In This Issue:

1. Ten ideas for improving results for students with special needs

2. Tweaking the time-honored initiate/respond/evaluate dynamic

3. How to deal with student backtalk

4. “Instructional rounds” in a California elementary school

5. Effective use of educational technology for high-risk students

6. Is sitting in classrooms bad for students’ health?

7. Graphic novels for elementary classrooms

8. Good nonfiction websites for students

 

Quotes of the Week

“Fortunately for us, backtalk is one of the least creative endeavors of the disruptive student. Mouthy students have been saying the same things since little Babylonian kids went to school.”

            Fred Jones (see item #3)

 

“Teachers may have the best intentions or a curriculum may be perfectly aligned to standards, but what matters most is what students actually do.”

            Aaron Brengard (see item #4)

 

“In dozens of schools we visited across the nation we observed teachers engaged in collaborative settings, but their efforts were constrained by existing images of practice. Many settings labeled as ‘learning communities’ had reduced collaboration to compliance-driven work, operational tasks, or loosely structured discussions, rather than meaningful learning opportunities to study and improve teaching. Some schools referred to ‘lesson study’ and ‘inquiry teams’ as grade-level or subject area meetings where teachers casually exchanged ideas and materials, but no time was spent intentionally planning or observing lessons to gather evidence of student learning.”

            Bradley Ermeling and Genevieve Graff-Ermeling in “Reframing Professional

Learning” in Teachers College Record, November 8, 2016, http://bit.ly/2eXOiVy;

Bradley Ermeling can be reached at [email protected].

 

“I feel sad for kids who have teachers who are not strong in content knowledge and not skilled at providing rigorous instruction. And I feel sad for kids who have teachers who are not expressing love, building relationships, and setting high expectations for all students.”

            Norman Atkins in “Creating a ‘Relay’ of Highly Effective Teachers,” an interview by

John J-H Kim in The District Management Journal, Fall 2016 (Vol. 20, 4-11) on the

Relay Graduate School of Education, which Atkins founded, http://bit.ly/2eXPN5P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Ten Ideas for Improving Results for Students with Special Needs

“No one seems satisfied with the state of serving students with special needs, and for good reason,” say Nathan Levenson and Christopher Cleveland in this District Management Journal article. “In nearly every school district across the country, the conversation is the same. Parents are concerned that their children aren’t well enough prepared to succeed in life, college, and career. Students themselves often feel excluded or frustrated by ever-higher standards that they can’t seem to meet. Classroom teachers feel underprepared to address ever-mounting student needs, and special-education teachers feel stretched thin. Despite the hard work of so many caring people and the mounting resources dedicated year after year, disappointment and frustration persist.”

But Levenson and Cleveland believe there are steps that can be taken to produce better results. Based on what their organization, District Management Council, has learned from the research and working with special educators across the country, here are their suggestions:

• Focus on student outcomes, not inputs. When results are disappointing, all too many districts pour money into more staff, more paraprofessionals, more co-teaching, and more hours of service. “History shows that continuing to add resources and layer in solutions does not yield results,” say Levenson and Cleveland. “If the current approach isn’t achieving great outcomes, current practice must be reviewed and modified.”

• Focus on effective general education. According to NAEP data, when general education teachers are effective with Tier I instruction and take responsibility for all students, those with special needs do better. “If we want students to master the general education curriculum,” say Levenson and Cleveland, “general education teachers have to be a big part of the solution.”

• Ensure that all students can read. Low reading skills are at the root of many special education referrals – hence the spike in third and sixth grade when reading deficits make it especially difficult for students to learn math, science, and social studies. “An overwhelming majority of students who have not mastered reading by the end of third grade will continue to struggle throughout high school and beyond,” say Levenson and Cleveland – and that includes behavioral problems. Fortunately, there are specific steps districts can take to increase reading proficiency in the primary grades:

-   Setting clear and rigorous grade-level expectations;

-   Identifying struggling readers starting in kindergarten;

-   Frequently measuring achievement and using the data to improve instruction;

-   Giving students at least 90 minutes a day of balanced core instruction;

-   Explicitly teaching phonics and comprehension;

-   Providing at least 30 minutes a day of additional time for all struggling readers;

-   Tightly connecting remediation to core instruction;

-   Fielding highly skilled and effective teachers of reading;

-   Putting one person in charge of reading curriculum and instruction;

-   Making effective use of instructional coaching and professional development.

• Provide extra instructional time for struggling students every day. “In many schools, struggling students are provided extra adults, but not extra time,” say Levenson and Cleveland – teaching assistants, paraprofessionals, co-teachers. “Extra ‘help time’ should not be confused with extra instructional time.” To catch up on missing foundational skills, correct misunderstandings, and master current material, these students need at least 30 minutes of additional reading instruction every day at the elementary level, an extra period at the secondary level. In a sample schedule, the authors suggest that students with special needs in math are part of a regular-education classroom for the initial presentation of content, learning from effective instruction and peer questions, and then have an extra period of math support taking the place of Spanish.

• Ensure that content-strong staff provide interventions and support. “Districts that have made the most significant gains among struggling students have done so by providing these students, whether or not they have IEPs, with teachers skilled in content instruction during extra instructional time,” say Levenson and Cleveland. They note that special education teachers know pedagogy and are not always expert in math or ELA. Content-strong support (versus generalist support) looks like this: associating students’ incorrect answers with the underlying concept, inferring misunderstandings from incorrect answers, teaching prior, foundational skills, and teaching correct material using two or three different approaches.

• Allow special educators to play to their strengths. It’s smart for a school to take advantage of particular areas of expertise among teachers – for example, some may be strong in math content, some in specific pedagogical areas (scaffolding, differentiation, chunking), some in social-emotional support, and some in case management.

• Focus paraprofessional support on health, safety, and behavior needs versus academic needs. Paraprofessionals can play a vital role with students who have severe disabilities, autism, health needs, and behavior issues. But Levenson and Cleveland don’t favor having paraprofessionals provide academic support. They cite evidence that students with special needs do best when they are fully engaged during Tier I instruction and then get extra time with content-strong teachers, RTI interventionists, and other trained specialists focused on academic and other specific needs. When aides are present during core instructional time, it can decrease the amount of instruction a student receives from the classroom teacher, who may believe the student already has an adult’s attention. In addition, an aide hovering beside a special-needs student “creates a social barrier, stifling peer interaction and thereby defeating one of the primary benefits of inclusion,” say Levenson and Cleveland.

• Expand the reach and impact of social, emotional, and behavioral supports. It’s hard

for teachers to be successful when students can’t communicate, connect with others, resolve conflicts, and cope with challenges, say the authors – hence the critical importance of counselors, social workers, psychologists, and behavior specialists. But Levenson and Cleveland have found major differences in how well these professionals are used. In some districts, they spend 75 percent of their time with students while in others they spend only 45 percent; in some districts psychologists spend five days for each initial or three-year evaluation while others complete the same work in 1½ days (staff moving from one district to another quickly adapt to the prevailing standard).

The bottom line: it’s possible to expand direct services for students simply by streamlining meetings and paperwork. It’s also far more effective, say Levenson and Cleveland, to stop relying on paraprofessionals as hand-holders and crisis interveners and beef up the role of behaviorists, who are expert at diagnosing why a student has a disruptive outburst, providing the student with coping mechanisms, and guiding teachers to avoid triggers. Better that paraprofessionals report directly to behavior specialists and provide ad hoc support to multiple classrooms. If there aren’t enough psychologists, social workers, counselors, and behaviorists, a district might forge a partnership with a local nonprofit counseling agency.

• Provide high-quality in-district programs for students with more severe needs. If a district has at least three high-need students, it may be more cost-effective to provide special education services within the district, saving long bus rides for students to out-of-district placements and strengthening connections to their town or neighborhood. Of course the key is hiring staff with the right skills and training and providing dedicated leadership.

• Know how staff spend their time, and provide guidance on effective use of time. Unlike regular-education teachers, most of whom are working as part of teams with clear curriculum and assessment guidelines, special educators “are typically left to themselves to figure out how best to help their students, how best to juggle the many demands on their time, and how best to schedule services,” say Levenson and Cleveland. “This serves neither the student, the teacher, nor the budget well.” When districts do careful time-and-motion studies, “both staff and administrators are often surprised at how much time is spent in meetings, how much service is provided 1:1 or 2:1 even though IEPs call for small groups, and how much instruction is provided by paraprofessionals.” Often the master schedule is a culprit, forcing teachers to pull students from core instruction in reading or math and preventing grouping of students with similar needs. Once these problems are confronted, sometimes with the help of an outside scheduling expert, much more effective use can be made of everyone’s time.

Implementing these ten suggestions is not an easy process, conclude Levenson and Cleveland. “Districts that have been able to expand and improve services, increase inclusion, and close the achievement gap have generally devoted three or more years to the effort,” they say – including assembling cross-functional teams, involving parents, and wrestling with the budget. There was also a sense of urgency: “While they understood that moving too fast could erode trust and understanding, they also knew that waiting to start would delay helping students in need. Clear goals, careful planning, and lots of communication helped pave the way.”

 

“Improving Special Education” by Nathan Levenson and Christopher Cleveland in The District Management Journal, Fall 2016 (Vol. 20, p. 12-27), can be purchased at http://bit.ly/2f9t9Fq

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2. Tweaking the Time-Honored Initiate/Respond/Evaluate Dynamic

            In this article in Theory Into Practice, Ann Lawrence and Sandra Crespo (University of South Florida/Sarasota-Manatee) focus on the all-too-common classroom interaction known to researchers as IRE/F – the teacher initiates (asks a known-answer question), the student responds, and the teacher evaluates or follows up – for example:

-   Teacher:  What is 2 + 2 ?

-   Student:  4

-   Teacher:  Correct. How do you spell the number four?

-   Student:  F-o-u-r.

-   Teacher:  F-o-u-r. And that’s different from f-o-r, as in “I have a question for you.”

The IRE/F dynamic has been roundly criticized over the years as a guessing game in which students try to give the response the teacher is looking for and that’s it. As such, IRE/F constrains or forecloses students’ engagement with learning opportunities, their use of language as a tool for reasoning, and their exploration of evidence-claims connections – all of which will be important down the road.

There’s another concern: “Concentrating authority in teachers and casting students’ responses to teachers’ questions as right/wrong,” say Lawrence and Crespo, “the IRE/F pedagogical routine may limit students’ contributions of their own expertise to classroom conversations, and may discourage both teachers and students from exploring together the unknown or less certain. Moreover, teachers’ interjection of the last word (evaluation/follow-up) may interrupt or foreclose students’ elaboration of their own interpretations, collaborative discussions among students, or illuminating debates among teachers and students.” And here’s one more problem: the different ways IRE/F is used from one classroom or subject to another can be confusing to students – for example, a response to a question about b, d, p, q, 6, and 9 might be incorrect in a kindergarten math class but correct in a reading class.

Lawrence and Crespo give an example from a first-grade geometry class taught by a student teacher as she refers to a display of different shapes and their characteristics:

-   The teacher asks students if they can think of a shape they talked about that week and calls on a student.

-   The student responds, “A Granny Smith.”

-   The teacher laughs and asks the class, “Is that a shape?”

-   Students laugh and say, “No!”

-   The teacher says, “That’s an apple.”

-   The teacher says, “Raise your hand if you can think of a shape” and calls on another student.

-   The student says, “Circle.”

-   The teacher affirms that’s the correct answer and moves on.

In addition to inviting ridicule for the first student’s “wrong” answer, the teacher missed an opportunity to praise the creativity of the answer and explain the distinction between a 3-dimentional apple and a 2-dimensional circle. “Previous studies of classroom discourse,” say Lawrence and Crespo, “have highlighted how teachers’ sensitivity and tact in responding to students’ incorrect answers during IRE/F exchanges can be decisive in bolstering or eroding students’ motivation to learn mathematics… Like a dance form, the discursive routine of IRE/F involves teacher and students in distinctive social interactions, exercising an influence on their participation that operates somewhat independently of teachers’ and students’ awareness, compliance, and resistance.” Ironically, this novice teacher “may have gravitated to the familiar pedagogical genre of IRE/F in her own endeavor to appropriate professional practices and achieve identity as an elementary teacher.”

            All this notwithstanding, Lawrence and Crespo believe it’s possible to use IRE/F constructively. They suggest a revised acronym: WAIT: Welcome students’ participation; Analyze students’ participation; Include students as participants in the community; and Thank students for contributing. Here’s how the teacher might have handled the Granny Smith interaction using the WAIT approach:

-   Teacher:  “Who can think of a shape?” Calls on a student.

-   Student:  “A Granny Smith.”

-   Teacher:  “A Granny Smith. You’re saying that you see angles and curves – maybe even symmetry – in an apple, which is something that we find in our everyday lives.”

-   Student:  Nods

-   Teacher:  “You were thinking like a mathematician when you compared geometric shapes, like a circle, with an ordinary thing, like a Granny Smith apple.”

The teacher welcomed participation, analyzed a student’s response for its relevance to the lesson, included the student in the interaction, and thanked her for her idea.

 

“IRE/F As a Cross-Curricular Collaborative Genre of Implicit Argumentation” by Ann Lawrence and Sandra Crespo in Theory Into Practice, Fall 2016 (Vol. 55, #4, p. 320-331),

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00405841.2016.1209021?journalCode=htip20; Lawrence can be reached at [email protected].

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3. How to Deal with Student Backtalk

            In this Tools for Teaching article, classroom management guru Fred Jones addresses a perennial teacher dilemma: how to respond when students who are being held accountable talk back. Jones contends that it’s a cardinal error for teachers to try to push back on student backtalk, especially getting upset. That’s a major cause of teacher fight-flight stress. “It takes one fool to backtalk,” says Jones. “It takes two fools to make a conversation of it.”

            The key is to remain calm and not react. “Fortunately for us,” says Jones, “backtalk is one of the least creative endeavors of the disruptive student. Mouthy students have been saying the same things since little Babylonian kids went to school.” Here are some ways students try to get off the hook when they’re goofing off and the teacher has told them to get back to work:

            • Whiny backtalk – Self-justification used when students are trying to get the teacher off their back, for example:

-   Denial (“I wasn’t doing anything.” “We weren’t talking.” “I’m not chewing gum.”)

-   Blaming your neighbor (“She was talking, not me.” “They started it.” “He was just asking me a question.”)

-   Blaming the teacher (“I had to ask him because you went over it so fast.” “I had to ask her because I can’t read your handwriting.” “I had to ask him because you didn’t make it clear.”)

-   Suggesting that you take a hike (“All right, I’ll do it.” “All right, I’ll do it if you just leave me alone.” “All right, I’ll do it for you just to get you out of my face! I can’t work with you standing over me like that!”)

-   Goodie-two-shoes compliment to divert the teacher’s attention and get some brownie points (“Oh, Mrs. Johnson, what a beautiful pin.”)

In all of these situations, Jones says it’s a fatal classroom management error to take the bait. For example, with the Blaming the Teacher gambit, if a teacher responds, “I went over this material step by step not ten minutes ago. It is written right up there on the board if you would care to read it. Now, I’m sick and tired…”, the hook is set and the student just has to reel in the increasingly irate teacher. Or with the compliment, if the teacher says, “Why thank you, dear. I got that for my birthday. Now, you get some work done” and wanders off, the student will almost certainly be goofing off a minute later.

            So what’s the alternative? “Take two relaxing breaths,” Jones advises, “kill some time, and keep your mouth shut. This too shall pass.” Sometimes it’s helpful to see the humor in the situation. For example, with the Blaming Your Neighbor ploy, imagine a paraphrase of what the student is really saying: “Gee, teacher, we weren’t goofing off when we were talking. We were operating a peer tutoring program to further our education.”

            • Nonverbal backtalk – These are tactics students use that function as backtalk without the risk of mouthing off:

-   Crying – “If crying gets kids off the hook at home,” says Jones, “they may try it at school. Some parents start apologizing as soon as the tears flow.” The best strategy is to remain impassive and wait for the tears to stop, then say, “We can talk about your crying later. For right now, the least I will expect from you is that you get your work done.”

-   Pushing you aside – The student pushes the teacher’s arm away as he or she leans on the desk. The teacher could make a big deal of it (assault!), but a better approach is to relax the arm that’s been pushed, remain calm, and hang in there without backing off. “The student, confronted by an immovable object, must now finally deal with your presence,” says Jones. “At this point, he or she usually realizes that getting back to work is the cheapest way out.”

-   A kiss on the nose – Once a popular “Joe Cool” high-school student was having an extended conversation with his buddy and the female teacher leaned over and told him to get back to work. He looked up at the teacher, leaned forward, and gave her a kiss on the nose. She did nothing and continued to look at him. “All eyes were on him,” says Jones. “It came as a surprise when nothing happened. It became embarrassing when nothing at all happened. Some classmates giggled. Joe blushed. The teacher just looked at him and waited, but her lack of emotion came across as nonchalance, as though to say, ‘This happens to me all the time.’ Joe wilted. He looked for a place to hide but had to settle for getting back to work.”

The moral of all this? “When in doubt,” says Jones, “do nothing. This may not seem like much of a strategy, but, in the heat of the moment, it can be a life-saver. Would you rather respond impulsively or have some time to think?”

 

“Responding to Backtalk: When in Doubt, Do Nothing” by Fred Jones at Tools for Teaching, November 9, 2016, http://bit.ly/2eTkshj

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4. “Instructional Rounds” in a California Elementary School

            In this article in Principal, San Jose principal Aaron Brengard says that a few years ago, he realized his teachers didn’t have a chance to see what he observed as he cruised around the building every day – new ideas being tried, effective practices in action, students learning. Sure, teachers shared ideas in team meetings and at lunch time, but were they appreciating and delving into the finer points of teaching and learning?

            To bridge this gap, the school adopted “instructional rounds,” with grade-level teacher teams (freed up by substitutes for an entire morning two or three times a year) systematically visiting 3-5 classrooms at another grade level for 10-15 minutes each and debriefing and discussing next steps afterward. Their focus was on the “instructional core” – the minute-by-minute interaction of teachers, students, and curriculum content. “Anything of value in classroom instruction is connected by the content and what the teacher and students are saying or doing,” says Brengard. “Teachers may have the best intentions or a curriculum may be perfectly aligned to standards, but what matters most is what students actually do.”

From the beginning, Brengard made clear that these classroom visits were not evaluative; there was a firewall between what teachers saw and what he wrote up in his formal evaluations at the end of the year. In addition, to avoid any tinge of evaluation, observers didn’t give feedback to the teachers they observed. (If observees were curious, they were encouraged to ask the observers for feedback.)

Before each morning’s classroom visits, teacher teams agreed on a “problem of practice” – for example, improving small-group math work or increasing student engagement during the literacy block. Criteria for a good problem of practice: it’s directly related to student learning, focused on the instructional core, directly observable, and high-leverage. Once in classrooms, teachers jotted low-inference notes and chatted with students, trying to appreciate what was going on, assume good intent, and not judge their colleagues.

After each visit, teachers caucused in the corridor sharing impressions on each person’s assigned facet of the instructional core (teacher, students, content – they rotated their focus with each classroom). After completing the morning’s observations, teachers met with a facilitator (either Brengard or a staff-designated staff member) and followed a set protocol:

(a) describing what they saw in each facet of the instructional core; (b) analyzing trends across facets and classrooms, especially promising practices; (c) using the evidence to make claims and develop a theory of action – for example, if we embed small-group literacy instruction into projects, then students will become better readers, and we know this because of increased fluency, accuracy, and comprehension assessment results; and (d) discussing ways to move instruction to the next level with action steps related to the problem of practice; this included deadlines, who’s in charge, and what data would be collected to measure progress.

“Rounds have brought a new energy to our campus,” says Brengard. “Instead of me, the principal, being the only one seeing amazing practices going on each day, every teacher has spent a significant time analyzing what teaching looks like in other classrooms.” An upper-grade teacher summed it up: “I see rounds as a coaching clinic where you go in to learn from other practitioners in their field of expertise in real time. You learn to evaluate what works and what doesn’t for your own personal practice.” Brengard believes this has helped teachers “develop a shared understanding of high-quality instruction and reflect on their own practice.” As teachers have increasingly taken ownership for the process, he reports, they “have not only expanded our teaching capacity, but are improving our leadership capacity, too.”

 

“Instructional Rounds: A Handbook for Principals” by Aaron Brengard in Principal, November/December 2016 (Vol. 96, #2, p. 8-11), http://bit.ly/2fRhiiV; Brengard can be reached at [email protected].

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5. Effective Use of Educational Technology for High-Risk Students

            In this EdSurge article, Molly Zielezinski (Stanford University) reports on her research on the best ways technology can be used to serve students with the greatest needs:

            • Stop using it for remediation. Rather than drill and practice, struggling students need authentic tasks grounded in relevant, ongoing work that has a purpose beyond completing the activity. They need to be solving problems, drawing inferences, analyzing and synthesizing information from multiple sources, communicating, collaborating, creating, and engaging in critical thinking. Zielezinski recommends VUE (The Visual Understanding Environment), Canva, and Declar as helpful programs.

            • Have students create original digital content. Kids should be content creators, not just content consumers – for example, designing posters, crafting multimedia stories, filming and producing documentaries, leveraging social media, publishing wikis, blogs, and websites, perhaps building lifelong-learning portfolios showcasing their ongoing learning.

            • Pick digital tools that promote interactivity and discovery. Apps and programs should get students constructing their own understanding of complex phenomena, representing their thinking in multiple forms, engaging with true-to-life simulations, and gathering data on real-life events. The best way for teachers to choose the right technology, says Zielezinski, is to roll up their sleeves and try it themselves.

            • Have students share their expertise with an authentic audience. “With the Internet at our fingertips,” says Zielezinski, “we have access to all kinds of potential audiences – known and unknown, local and global, those with shared interests, shared questions, shared goals.” Students often do their best work when they are preparing to interact with a meaningful audience outside the classroom; the process builds confidence, content knowledge, and identity.

            • Find the right blend of teacher and technology. Technology by itself is not going to do the job, concludes Zielezinski – there needs to be the right combination of digital content, peer interaction, and the teacher’s guidance and feedback.

 

“What a Decade of Educational Research Tells Us About Technology in the Hands of Underserved Students” by Molly Zielezinski in EdSurge, May 19, 2016, http://bit.ly/1sBrYoB, spotted in Education Digest, November 2016 (Vol. 82, #3, p. 30-34), www.eddigest.com.

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6. Is Sitting in Classrooms Bad for Students’ Health?

            This Principal article reports that a new study (published in the October 2016 American Journal of Public Health) found that elementary students who used standing desks in a two-year pilot burned more calories, had five percent reductions in body-mass index, were better behaved, and worked more quickly – teachers reported they had to plan more instructional activities to keep up. “We force kids to sit down, sit still and be quiet, and this is unnatural for young children,” said Mark Benden (Texas A&M University), one of the study authors. “If we want kids to sit less and move more, we should encourage activity in the learning process.”

 

“‘Standing Desks’ Better for Elementary-Grade Students?” in Principal, November/ December 2016 (Vol. 96, #2, p. 6-7), no e-link available

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7. Graphic Novels for Elementary Classrooms

            In this article in The Reading Teacher, William Boerman-Cornell (Trinity Christian College) reports on his study on the effective use of graphic novels in the elementary literacy curriculum – especially the way teachers can get students tuning in to the interaction of text and images – and recommends the following books for elementary students:

-   Bird and Squirrel on the Run by James Burks – grades 2-4

-   Calamity Jack by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale – grades 4-6

-   Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale – grades 3-4

-   Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke – grades 2-5

-   The Legends of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke – grades 2-5

-   The Return of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke – grades 2-5

-   Roller Girls by Victoria Jamieson – grades 3-4

-   Apollo: The Brilliant One by George O’Connor – grades 3-6

-   Ares: Bringer of War by George O’Connor – grades 3-6

-   Aphrodite: Goddess of Love by George O’Connor – grades 4-6

-   Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess by George O’Connor – grades 3-6

-   Hades: God of the Dead by George O’Connor – grades 3-6

-   Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory by George O’Connor – grades 3-6

-   Poseidon: Earth Shaker by George O’Connor – grades 3-6

-   Zeus: King of the Gods by George O’Connor – grades 3-6

-   Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow by James Sturm – grades 4+

-   Smile by Raina Telgemeier – grades 4+

-   Foiled by Jane Yolen – grades 4+

-   Curses! Foiled Again by Jane Yolen – grades 4+

 

“The Intersection of Words and Pictures: Second Through Fourth Graders Read Graphic Novels” by William Boerman-Cornell in The Reading Teacher, November/December 2016 (Vol. 70, #3, p. 327-335), http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/trtr.1525/abstract; the author can be reached at [email protected].

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8. Good Nonfiction Websites for Students

            In this Education Week article on literacy instruction in the computer age, Liana Heitin recommends the following free websites for student reading and research on nonfiction topics:

-   Wonderopolis www.wonderopolis.org from the National Center for Families Learning has daily articles about science, social studies, math, and other subjects.

-   Newsela www.newsela.com features daily news articles, each one written at five different reading levels.

-   BrainPOP – www.brainpop.com has short animated videos in science, social studies English, math, health, engineering, and the arts.

-   The Kids Should See This www.thekidshouldseethis.com has more than 2,500 educational videos on a range of topics, with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

-   Tween Tribune www.tweentribune.com, hosted by the Smithsonian, is geared to 8-15-year-olds and features daily high-interest news articles at four different reading levels.

 

“How Should Elementary Schools Teach Reading in An Age of Computers?” by Liana Heitin in Education Week, November 9, 2016 (Vol. 36, #12, p. 8-11), www.edweek.org

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