Memories of Summer Reading and Writing

One of my fondest summer memories is of going with my mom to the branch library not far from our home in suburban Philadelphia. We’d generally go in the evening, while it was still light out but not quite as hot and sticky as during the day. We would climb the...

The Textbook: Your New Best Friend (Part III)

In my last post, I laid out a simple process for getting students familiar with your textbook before you ask them to use it.  In a way, we can think of that process as the foundational “pre-reading” strategy that goes global, not specific to one piece of...

The Textbook: Your New Best Friend (Part IV)

In my last post, I talked about the ways in which teachers can better engage students in active reading of the textbook in their classrom – those during reading strategies that promote interaction between student and text, and help to build habits of thinking...

Digital Reading: Diligence or Distraction?

Are you concentrating as you read this?  Are you sure?  Will you pause in your reading and click on the hyperlink a few lines down…and then perhaps forget to come back to this blog post? A recent article in the New York Times (“Growing Up Digital: Wired...

The Textbook: Your New Best Friend (Part II)

In my last post, I put my cards on the table about informational reading.  I think we have had far too many distractions for far too long about the lack of reading skills that justify lecture, and don’t get me started on photocopying and handing out teacher...