I’ve been hearing a lot about ”the science of reading” recently. This seems to be the new ne plus ultra ingredient in the ”best” reading programs.  It’s part of this ”evidence-based” nonsense that I’ve written about elsewhere in my blog.  As if some of us are going to sit back and let researchers in white coats...Read More

Think of an assessment in school and very likely you’ll think of a teacher handing out some papers with questions on them, and students providing the answers.  In fact, this scenario represents by far the bulk of assessments that teachers give to students.  But, this type of assessment barely scratches the surface of what is...Read More

Let’s face it, folks, there are a lot of kids out there who are read-i-phobic because books are full of words – those squiggly markings on the page that don’t make sense when you’re just starting out to read, and for some kids, don’t make sense even after spending quite a bit of time trying...Read More

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