Daniel, your essays have been fantastic, and this latest one is no exception. I appreciate the detailed way you describe instructional practices and the thinking behind your choices. It’s astounding how many choices classroom teachers have to constantly make. It’s not uncommon for teachers (understandably) to fall back on habits and comfortable routines they’ve picked up and avoid this kind of thoughtful “plank by plank” improvement process, as you discuss in a previous post.
I’m a language and literacy specialist and have worked mostly in intervention. I’m not a classroom teacher. But I’ve spent plenty of time in classrooms either supporting individual students or helping teachers teach phonics. Kids who are struggling get so good at hiding, pretending, and avoiding. It becomes entrenched. Using this “all-hands up” method in an elementary classroom is powerful.
Thanks Miriam. The year I spent as a full inclusion special ed teacher (after being solely resource room for a while) definitely made me appreciate what you describe. As a classroom teacher, I'm still definitely working towards getting to that same pace and frequency that I had as an interventionist.
Daniel, your essays have been fantastic, and this latest one is no exception. I appreciate the detailed way you describe instructional practices and the thinking behind your choices. It’s astounding how many choices classroom teachers have to constantly make. It’s not uncommon for teachers (understandably) to fall back on habits and comfortable routines they’ve picked up and avoid this kind of thoughtful “plank by plank” improvement process, as you discuss in a previous post.
I’m a language and literacy specialist and have worked mostly in intervention. I’m not a classroom teacher. But I’ve spent plenty of time in classrooms either supporting individual students or helping teachers teach phonics. Kids who are struggling get so good at hiding, pretending, and avoiding. It becomes entrenched. Using this “all-hands up” method in an elementary classroom is powerful.
Thanks Miriam. The year I spent as a full inclusion special ed teacher (after being solely resource room for a while) definitely made me appreciate what you describe. As a classroom teacher, I'm still definitely working towards getting to that same pace and frequency that I had as an interventionist.