S6 E16 Delightful Word Learning

Reading teachers chat with actress Colette Hiller about ways to make word learning innovative and fun. Colette is releasing a new book which combines educational poetry with illustrations to teach new words & related knowledge. Listen to this episode to gain creative ideas about how to help get students excited about word learning.

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S6 E14 Meaningful Professional Learning

Reading teachers talk about meaningful professional learning. Kelly Butler worked with the Barksdale Reading Institute to bring about systems change in reading instruction in the state of Mississippi over the last twenty years. Kelly and Carla share about a free resource they're working on now called Reading Universe, a site to learn about best practices in teaching reading.

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S6 E 13 The Intersection of Speech Reading and Language

Reading teachers chat with a speech therapist about the overlaps between speech, reading, and language. From this episode, teachers can understand the perspective of a speech therapist to better understand speech and language challenges. After listening, you should walk away with ideas about conversations to have with the speech therapist in your building and an awareness of language challenges your students may face within your curriculum.

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S6 E11 Date Your Data

Reading teachers describe a data analysis process called Date Your Data where teachers need to review their students' results multiple times to truly understand the meaningful learning information the data provides. Listen to find out how to analyze and understand student RIT scores on the NWEA MAP test, Write Score results, and other testing reports.

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S6 E9 Ideas for Differentiation with Wiley Blevins

Wiley Blevins talks about the decisions and methods that go into differentiation. Also, Wiley shares insights from his coming book about adjustments that teachers can make before or during their lessons to better suit the learning levels of their students. Listen to this entire episode to get inspired about ways you can best meet your students' needs.

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S6 E7 Read Aloud to Boost Comprehension

Reading teachers chat with Dr. Molly Ness about her new book Read Alouds for All Learners. Molly shares how teachers should intentionally plan their read alouds, with thought put into the vocabulary instruction, the purpose for reading, the think aloud process, and engagement and extension activities for students after reading. Listen to this episode for TONS of ideas from our guest about how to get the most learning out of your read aloud experiences.

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S6 E6 The Comprehension Process

Reading teachers wrestle with understanding the nature of the comprehension process. They discuss ideas from the Blueprint for Reading Comprehension and Executive Skills and Comprehension to understand the different cognitive processes and executive functioning required for students to extract and construct meaning from texts.

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S6 E5 Best Reading Instruction Moves

Experienced elementary reading teachers chat about the best instructional strategies and techniques teachers should use to help their students become fluent readers. They share details and stories about using decodable texts, getting students to use decoding strategies, focusing on phonics and phonemic awareness instruction, and fostering better student fluency and comprehension. Listen for tips and tricks to help your early elementary students find reading success.

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S6 E4 We Love Mistakes

Reading teachers talk about why they love student mistakes. They share how to make mistakes meaningful. They chat about establishing a trusting relationship with students so they're comfortable showing us mistakes. Lastly, they discuss ways to provide student feedback without inducing shame. Learning happens between the lessons, and in this episode, you'll find concrete ideas for what to do and say each day with your students to promote a growth mindset and engagement in learning.

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S6 E3 Intervention in the Upper Grades

Reading teachers chat about the challenges facing older struggling readers. During the discussion, they explain how meeting students where they are IS rigorous and the right thing to do for our readers. They also share ideas for boosting student engagement and their favorite activities for upper grade reading intervention.

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S6 E2 Etymology and Orthographic Study

Reading teachers talk about English word histories and how etymology may inform how a word is spelled. Check out this discussion to get ideas for how to share the Scribal O, Latin Connective I, and other word origin stories with your reading students and help students see how important morphology is in addition to sound symbol connections.

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S6 E1 Back to School Reflections and Plans

Reading teachers meet in a virtual reading teachers lounge to chat about the start of the school year. They recap their summer activities in both professional and personal lives, update the audience on the plans they're making for their reading students this school year, and preview what's coming next in Season 6 of the podcast.

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