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Find out how to teach writing to students without working so hard! Ideas, activities, and strategies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade teachers. #teachingwriting #1stgrade #2ndgrade #3rdgrade #writing

8 Smart Strategies for Teaching Writing

Teaching 101, Teaching WritingBy Hannah BraunAugust 31, 20151 Comment

Inside: Teaching writing DOESN’T have to be complicated! With these simple strategies, you can improve students’ writing without having to work so hard.   M rs. Braun? I turned around to an outstretched notebook in a kid’s hands. “I don’t know what to do next,” said the student.   I leaned closer to decipher the…

Crash Course in Phonics, part 2

Phonics, Teaching 101, Teaching ReadingBy Hannah BraunAugust 24, 201515 Comments

Everything you needed to know about teaching phonics, you learned in college….right?  Wrong!  My professors were great, but there really wasn’t a course dedicated to teaching phonics.  Once you have your own classroom it doesn’t take long to realize that the phrase “sound it out” will only get your students so far.   Don’t worry!  I’ve…

What Every Teacher Should Know About Teaching Vocabulary

What Every Teacher Should Know About Teaching Vocabulary

Teaching 101, Teaching Reading, VocabularyBy Hannah BraunAugust 17, 20154 Comments

Research and best practices for teaching vocabulary in the elementary classroom. I’m back this week linking up with #TeacherMom for her Building Back to School series.  This week we’re talking about language tools.  I’ve done some digging to see what research tells us about teaching vocabulary.  Here’s what I found:   A Strong Vocabulary Is…

9 Research-Based Teaching Strategies for elementary teachers

9 Research-Based Teaching Strategies for Your Toolbox

Research, Teaching 101By Hannah BraunAugust 3, 20157 Comments

You know, staff meetings bring out a lot of things in people…not all of them good. I distinctly remember one line that was said at a staff meeting that brought out some panic in me. But let me back up to say that I (and I bet probably you, too) got into teaching to have…

8 tips to supercharge student engagement

8 Tips to Supercharge Student Engagement

Behavior, Classroom Management, Teaching 101By Hannah BraunJune 30, 2015

Student Engagement Do you feel like you have to practically put on a circus to achieve student engagement with your lessons?  Before you bring out the lions, tigers, and bears, take a step back and see if one of these small changes might be the missing piece in your student engagement puzzle.   Make It “Doable”…

Praise and Prompts for Teaching Reading

Teaching 101, Teaching ReadingBy Hannah BraunMarch 31, 2015

If you asked the average person off the street what they would say to help someone struggling with a tricky word, I bet a lot of the responses would be, “Tell them to sound it out!”  And then the average person off the street would say, “What kind of question is that, anyway!”  : )…

FREE RtI (response to intervention) forms for use by elementary school teachers

Response to Intervention Forms FREEBIE!

Differentiation, Teaching 101, UncategorizedBy Hannah BraunMarch 2, 2015

Unraveling Response to Intervention I set out to unravel and get to the heart of Response to Intervention (RTI) like I’ve done before with close reading.  I was surprised to read on the RTI Network’s website that, “there is no single, thoroughly researched and widely practiced ‘model’ of the RTI process.”  Of course, that would…

Effective Instruction for Low Reading Groups - for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade teachers

Effective Instruction Ideas for Low Groups

Differentiation, Teaching 101, Teaching ReadingBy Hannah BraunJanuary 3, 2015

Ideas for teaching low reading groups for maximum effectiveness   My stomach tightened a little as I pulled out my small group data sheet. I had been working with a group of some of the lower readers pulled from each class in my grade level. I was taking care of the other teachers’ babies and…

Taking the Rocket Science out of Close Reading

Comprehension, Teaching 101, Teaching ReadingBy Hannah BraunDecember 4, 201424 Comments

What is close reading? If you look around Pinterest at anchor charts about close reading, it gets really overwhelming really fast!  It seems like it’s about every reading strategy you’ve ever seen all put together at the same time.  How the heck do you craft a lesson around that?  It’s time to take the rocket…

Comprehension strategies checklist

Making Your Thinking Visible With Graphic Organizers

Comprehension, Teaching 101, Teaching ReadingBy Hannah BraunOctober 31, 20142 Comments

Freebie! One of the keys to teaching reading comprehension is showing kids how proficient readers think about text.  Teachers have to find a way to make their thinking visible.  One way is with graphic organizers.  Here is a free set:          The first one is filled in with the steps for growing…

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