First, my complaint:  I don’t like the direction that reading instruction has taken in this country, moving as it has toward lock-step teaching of phonemic awareness, incessant teaching of reading comprehension ”skills” (e.g. finding the main idea, making inferences etc.), and ”close reading” strategies (where the child is restricted to just what is in the...Read More

Many educators and parents have been worrying that the interruption in school being experienced by so many students nationwide (and worldwide) as a result of COVID-19 will result in significant ”learning loss.”  That is, by not having previous learning reinforced, and by not adding new learning to their experience, students will backslide in their academic...Read More

This is the final video in my video series based on my book The Power of the Adolescent Brain: Strategies for Teaching Middle and High School Students published by ASCD. In this video we look at 8 ”brain hostile practices” — in other words, ”worst practices” in middle and high schools, because they fail to...Read More