A thought about our Special Ed Students

Last week we had our first "post" or question for this year on the literacy blog. Go Dusty Hafeman! I have copied it below to make your comments easier to find and organize around this topic. Thanks for taking the time to consider your colleague's question! Simply comment to reply to this post. Dusty writes, "Upon reading your comments I realized I had been mislead...I didn't know we were the ones who made the "magic" happen, I was told it was Steins! Well, anyway, I just wanted to put a question out there. Has anyone had any success trying to include LD students in the regular ed. book clubs? We have tried but with minimal success and was hoping someone had some ideas to share. Thoughts?"

Welcome back!

Welcome back to another fun filled year of learning and LITERACY! We just want to take this opportunity to get those of you who enjoy blogging on board with us here at the literacy thinkaloud! We hope to use this as a way to share our learning with you and have you share your learning with us as well. To kick off the new year please take some time to comment on your thinking process as you begin your literacy block. What are the "tried and true" ideas that you use every year? What do you continue to struggle with in setting up your classroom? As your kids enter into the picture, what things do you find yourself changing to fit this particular group and why? What are some great books that help get your kids back into the swing of reading and writing? You all have such a wealth of knowledge, new teachers and veterans alike may find a nugget of information that may help to get things off to an even better start!

while we wait for the video....

So, I have been TRYING and TRYING to get some video uploaded with no success. As I continue to work out the glitches, I want to revive the fun of the blog...and remember it is supposed to be fun...and push our thinking at the same time. I thought I would throw out a question. What is your favorite book to use with your students, how do you use the book (read aloud, shared reading, guided reading, book club, etc.) and what is the teaching that comes out of the experience? This may be a great time to gather some ideas as we look to keep our kids interested and our teaching fresh as we move toward the end of the year, so if you have a favorite, share away!

The "literacy minute" steps into the future...

Our intent in setting up this blog is to share our current thinking in the world of literacy. It may be a small nugget of learning or a huge "a-ha" moment. Part of our job in the land of the LRT is to spend time researching and passing along the latest and greatest to you. In the past, we tried to send out a weekly "literacy minute" by email. This was successful for awhile, but became a bit overwhelming. We hope that this blog will serve, first of all, the same purpose....to share our thinking. We also hope that it will deepen our thinking as we respond to each other, and look back at our thoughts over time. Writing to grow our thoughts is something we stress with our students. We also want their thinking to be grown by listening to the thinking of others and we want the same for ourselves. Your responses and comments will be crucial to all of our learning. We hope you will join us in sharing your efforts in literacy from the trenches. You are the ones making the magic happen!!

Amy