Reading Workshop

My children's book - Looking Closely Through the Forest is now available as an E-Book: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/looking-closely-through-forest/id941161388?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Here is an excerpt from a blog I wrote curated by Larry Ferlazzo of Ed Week Available at: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_ferlazzo/2015/06/response_ways_to_help_students_develop_digital_portfolios.html Print-based student portfolios have been used, misused, discarded, and reintroduced by many schools and districts over the past thirty years. Keeping track of students' work, storing these collections, evaluating them, and using them to drive instruction has had its ups and downs in literacy education. Online and digital portfolios have been used with similar outcomes in elementary, high school, and college settings. The biggest challenge for portfolio advocates is whether to apply normative or criterion-referenced standards for evaluating the contents of students' portfolios by creating rubrics or other grading processes, or allowing individual students to use portfolios to document and demonstrate their learning and development over time. The second app...

Vermont Reads Summer Institute ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… August 3, 4, 5, 2015 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Keynote Address: Reading Workshop 2.0: Supporting Readers in the Digital Age by Frank Serafini This presentation will focus on the changes happening in reading instruction in light of the Digital Revolution. We will look at the features of new texts being used in contemporary classrooms, the lessons necessary for comprehending digital and multimodal texts, and the digital resources available for reading, sharing, discussing and analyzing print-based, digital and multimodal texts. A framework will be shared that demonstrates how the reading workshop structure provides instructional opportunities and reading strategies to help students comprehend and interrogate digital and multimodal texts. Various online resources, and student examples will be shared. Dr. Frank Serafini is an awa...

When asked recently to describe the changes needed to reform literacy education in the elementary classroom I offered the following four areas for consideration: 1. THEORETICAL: shift the focus from teaching to learning - too often we focus on how well our mini-lessons go (if they are in fact "mini") and not whether our students have learned anything from these lessons. Round robin reading instruction and other crappy ideas focus on how we teach, not whether students are getting anything from these experiences. 2. PEDAGOGICAL: You cannot teach children to read and write if they are not engaged in the acts of reading and writing. We need a context to teach into. If students are working on a piece of writing or trying to make sense of a text, we can work with them in that context to do things. 3. ASSESSMENT: We have to try and figure out what children can do, want to do, and are trying to do as readers and writers. In order to do this we have to watch them read, listen to them ...

These books will be released sometime in 2015 - Can't Wait for new titles from some of my favorite authors and illustrators!

Resources for Using Apps Across the Curriculum From Richard Beach and David O'Brien App recommendation and review sites (see also further links ) I Education Apps Review (IEAR) involves over 500 educators, administrators and app developers providing review of apps. Appitic organizes recommendations and reviews according to subjects (“Themes”), learning styles, Bloom taxonomy, and the NETS standards. Discovr Apps app that creates an interactive map with links between apps based on similarities between apps so that you can begin with your familiar, favorite apps and then find other similar apps, along with descriptions and ratings for those apps. Apps in Education is organized according to apps for different disciplines. Appadvice AppGuides provides a lot of useful reviews organized according to a hierarchical category system of “essential,” “notable,” “decent,” and “other.” App Miner (also an app ) provides updated information on price change as well as search by topics or the...

Here are My Favorite Picturebook / Book Apps in 2015 (so far) The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore – William Joyce The Numberlys– William Joyce Spot - Weisner How Far Is Up? - Sargeant Marcel the Shell – Jennie Slate Various Dr. Seuss Books – Oceanhouse Media Curious George and the Firefighters – Rey Animalia – Graeme Base Mr. Sandman (Fear of the Dark)- hocusbookus Dandelion – Protein Innovative Apps Midnight Feast – Slap Happy Larry Horrible Hauntings – Goose Bottom Books Book Of Holes – Chocolate Factory Publishing Dinosaurs - Kiwi Storybooks Sherlock Holmes Interactive Adventures – Haab Entertainment Rita the Lizard – Rita Blasco Grau Meet Millie – megapops The Monster at the End of the Book – Sesame Street Don’t Let the Pigeon Run This App! – Mo Willems The Heart and the Bottle – Oliver Jeffers The Moon – Windy Press Bullseye – Moonbot Studios The Land of Me – Vimeo Dragon Brush – Spike Press