By Dan Willingham
A piece appeared in the New York Post on August 27 with the headline “It’s digital heroin: How screens turn kids into psychotic junkies.”
Even allowing for the fact that authors don’t write headlines, this article is hyperbolic and poorly argued. I said as much on Twitter and my Facebook page, and several people […]
By Tim Shanahan 2016
Teacher’s letter:
I’ve been reading your blog articles very carefully, and in one entry you recommended having the kids read a lot during the literary block time (and all other subjects), suggesting possibly 50% of the time should be spent reading. My question is how much of that reading time should be teacher-led […]
By Daniel T. Willingham 2015
How should American teens spend their leisure time? I recently asked* American adults this question, after explaining that the typical teen enjoys approximately five hours of leisure time each weekday.1 The activity with the highest response, irrespective of race, education, and other demographic factors, was reading. Adults thought teens ought to […]
By Tim Shanahan 2016
We just started close reading in our district last year. Our second graders were given text that was a grade level above their reading level. We were told to let them figure it out. They could not even read the first sentence it was too hard for their reading level. The reading […]
By Tim Shanahan with Jan Hasbrouck
Teacher Question:
A question has come up that I don’t know how to address and I would love your input. For years, we have used the Hasbrouck/Tindal fluency norms as one of the ways we measure our student’s reading progress. For example, the 4th grade midyear 50th percentile is 112 CWPM. […]
Tim Shanahan
January 2016
Teacher question: In terms of teaching comprehension to grade 3-5 students, what is the best way to help the readers transfer the strategies they are taught so they can be independent, self-regulated readers?
Shanahan’s response: If you want to teach reading comprehension strategies to on-grade level students between the ages of 8-10, we have […]
Tim Shanahan
A teacher’s question:
Our school district is going wild over Lexiles because they are in the Common Core standards. I think they are overdoing it and don’t feel comfortable with some of the decisions that we are making. What are the weaknesses of Lexiles?
First, Lexiles is only one of several readability measures included in […]
Tim Shanahan
Many educators trumpet the idea of reading-writing relationships, emphasizing how close reading and writing are. As a teacher I was a big believer in this—my kids wrote every day, despite the lack of a report card space for writing, a writing curriculum, writing standards, or even any professional development on the topic. I strongly […]
Tim Shanahan
Teacher Question:
I wanted to ask your opinion regarding the structure of report cards for parents of students in grades 3-5. Understanding that ELA CCSS intertwines the areas of reading, language, spelling, writing, and moving toward creating district standards-based report cards in all K-5 grade levels, how do you think students’ progress should be reported […]
By Tim Shanahan
Question:
Our district is wrestling with how much emphasis to give rhyming as an early literacy skill. We had previously downplayed rhyming as a necessary focus but the new CA ELA/ELD Framework and CCSS where rhyming is specifically called out has resurfaced old questions.
Our struggle is this…. with our very high (87%) English Learner […]
