By the time students reach middle school, the focus of reading instruction shifts to reading comprehension. Do students understand what they’re reading? The purpose of
I’m going to start this blog post off with what could very well be an unpopular opinion. I hate seasonal lessons and activities. I hate
This may not be true for all, but for many of us, we chose to teach middle school ELA because we love to read and/or
When we teach the same reading standards and content year after year after year, it’s easy to get stuck in a pattern. In this blog
Book clubs are one way to get students together in small groups to discuss a common book that they’re reading. In the past, I’ve avoided
The reading skill of being able to summarize a chapter of text is often overlooked. I recently asked a student to tell me what happened
In education, we often hear about what NOT to do. For many years now (my entire teaching career in fact), a big “no no” has
We are ELA teachers. Logistics and doing tasks in sequential order aren’t always our strong suits. I don’t want to speak for all ELA teachers,
It’s easily the number one question I get asked by middle school ELA teachers who want to use a Reading Workshop/Writing Workshop framework, but have
When small group reading instruction is mentioned two instructional contexts immediately come to mind: guided reading and literature circles. Chances are you have tried or
