Posts Tagged: education

The Future of Books, the Business of Novels, and What Students Can Get Their Hands on for Independent Reading

Posted by & filed under books, literacy.

One of my consistent educational mantras is that students have to read independently to get smarter. The stats on this are clear: According to the U.S. Department of Education, of the 8th-grade students who scored in the top one-quarter on a national reading test in 2011, 36 percent read for fun almost every day. Of the… Read more »

The neuroscience of sustained silent reading

Posted by & filed under literacy.

Despite all my best efforts as an English teacher, the most important way for my middle schoolers to become stronger readers was probably just for them to sit and read. “Sustained silent reading” was in fact enshrined into the middle school English/Language Arts schedules in my district: it’s what the first 12 minutes out of… Read more »

Reading and Scheming: How Schema Theory, Cognitive Frameworks, and Background Knowledge Support Literacy Instruction

Posted by & filed under education, literacy.

As a plucky (read: obnoxious) middle schooler, I got frustrated easily trying to understand why others had such trouble operating technology. Once you’ve used one kind of digital watch, camera, or computer program, I always felt, it wasn’t that hard to get your bearings with a different model and figure out how different buttons, controls,… Read more »

Tennessee & teacher evaluation: They just did it. Now they can make it even better.

Posted by & filed under education.

Pragmatic teacher evaluation systems are one (among many) important policies that can help student achieverment. Arne Duncan’s recent HuffPo column introducing the new report on Tennessee’s teacher evaluation system is exciting for several reasons: 1) Incorporaing student test scores into an evaluation system is justifiably unsettling and frustrating for teachers. I was in the fortunate… Read more »