Category: Summer Reading

  • Summer Reading & Learning Recs for Elementary Teachers

    *This post was originally published on 5/30/22. It was updated on 6/4/22 as I added even more resources to my summer learning stack! Enjoy!* Summer break is just weeks away or already here for many! It’s the perfect time to unwind, recharge, and do a little self-paced reading or learning in a book club! If…

  • Sneak Peek at Chapter #1: How Do I Build and Maintain a Reading Community?

    The first chapter in Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Reading focuses on building and maintaining a classroom reading community. Before students can deeply engage in the challenging yet exhilarating work of solving words, making meaning, and authentically interacting with text, they need to feel safe, welcome, and ready to take risks in…

  • Got Questions About Teaching Reading? Answers are on the Way! Book & Blog Series

    I’m thrilled my new book, Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Reading, will be in teachers’ hands in a matter of days! This book was written with practicing and soon-to-be practicing elementary classroom teachers in mind. I’m hoping it clears up some confusing and conflicting messages, offers reassurance, and provides practical methods and…

  • New Book Announcement & Early Reviews!

    I’m thrilled to announce that my new book for teachers, Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Reading in Corwin’s Five to Thrive series was just sent to the printer! It will be in teachers’ hands in March 2022! Even though I wrote this book with new teachers in mind, anyone who is looking…

  • The Last 20 Days of Literacy Learning: 6 days to go, Drafting Our Summer Reading Plans

    Post #8 in the Last 20 Days of Literacy Series… Written after a crazy early release day of 5th grade promotion practice, music, PE, and a little literacy time squeezed in. All posts in this blog series can be found here. For the past few weeks now, we’ve been chatting about our plans for summer reading…

  • The Last 20 days of Literacy Learning: 20 Days to Go, The Art of Comprehension

    *Disclaimer- this blog series will most likely not include poetic, profound writing. Rather, it will consist of on-the-fly quick writes after my teaching day during the last 20 days of school. Reader, you’ve been warned. Today marked day 160 of the school year. My fifth graders have 20 days left of elementary school. While we…

  • The Last 20 Days of Elementary Literacy Learning Blog Series

    So much is emphasized, written, and said about the first 20 days of school. Well, I’m entering my last 20, and the work isn’t even close to being done. This blog series will chronicle the literacy learning of the last 20 days of school in my fifth grade classroom. The Last 20 Days of Elementary…

  • 5 Decisions I Made to Support Kids Reading Over the Break

    Spring break is here! Well, it’s here for those of us in my corner of the San Francisco Bay Area. All of my fifth graders have made plans for reading over the break, and I trust that hundreds upon hundreds of pages will be read over the next nine days. Why? Well, as a teacher,…

  • Hang in there, teachers! You got this.

    Three days of school left… I’m not going to lie. It has been rather challenging. In fact, it has been a downright struggle to stay upright the past couple weeks.  I’m still knee deep in finishing mandated summative assessments, entrenched in 5th grade practice for their formal promotion ceremony on Friday, and am just overwhelmed…