Every lesson plan begins with a beginning.  Unfortunately, in all too many classrooms this beginning sounds something like this:  ”Now class, turn to page 428 of your textbook.” There’s nothing there to grab students (quite the reverse:  many kids will disengage from the class at that point). Every teacher needs to have a kit bag...Read More

Over the past decade there’s been a lot of debate about whether Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is valid as an approach to guide instruction.  I’m going to take up the points of this debate in a future post.  But right now, I want to argue for the most persuasive reason why every teacher...Read More

Everybody is born with a love for learning.  Look at a baby. She wants to explore everything around her, tasting, touching, smelling, feeling, hearing – learning all about the environment (including her own body).  Nature set things up that way so that we’d always be learning, growing, and adapting to an ever-changing environment. Something, however,...Read More

When I was in school, a long long time ago (sounds like the start of a fairy tale!), we had these Science Research Associates (SRA) reading programs that came in a box.  The box contained scores of laminated pages (like the files in a filing cabinet), each of which had a story on it with...Read More

Once a student has learned to decode (e.g. read the actual printed words on the page or screen), then reading teachers (and remedial teachers) launch into an enterprise called ”reading comprehension.” Taken at face value, this really just means being able to understand what you are reading.  There are rare cases of individuals who are...Read More