Spelling is part of the Common Core State Standards, but doesn’t receive much coverage in education journals.  Often teachers use the same old same old strategies to teach spelling skills, including:  use the word in a sentence, copy the word ten times, look it up in the dictionary, say the letters of the word as...Read More

via GIPHY Our kids are coming to school this school year from a world driven by polarization, aggression, lack of civility, and bullying, among other ills.  All the more reason to inject more kindness into the classroom day.  Kindness is an instinct that is found in babies, but it needs stimulation from the environment to...Read More

The Common Core has made the learning of frequently used academic vocabulary words a top priority in their focus on creating standards in the public schools.   It follows then that finding just the right instructional strategies to teach these words is an important task for K-12 teachers.  Here is an 8-step strategic plan based...Read More