Dr. Karen R. Harris is the Warner Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. She has worked in the field of education for over 40 years, initially as a general education teacher and then as a special education teacher. Her research focuses on improving research and practice related to writing development, especially among students with learning disabilities and students who struggle with writing.
Author, editor, publisher, and speaker Marc Aronson believes passionately in the power of great nonfiction — in building background knowledge, nourishing children’s interest in the real world, and helping young people become critical readers and thinkers. He has written history and biography books for middle school children and young adults, including books about the secrets of Stonehenge, the sugar trade (Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science), and the life of John Henry (Ain’t Nothing but a Man). His biography of Sir Walter Raleigh (Sir Walter Raleigh and the Quest for El Dorado won the ALA’s first Robert L. Sibert Information Book Award for nonfiction and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award.
For an extended interview with Aronson and a list of his YA books, visit our sister site, AdLit.org.
Find hundreds of lesson plans, videos, activities, and collections, as well as access to unique educational resources like “Traveling Trunks” that are provided free of charge to schools that you can use to build your next virtual field trip around. All these resources come aligned to national standards frameworks like Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards. Simply type a topic, keyword, or standard into the powerful search engine to find potential activities and resources that you can integrate in your classroom to enrich your existing units.
Using nonverbal signals — also called silent signals — is an effective way to foster communication while limiting interruptions during instruction. Learn how to use this strategy and why it works, and see it in action.
This guide was developed by teachers, parents, and education experts in response to the Common Core State Standards that more than 45 states have adopted. Created for grades K-8 and high school English, language arts/literacy and mathematics, the guides provide clear, consistent expectations for what students should be learning at each grade in order to be prepared for college and career.
ReadWorks provides research-based units, lessons, and authentic, leveled non-fiction and literary passages directly to educators online, for free, to be shared broadly. The ReadWorks curriculum is aligned to the Common Core State Standards and the standards of all 50 states. ReadWorks is faithful to the most effective research-proven instructional practices in reading comprehension.
Browse our library of research briefs, guides, literacy organizations, and literacy-focused web resources. Filter by topic and resource type to quickly find the resources you’re looking for.
Share My Lesson is a place where educators can come together to create and share their very best teaching resources. Developed by teachers for teachers, this free platform gives access to high-quality teaching resources and provides an online community where teachers can collaborate with, encourage and inspire each other. This free platform has a resource bank for Common Core State Standards, covering all aspects of the standards, from advice and guides to help with dedicated resources that support the standards.
Technology tools and supports can be an excellent way to help struggling students engage with social studies texts in a meaningful way, and build deeper understanding through guided inquiry.
Learn how quick writes can help students reflect on and reinforce what they have learned. You’ll find examples of quick write tasks to try in your classroom.
Timothy Shanahan is an internationally recognized professor of urban education and reading researcher who has extensive experience with children in inner-city schools and children with special needs. He helped lead the National Reading Panel (NRP), convened at the request of Congress to evaluate research on the teaching of reading. The resulting 2000 NRP Report has had a significant, lasting influence on reading education. He is author/editor of more than 200 publications on literacy education. His research emphasizes the connections between reading and writing, literacy in the disciplines, and improvement of reading achievement. His blog about teaching reading, Shanahan on Literacy, is syndicated on Reading Rockets.
To help students become comfortable with multimedia, it is useful to incorporate it into your instruction wherever possible. Providing varied means of representing information (Universal Design for Learning) can help improve your students’ access to complex texts.
This resource brings together three documents that support the teaching of spelling in today’s schools: a discussion of why spelling matters, a checklist for evaluating a spelling program, and tables of Common Core State Standards that are linked to spelling instruction. Also included is a downloadable checklist for use in evaluating your own spelling program.
