Monday, October 27, 2008

Links You Will Like

My four days of Literacy Training focusing on struggling readers and ELL was filled with great strategies that can be used in any classroom. I came back with a notebook full of ideas, two books that I can lend and some great links. I am anxious to share. All of our training was based on studies by Robert Marzano who divides his instructional categories into specific behaviors and attached the percent gain in student achievement when these areas of instruction are incorporated regularly into our lessons.

Identifying similarities and differences - 45%
Summarizing and note taking - 34%
Reinforcing effort and providing recognition - 30%
Homework and practice - 28%
Nonlinguistic representations (drawing, acting out, etc) - 26%
Cooperative learning - 26%
Setting objectives and providing feedback - 24%
Generating and testing hypotheses - 24%
Questions, cues and advanced organizers 23%

We went through the list and practiced strategies in each area. I am waiting for you to ask me for more information.

Here are a couple great links/resources not to be passed up:

For rubrics which can be modified: http://rubistar.4teachers.org FREE

For graphic organizers: http://region15.org/curriculum/ FREE

For a good laugh when you need one: http://www.glasbergen.com/edu.html

For inexpensive books on cooperative learning through Amazon: http://www.spencerkagan.com/

For a fab book on teaching vocabulary grades 4-12 by Isabel L. Beck
www.amazon.com/Words-Teaching-Vocabulary-Grades-4-12/dp/1571100857 - 307k -

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