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This blog entry provides advice on how to teach reading comprehension using grade level text instead of instructional level text. It provides 8 useful approaches.

Have you ever had moments in your life where something seemed to be coming at you from multiple directions? That's how I learned about my all-time favorite television show: Breaking Bad. Numerous friends from different backgrounds talked about it sometime during the second season, and I decided to give it a chance. I was hooked. That's also how I came across the book 

In past posts, I've shared a bit about the Cognitive Science Microcredential I earned through the Center for Excellence in Leadership and Learning. Cognitive science is all about understanding how our minds work. The main point of the microcredential is to know how people learn best and then apply that understanding to support the work we do in the classroom. Today, I want to focus on the concept of Retrieval Practice.

Last week, we began a new round of professional development. One of our School Improvement Goals is to increase the number of students proficient in evidence and elaboration in their writing. In our most recent round of ILEARN testing (the test used in our state to check student proficiency in math and ELA in grades 3-8), only slightly more than 17% showed proficiency in this area.

I’ve recently been reading the book Just Tell Them: The Power of Explanations and Explicit Teaching by Zach Groshell. I see it as something of the convergence of the work from John Sweller on Cognitive Load Theory and the work from Anita Archer on Explicit Instruction. I’ve been really enjoying the book, and I highly recommend it as a way to reflect on how you explain your instruction to your students.

Some of you may not know this about me, but many of the core memories from my pre- and teen years relate to my time as a Boy Scout. I attended weekly meetings with my troop; we had campouts throughout the year; each summer, we went to a scout camp; and every other year, there was a high adventure trip. Eventually, I worked my way up the ranks from Scout to Eagle, the highest rank available in scouting.

As a teacher, what do you define your primary purpose as? We all know that a lot goes into supporting our students – we’ve been trained in SEL, Restorative Practices, Crisis Intervention, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and that list could go on. In addition to the training we’ve had, we have supervisory roles; we communicate with families, we manage our classrooms, we document student attendance, we collaborate with our colleagues, and we may even support students by organizing extra-curricular activities.

In the last post, I shared a bit about Barak Rosenshine and the work he did to bring together research in cognitive science, master teachers, and cognitive supports. His principles were created to support teachers in bringing research theory into regular classroom practice. In the last post, we briefly discussed the first five of the principles: Begin a lesson with a short review, present new material in small steps, ask a large number of questions, provide models, and guide student practice.

As a classroom teacher, I remember spending chunks of time with my students. We'd read, sometimes me to them, sometimes them to me, sometimes to each other, and sometimes on their own. Then, I would do some comprehension activity—maybe some questions to answer, a written response, or something similar. This is how I was trained then, so it's what I did.