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It’s World Read Aloud Day!

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The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read written by: Oge Mora

Today is World Read Aloud Day! I’m always ready for a great read aloud! Are you? Remember that read alouds can and should be happening K-12. I remember my 10th grade teacher (circa 1994) getting out, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I don’t remember the lesson, but I do remember being in class and not so much of a pencil dropped. That is what read alouds do!

When Reading Aloud Remember This:

📖 Read the book before hand! It helps to get your fluency ready to read to kids. It allows you to pull out important vocabulary, themes, background knowledge, etc.

📖 Think of questions to engage your readers to create an interactive read aloud. Is there are word or phrase that repeats? Get them to engage with you! Are there critical questions to create discussion? Ask them.
Hint: I write mine on sticky notes and stuck them in my book to remind myself to ask. I leave them in the book for next time.

📖 Your voice, inflection and intonation are EVERYTHING. I remember when I first started teaching, I read to my students like a robot. My poor 2nd graders were so sweet and sat through those awful read alouds without a wiggle. Maybe they did wiggle— I can’t remember. That was in 2002. 😂 I’m so grateful for my room parent that did a read aloud intervention. She was a former teacher and her read alouds were magical! 🤩 I vowed to make my read alouds just as magical—and I did! Don’t underestimate the power of a whisper and a pause.

📖 Have fun and bring your kiddos along for the ride. Let them be part of your read aloud journey! Make it an experience! 🤩

🌎Read the World on World Read Aloud Day! 🌎

Note-This book in this picture above is written by Oge Mora. 4th graders looooove this book. It’s a true story and it creates wonderful discussion, ties in history and critical thought provoking questions!

Multicultural Children’s Book Day!—The Pirate Princess

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Today is Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2021! The book I am spot lighting is,The Pirate Princess, written by Alva Sachs @alva.sachs and illustrated by Patricia Krebs. This enjoyable story is about a young girl, named Madison, who was sad about it raining outside. She wanted to play with her friends outside and the plans were ruined because of the rain. She was not happy about that. But her mom gave her the idea of playing indoors. She excitedly invited her friends over. They used their imaginations and got creative! Madison became the Pirate Princess 👸🏽! She and her friends soared the sea of adventure—together.

Multicultural Children’s Book Day is in its 8th year! This non-profit children’s literacy initiative was founded by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen; two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural books and authors on the market while also working to get those book into the hands of young readers and educators.

Eight years in, MCBD’s mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves continues. Read about our Mission & Vision at https://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/about/mission/

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#diversebooks #multiculturalchildrensbookday #readyourworld #read #reader #books #diversebooks #reading #literacy #windowsandmirrors

Teachers are the Secret Sauce!

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What this is NOT is a toxic positivity post. It is not posted to invoke any positive or negative feelings one way or another. (well…hopefully some encouragement)

This is a research-based post.

Let me say this first and foremost, it’s always safety first. Teachers, you deserve to feel safe and valued. If you don’t feel safe, how can you be that secret sauce for your students? It’s challenging. It’s difficult. It’s not easy. I see you.

In a SAFE environment, whether it’s learning digitally, hybrid (with safety precautions) or F2F with masks AND safety precautions in the middle of a pandemic—Teachers you are the secret sauce.

This post is to tell you that whether you are teaching digital, hybrid or safely f2f, that YOU, with your high expertise, your passion, your inclusiveness, and your care, are the secret sauce to whatever way you are teaching right now during the pandemic. It’s YOU. It doesn’t really matter what digital platform you are using. It doesn’t really matter what “program” you are using. Truly. It’s the teacher that knows what your students need in order to grow (socio-emotional needs, academic needs, etc). It’s the teacher that builds important relationships with students that makes them WANT to engage, jump on that Zoom, do their work. It’s the teacher that makes the sound instructional decisions to make an impact on students. It’s the teacher that knows when to challenge and when to break it down even more to accelerate learning. It’s the teacher that does this. It is YOU. No pressure. But it has always been you. Even before this awful and mismanaged pandemic.

Some Research:
John Hattie synthesized 1000 research reviews of 50,000 studies and found that the greatest influence on student progression in learning is having highly expert, inspired and passionate teachers and school leaders working together to maximize the effect of their teaching on all students in their care (Hattie 2015, p 2; Hattie 2017).

There is more value in QUALITY over QUANTITY. But that is a whole nother post. 😂

Do what you can, with the time you have while preserving yourself in the process.

TED Talk done 🎤