Walk into any truly excellent school and you can feel it almost immediately — a calm, orderly atmosphere that hums with an exciting, vibrant sense of purposefulness. This is a positive school culture, the kind that improves educational outcomes.
Students must be taught to write and then be expected to write for a variety of purposes to a variety of audiences, including in mathematics, science, and social studies. As part of building the writing prowess of students, they must write routinely, both short and long pieces. As part of a comprehensive writing curriculum, students’ writing fluency should be fostered, students should participate in lessons designed to build their composing skills, and students must learn to write from the sources that they read.
One of the most misunderstood topics in reading instruction involves the extent to which children should be encouraged to rely on context cues in reading.
This article discusses the challenges in providing psychoeducational services to the rapidly increasing minority populations in the U.S. and offers a brief elaboration of the role and function of school counselors and school psychologists and how they can meet the mental health and educational needs of this large and growing population.
Occupational therapist Roger Ideishi shares his strategies for providing supportive environments in the general education classroom for children with autism. You’ll also learn about Ideishi’s innovative ideas for collaborating with museums, performing arts spaces, and other cultural institutions to make them more accessible and welcoming for children with diverse sensory and cognitive abilities.
A review of the research on the effective use of homework for students with learning disabilities suggests that there are three big ideas for teachers to remember: (1) the best use of homework is to build proficiency in recently acquired skills or to maintain skills previously mastered; (2) homework should be individualized; and (3) teachers should evaluate homework and provide detailed feedback to students.
In this statement, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) identifies the characteristics of students more likely to be retained and the impact of retention at the secondary school level, late adolescence, and early adulthood. NASP also provides a long list of alternatives to retention and social promotion.
The school experiences of students with disabilities can be positively or negatively influenced by the attitudes and behaviors of students and staff and by general school policies. School counselors can take the lead in assessing school climate in relation to students with disabilities and initiating interventions or advocating for change when appropriate. This article provides an overview of factors to consider in creating positive school experiences for students with disabilities and suggestions for intervention efforts.
This article describes the most common characterists of dyslexia and other learning disorders, and what you can do if you suspect your child has a problem.
Yes, teach print awareness. Let kids see the text you are reading (or writing) and bring their attention to it. Talk about those spaces between words, and don’t hesitate to point to the words that you are reading. But don’t spend a lot of time on fronts and backs of books or how to turn pages or whether numbers and letters are different.
Teaching vocabulary is complex. What words are important for a child to know and in what context? In this excerpt from Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, the authors consider what principles might be used for selecting which words to explicitly teach.
Students often have difficulty understanding abstract map symbols. Learn how to introduce map skills with literature that contextualizes mapping in a narrative, can be related to where in the world each student lives, and engages students by actively “doing geography.”
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that affects a child’s ability to read, spell, and write at the word level. It is a language problem — kids with dyslexia have trouble hearing the sounds in spoken words. With explicit, systematic instruction and targeted support, children with dyslexia can become skilled, confident readers!
Treating communication and language difficulties early on can prevent potential problems with behavior, learning, reading and social interaction. Learn more about the five ways that early intervention can help your child and your family.
Inferential thinking is a key comprehension skill that develops over time through explicit teaching and lots of practice. Find strategies for teaching inferencing, watch a demonstration, and observe a classroom lesson in action.
Explore our primer on the key components of reading, including oral language, phonemic awareness, decoding, orthographic mapping, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.
An almost universal habit that struggling readers exhibit is looking up from the words when reading. Learn the three primary reasons why students look up as they read, and then find out how to respond to each case in the most effective way.
