A huge welcome to our new sites – South Slope, Marlborough, Buckingham, Burnaby South Access Program and Moscrop Access Program. A great time of learning with all teams and we continue to have more gatherings in the near future to continue the conversation of supporting our students. The days of January have been whizzing by,…
Tag: differentiation
Reading the Impossible
Many of you have asked me if there is support for those who struggle with reading digital content especially when it is written above instructional reading levels. Every time a class attempts research out on the web, students are faced with information they cannot comfortably read. For the brain to have enough neuronal resources to…
Discovery and Relationships
It’s June and I’m really not sure what happened to this year. The ten months prior have whizzed by and here we are again. I wanted to take this moment to share some reflections of the year. Our Fast ForWord teams saw a boost and challenge in the delivery of this Tier 3 intervention program. The move…
iPad/iPod Apps ShootOut – Multisensory Blitz
District Pro-D arrived on February 22nd. Offered at two sites (Byrne Creek and Taylor Park) complete with video feed of our keynote to Taylor Park, it served as a reminder that connection, collaboration, ideas generation happen when we all come together. With over 110 sessions, it was an electrifying event. No small feat for a…
Accessible Reading and Writing with iPad Apps
For those of you with access to iPads, you might wish to consider using the following free apps. Reading text online is just as challenging as reading a book if your students struggle with reading. Try Voice Dream Reader Lite. This handy app reads online webpages, documents, pdf, text, powerpoint, ebooks, Pocket, using text- to -speech…
Sharing Stories…Modeling Strategies…
Sometimes locating just the right book to share or use as a piece of mentor text appears impossible to find. Or have you ever wanted to expand opportunities for your students to read at home? We now have access to TumbleBooks and TumbleBookCloud. [See links under Resources.] These online resources provide a fabulous array of e-texts for all…
Choice Words
Things happen when you return from a conference. New ideas attach with old ones and a host of “how does this all connect” is sifted through a lens of “what if…”. At FETC, keynote speaker Michael Wesch (watch TED talk) talked about the fast rise of the new technologies (Youtube 2005; Twitter 2006) resulting in a new culture of…
Take Your 3-Ring Binder Online or Bookmarking Gone Extreme!
This is a “have your cake and eat it” situation. Last time I shared bookmarking through the use of Symbaloo (a great tool that lays websites out in visual tiles). Today it’s LiveBinders. This tool organizes your resources and presents your content in a binder format. (They even look like little binders.) Tabs provide the organizational structure so that you…
Visual Bookmarks
Bookmarking is probably the one of the most useful methods for gathering and storing a huge range of information. Of course, the key is retrieving that content when needed. More importantly in a classroom, you know your bookmarks have been vetted – a starting point for research and deep questions. I’ve been playing with multiple…
Prevention is easier than Intervention
Imagine a week where no red flags appear in Progress Tracker – those crazy hints that you may have to readjust your teaching. This is one of the reasons that it is important to work through the exercises yourself so that you get a feel for any problems that may crop up for your students. …
It’s All About Reading – Learning Session
Our learning session on the new Reading Series is on Tuesday January 11 (3:30-5:30) at Schou – TLC. Our connecting questions: How does the new Reading exercises help to bridge students to gaining reading skills? What practices provided in the exercises can be shared in larger groups with classroom teachers? What students can best benefit…
Be An Interventions EXPERT!
Back by popular demand on Monday, November 8th, (8:30-3:00), Tom Chapin has returned from Arkansas to work with our Fast ForWord participant sites. Gain an indepth understanding of what interventions to use and when it is most effective to support our students. As a bonus, we will even explore other literacy strategies that enhance skill transfer…