanced book clubs are a great way to lend them the support they need to be successful.

My middle school doesn’t offer an honors language arts class, so all students are grouped together in regular classes. The challenge as a teacher is to meet the needs of the ELL and SPED students reading well below grade level as well as the ALP students capable of reading high school literature.

This past year I decided to offer a lunchtime book club for my advanced 8th graders using the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I figured if students were asked to read it again in high school they would benefit from a closer examination, and if they didn’t read it later (my son’s high school skipped it), they would at least have some exposure. I thought the book’s social issues about injustice would be easy to connect with contemporary issues in society….
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Reading tops the list of daily habits observed in wealthy, successful people

 • Issues in Education

You encourage students to read and teach them to set reading goals because you know it will help them later in life.

But, did you also know it might make them financially well off?

Tom Corley, an accountant and financial planner, researched the common habits of wealthy people for his book Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals. He discovered the difference between self-made millionaires compared to people making less than $35,000 a year came down to seven regular habits. And guess what? Reading tops the list….
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End-of-Year Surveys help teachers motivate students, maximize learning

 • Classroom Tips

Remember the course surveys at the end of every college class? I’ve often wondered why they’re not more commonly used in middle and high school.

Isn’t a student’s voice important to improving education?

As teachers, we collect data throughout the year about student progress on various standards we track. We know what our students can produce, but do we know how they feel about their learning? Do we know what activities they enjoyed most or what they think they learned the most from?

That’s what I set out to discover this year. I gave all of my 7th and 8th grade students an end-of-the year reflective survey and implored them to take it seriously. The information I gained was invaluable, and I’ll use it to help shape changes for next year….
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