The new site -- Bouncingball.weebly.com -- has five videos to show the concept in action.  There is Mother Goose, Edgar Allan Poe, Dr. Seuss, and the Wizard of Oz. A total of about 25 minutes. Easy to check out and to reflect on the possibilities.

The bouncing ball forces children to read in the proper direction, and to take notice of syllables. (This…

Stress Test by Arnold Dodge 

Retrieved on 7/22/13 from Huffington Post

Click HERE to view article on Huffington Post site. 

As the school year came to a close in my county, a front page story in our regional newspaper blasted a local school district for routinely boosting the scores of secondary students on state tests by one or two points to make the passing…

http://www.teacherstechworkshop.com/2013/07/enigma-aweome-brain-teazer.html

July 21, 2013

September 1, Enslow Publishing will launch a new imprint aimed at boys ages 9-14.  Read all about it here.

Happy reading,

Christine

bookgirlblogger.blogspot.com

         In this paper, Lori Nathanson, Meghan McCormick, and James Kemple of the NYU Research Alliance for New York City Schools analyze the district’s annual school climate survey. Given every spring since 2007 to all teachers, parents, and grade 6-12 students, the survey invites respondents to evaluate their school’s academic expectations, communication, engagement, and safety/respect. Data from the questionnaires make up 10-15 percent of each school’s A, B, C, D, F Progress Report grade…

      In this intriguing Elementary School Journal article, Haytske Zijlstra and Helma Koomen (University of Amsterdam) and Theo Wubbels and Mieke Brekelmans (Utrecht University) report on their study of teachers’ interpersonal behavior and their students’ mathematics achievement. Rather than relying on classroom observations, which they say are “time consuming and therefore remain generally limited to a relatively small sample of interactions,” the researchers asked the children…

           In this Middle School Journal article, Rebecca Shore, Jenna Ray, and Paula Goolkasian (University of North Carolina/Charlotte) report the results of an experiment on science vocabulary learning with three 7^th-grade teachers in a large urban school. The researchers worked with teachers to systematically compare three memory strategies for learning these words: pathogen, vaccine, antibody, immunity, antibiotic, immune system, and antigen:

-  …

July 20th is Moon Day in honor of the Apollo 11 mission that landed man on the moon.  Nearly everyone has some connection to that story.  Perhaps you have a relative  who worked on the lunar landing module, or perhaps you or a relative know exactly where you were at the time of the landing. 

A few summers ago, my kids and I were visiting a friend's summer rental on Fire Island, and a neighbor told us that when he was a kid he watched the landing in the very house my friend was…

A radio commentator recently spoke about unemployment rates in certain states …overall, the employment landscape doesn’t look good! He said people are frustrated by sending their resumes out and having the resumes ‘scanned’ by computers, not people. Are you one of those frustrated people? If so, remember, computer resume scanning eliminates your…

The title of this post probably carries more weight with educators who use Twitter as a key component of a professional learning network than those who don’t. At this point in time there are more educators not using Twitter professionally, than those who do. The “why” of that is what perplexes me to no end.

I recently watched an interview with Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers. His book sits unread on my shelf, but, inspired by what I saw in the…

Most professions have professional journals that address the current methods and innovations of that profession. They are used as way to announce to the profession what is going on in that profession, what is working, and what is not. Traditionally, these have been printed media coming out on a periodic basis. Many of the …

My youngest daughter just graduated high school in June. She has always been an outstanding student and, as her dad, I welcome the chance to recognize that publicly. One of the high points of one of the speeches given at her graduation ceremony caused a huge round of applause from the audience, which was gathered for the outdoor event. Ninety-Five percent of the graduating class of over 300 students had been accepted to institutions of higher learning. Why would the cheers not…

“Preparing kids for the Real World” is a phrase that many educators and schools use without regard for the consequence of what they selectively choose as reality for their students. Both educators and institutions in many cases are still choosing for students by educating them traditionally, or more progressively using technology tools for learning. This probably begins with educators’ misconception of the real world.

We cannot prepare kids for the Real World when we still have a…

July 17, 2013

Do you read aloud to your own children or students?  If so, I'd love to hear from you.  I'm currently researching read alouds for an upcoming article and your story could appear in a national magazine.  I'm especially interested in teachers or parents who continue the read aloud into upper elementary and middle school grades.  If you have a story you'd like to share, leave a comment here, or email me…

The world’s most famous teacher blasts school reform