Research-backed ELA strategies from a teacher still in the classroom.
Most students can name poetry terms. That is not the same as having a system for approaching any poem under test conditions. The SMILE framework gives them that system.
Read More →The 8th grade EOG tests vocabulary in context, not in isolation. Students who know definitions in isolation still miss questions when the same terms appear in a passage.
Read More →The 7th grade EOG tests vocabulary in context, not in isolation. Students who know definitions in isolation still miss questions when the same terms appear in a passage.
Read More →The 6th grade EOG tests vocabulary in context, not in isolation. Students who know definitions in isolation still miss questions when the same terms appear in a passage.
Read More →Students encounter nonfiction text features in every subject every day. The features are familiar. The vocabulary that describes them is not.
Read More →Students can label a noun on a worksheet and still write sentences without subjects. Grammar knowledge and grammar application are not the same skill.
Read More →The United States is not the only country having the dyslexia conversation, and it is not the furthest along. This September, the search for answers goes to Poland.
Read More →The EOG is weeks away. Your students know the content. What they need now is repeated, low-stakes exposure to how the test asks about it.
Read More →Structured literacy micro-practice, done consistently and at the right level, builds skills that transfer to real reading. That is what a well-designed bellringer does.
Read More →Isolated grammar units do not build lasting skills. Spiral instruction does. Here is the research and a practical way to implement it.
Read More →Twenty years in a middle school ELA classroom leaves marks. Not the kind that wear you down, but the kind that clarify things.
Read More →A student reads the poem on the test, understands the feeling of it, and still misses four questions in a row. They read the poem correctly and failed it on vocabulary.
Read More →A student reads a passage, identifies the mood correctly, and then labels the tone with the exact same word. That distinction shows up on the EOG every single year.
Read More →Students ace the quiz on Friday and miss the same concepts on a passage assessment the following Thursday. The gap between knowing a term and identifying it under pressure is the real problem.
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