It’s About the Work: The Power of Protocols

It’s About the Work: The Power of Protocols

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the roles protocols and strategies play in our Adolescent Literacy Model. They are closely linked in enhancing learning. We introduce content literacy strategies to help students learn, and we use protocols to have conversations...
Meeting the Needs of Multilingual Learners with ALM

Meeting the Needs of Multilingual Learners with ALM

In the United States, K-12 schools are legally required to ensure that Multilingual Learners (MLs) can participate fully in all educational programs, as outlined in both the Civil Rights Act and the Every Student Succeeds Act. Since it is estimated that by 2025, MLs...
Teaching Critical Thinking

Teaching Critical Thinking

Research into critical thinking is clear that the skill can be taught and that it can be taught to young students as well. For CTL’s Postsecondary Success Skills Model, we use Robert H. Ennis’ (Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois and author of several...
Artfully Connecting School and Home

Artfully Connecting School and Home

Imagine the backpack of a student you currently have in class or perhaps (for parent readers) your own child’s backpack. Unzip that backpack. What do you see in the open? What do you see inside each folder? What do you see that intentionally connects school to this...
4 Tips for Engaging Caregivers in Literacy

4 Tips for Engaging Caregivers in Literacy

As the effects of the recent global pandemic on students become clearer, it is evident that our students are struggling to read. The most recent NAEP results (2022) showed a significant decrease in the average reading score at both fourth and eighth grade levels,...
Looking for More than the Right Answer

Looking for More than the Right Answer

Just before the pandemic, I was given an incredible opportunity to spend some time with a brilliant group of 8 and 9 year old students. Our collective goal was to simply learn from each other during a mathematics lesson that I designed. Though the teacher and I met...