Using Fables to Teach Reading Skills and Life Lessons Looking for fable ideas? It’s hard not to love a good fable! They’re the perfect kind of stories to use when working on many specific reading comprehension skills, as well as come with great morals, values, and life lessons. I have a few resources and activity ideas I’d love to share with you when you’re using fables in your classroom – including a brand new resource I can’t wait to let you in on! What’s the difference between a fable and folktale? It’s pretty common for your students to ask you the difference once you start using these stories! A fable is a short story that typically conveys some type of...
The mathematician Federico Ardila-Mantilla grew up in Colombia, an indifferent student but gifted in math. He was failing most of his classes at his high school in Bogotá when someone suggested he apply to MIT. He had not heard of the school. To his surprise, he got in, and he went on scholarship. Mathematically, he did well. One of his professors—an acid-tongued theoretician known to compare his audience to a herd of cows—routinely tucked “open” math problems into homework assignments, without telling the students. These had never been solved by anyone. Ardila solved one. He went on to receive his bachelor’s and Ph.D. in math from MIT.But his academic experience was also one of isolation. Part of it had to...
When I first started teaching 15 years ago, phonics and phonics readers had a bit of a bad rap because they weren't as engaging and there was little to no comprehension piece to those phonics readers or decoding words practice. But why not? Why not add comprehension work along with the decoding practice to give our reading a purpose? It was a no-brainer for me to beef up our decoding work by taking an extra few seconds at the end for comprehension. Our basic routine is simple. We read the words, highlight the focus sounds and then I ask meaning questions. There are 3 main types of questions that I ask to add that comprehension piece to our decoding routines. ...
Teaching and analyzing story elements is a critical part of developing students’ comprehension skills. You probably talk about the setting, the characters, the problem and solution, and eventually the theme. I’ve talked before about the importance of teaching students to identify and interpret story elements, which you can read HERE. But how can we take a basic reading of a text and make it truly dynamic and meaningful, especially in the upper grades? Here are four ways to bring your reading to the next level and encourage students to think critically about elements of the text. #1 Go Beyond the Basics of Setting We all know talking about the setting of a text is important. If you tell me a...
Your seven-month-old baby is curious about the world around them—and the ways they are focusing their energy is proof they are eager to explore. Unlike those earliest days of parenting when "playing" with your baby seemed all-but one-sided, your active and engaged seven-month-old loves interacting with you. Although your baby may not be on the move quite yet, you probably realize now the developmental milestones of crawling and walking are right around the corner. That makes this the right time to baby-proof the house! By keeping track of what milestones your baby is working on achieving, you can support their development and consult with your pediatrician if you have any questions or concerns. Seven-month-old baby milestonesHere's what The American Academy...
