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| Week
of August 16, 2010 |
Issue
No.ONE |
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Happy
August!
We
hope your summer has been relaxing, restful, and
invigorating.
At Literacy Builders, we spent the summer planning and developing
teaching ideas that we will be sharing with you via our Literacy
Builders website throughout the coming year. One project that
we are especially excited to launch is our bi-weekly newsletter,
"The Boost." As we listened to countless teachers recount their
professional development experiences, we noticed that they
frequently use the word "boost" to describe why they attended or
what they took away from their learning.
To remain fresh and on top of our game, our teaching needs to be
infused with new ideas, new thinking, and new energy. Our goal
with this newsletter will be to give your reading and writing
instruction a bi-weekly boost without having to wait for the next
great workshop or conference coming to your area.
Sincerely,
Craig E. Yaris
Literacy Builders |
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Keeping
Connected
Our website has been enhanced with MANY new features geared
toward supporting your reading and writing instruction. This
section of our newsletter will direct you to the updates that we
will be making daily to our site.
Because this is the time when we know you are planning for the
upcoming school year, we recommend that you follow this link to our
photo gallery and view some
literate environments to inspire your thinking about how you will
organize your teaching space.
We also recommend that you join our discussion about back-to-school
preparations. Log on and talk to other teachers about what they
are doing to ready their classrooms and what's on their minds as
they think about the upcoming school year.
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Sharing
Reading
Workshop
An important line of inquiry for the beginning of the year is
"Why do people read?" When readers understand the importance of
reading, it helps to increase one's drive and motivation to read.
We invite all Boost subscribers to click here to download our
interactive read aloud lesson for investigating Why People Read
using Wolf! by Becky Bloom.
Writing
Workshop
Great writing workshops have a strong foundation of community
and respect. As you introduce and explore the writing workshop,
try this community building idea:
Bring in several artifacts that speak to different aspects of your
life. Share each of these objects with your class, describing the
significance and importance of each object. (For example, I might
bring in a jar of shells that sit on my son's night table and
explain that this is one of many jars that I have at home. Every
year we travel to somewhere warm and sunny and we go on treasure
hunts along the shore. At different times during the year, we like
to dump out the shells and compare the collections and use them to
remember our trips to the seashore.) Once you have shared, invite
your students to bring in artifacts from home to share with the
class.
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...
And Collaborating
 As you begin the school year, remember, teaching is
an important and noble profession. Check out Barry Lane's tribute to his favorite fourth
grade teacher to remind you just how important you are!
We have launched a campaign to gather our fans on Facebook. If you
like this newsletter and our site, please be sure to "LIKE" us on
Facebook. Randomly chosen
fans will receive a Literacy Builders tote bag to thank them for
their support!
Literacy Builders is committed to sharing ideas and collaborating
with teachers around the globe. If you'd like to participate in
this effort, please forward it to a friend! |
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