As we go into the summer, a huge ‘thank you’ goes to teachers, students and parents. To the students, you’ve practiced focus and attention and this is no easy feat. It takes hard work to build and exercise an efficient brain. To our parents, you ensured your children had a good night’s sleep and a…
Tag: strategies
App #10 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #10: Partner a beautiful image that you’ve drawn or photographed with interactivity and you’ve got Thinglink. These rich interactives provide another way to curate and organize information. I’ve written about this before using the SAMR Model as an example (developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D) and also here where I was participating in CLMOOC. Thinglink offers interaction tools that tag photos or images…
App #9 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #9: In our effort to highlight the SAMR Model of integration of technology, we’ve been considering what activities might fit into Redefinition (technology that allows creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable). What activities might have significant impact to student outcomes? The “tell your story” concept remains one of the powerful ways we have to teach others, to increase audience,…
App #5 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #5: Many of us have our students write stories and then illustrate the text. While the artists in the bunch do flips and cartwheels (and I’ve had those students), what happens to those who struggle with drawing the simplest shapes. You know what I mean… somehow my tree just doesn’t quite look like a…
App #4 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #4: “I hate Google Docs!” stated a student in an advanced writing class. The teacher being stunned by this emphatic state turned my way with a “now what!” look. After probing, it became clear that this writer liked the thesaurus dictionary in MSWord. A quick introduction to online visual dictionaries opened a whole different world…
Connecting the Dots
It’s definitely spring. Everyone is in high gear especially with the good weather. Our final session of “Connect the Dots” happened last week with a gathering of folks at Schou. Along with some interventions, we were able to review the latest information on MyScilearn (teacher area). The Results tab now houses the individual graphs and…
Reading Connections and Interventions
Many of you have taken advantage of accessing Reading Levels. These products focus on elements that bridge to reading – decoding, spelling, sentence and paragraph comprehension. As well, practice with word play, categorization and comprehension strategies serve to enhance areas that are weak. The program follows the same protocols as Fast ForWord and interventions are…
Hot Off the Presses – January News
It’s blustery and nippy outside. What better time than to dig into our latest newsletter of the year! Filled with hot items, as well as keep you up-to-date with the latest workshops and learning sessions. And who can resist those little tips and tricks that make teaching life both easier and interesting. CLICK HERE for your…
Happy New Year – September 2012
Welcome back. This is a very exciting year with the transition to our new online platform. This has allowed us some flexible options in how we deliver the program, how we support more students, and how we engage in deeper conversations about our students’ learning journey. In anticipation of the process, this blog has been…
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…
Fireside Conversations on Interventions (webinar)
Sometimes you just need a place to voice those questions, comments or situations that don’t appear to have any answers. I’m reminded that having ‘partners in learning’ help to enrich and see things in different ways. With all the busy-ness of school, it’s difficult to get away. Enter ‘technology’… The webinar approach was a good…
Launching Reading Levels Series
We’re thrilled to be able to provide Reading Series to every Fast ForWord site. Last year, three of our sites piloted this series with some students who completed Fast ForWord processing exercises. The positive responses from both students and teachers have moved us forward in this opportunity. Reading Levels takes the same approach as Fast ForWord…
Visual Supports
For those of you on the constant search for visual supports for your students, here are a couple of good sites. ConnectABILITY allows you to create your visual supports via multiple ways. It pulls from Boardmaker images or include your own images. Here’s an opportunity for you to bring out the photographer in you! The…
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. …
Words Their Way – Shedding Light on Process
Words Their Way is a program that offers a developmental curriculum for phonics/spelling instruction, reading fluency and vocabulary development. The hands-on activities engage students as they actively categorize their ‘word sorts’ and the assessment inventory provides a clear indicator of where each student is in the process. We’ve been working with a new group of…