Literacy Corner by Lynne and Georgine

PART 5—TOP TEN BEST FREE RESOURCES ON ETA/CUISENAIRE’S WEBSITE

2009-10-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

By Guest Blogger Mary Watanabe, Senior Associate, Special Projects in Product Development and Marketing

Four weeks ago, I started this project of introducing readers to fabulous free stuff on ETA/Cuisenaire’s website. In today’s blog I will finish the job with entries nine and ten. Before I do that, let me recap the eight previous treasures that you can have for free just by opening up our website. And don’t forget to share with your friends and colleagues.

The first eight of 10 great free things available at ETA/Cuisenaire’s website include:
• Manipulative of the Month: How-to videos and downloadable activities to help you get started using hands-on math manipulatives in your classroom

• Correlations: Alignment of all our programs to the standards of all 50 states (plus Head Start, where appropriate) so you can be sure your purchase will fit in with your school’s curriculum; also useful when searching for product aimed at a particular standard your basal may not be covering very well

• English-to-Spanish-to-English Math Glossary: Particularly helpful for ESL teachers but also useful for writing those math-related letters home to parents

• B uildLIT Literacy Search System: For building book rooms and classroom libraries without the guess work—or almost any work at all, for that matter

• Educator's Guide to the ARRA Stimulus Act: Helpful information about getting and using Stimulus funds

• Downloadable Books, Activities, and Lesson Plans: Try before you buy to see if our materials will truly meet your needs and those of your students

• ETA’s FREE On-Line Catalogs: Save a tree by shopping with a user-friendly, e-catalog that even allows virtual post-it notes

• VersaTiles Write-Your-Own Activity Template and Some Secret Pattern Codes: The chance to customize your own activities by using our best-selling, purposeful practice, non-consumable, kid-engaging tool; definitely Friday-friendly

So what else is free for the taking?

Our customer advisory group advised us a couple of years ago that teachers would like to be able to go to a website and see how products are used. Since then, we have been accumulating Video Demonstrations for Educators to watch—and watch again. These G-rated, how-to videos are even good for students to watch if you don’t want to do the explaining yourself. On ETA’s website, there’s a whole page of video demonstrations to choose from. I’m partial to the Reading Rods demo (It’s so cute!), but be sure to check out some of the others. And check back frequently as we are steadily adding to the offerings.

And the 10th great free thing on the ETA website is Professional Development Books with Free Downloadable Chapters and Study Guide Pages. Our Comprehensive Literacy Resource Guides, by literacy expert Miriam Trehearne, are huge bestsellers. A separate grade-targeted book, tied tightly to current research, is available for preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers, grade 1-2 teachers, and grade 3-6 teachers. Every teacher—novice to veteran—should have this reading-teacher’s bible front and center on his or her desk. We know of lots of teacher communities-of-learners who are studying various chapters together. In response to their suggestion, we have made available a companion Study Guide for each of the Resource Guides. But don’t take my word for it—Free chapters and pages are available for you to read and share with your Professional Learning Networks before you buy.

Sharing some of our free services and materials with you over the past few weeks has been fun. I’m fairly sure that my colleagues Lynne Hagan and Georgine Cooper, who invited me to guest blog, will ask me back again. At least I hope so.

PART 4—TOP TEN BEST FREE RESOURCES ON ETA/CUISENAIRE’S WEBSITE

2009-10-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

By Guest Blogger Mary Watanabe, Senior Associate, Special Projects in Product Development and Marketing

Everyone I know is interested in saving paper. From preserving a beautiful tree itself to avoiding the carbon footprint the office supply delivery truck leaves behind, we are in a seemingly endless battle to keep paper costs and usage down. Under our desks here at ETA, where we used to have waste baskets, we now have recycle bins for the oodles of paper we use in educational publishing. Recycling is good, but we strive to go even further.

In an effort to curb those costs and to be good stewards of our environment, a few years ago ETA/Cuisenaire began to serve up its Reading, Math, and Science catalogs on-line. This service is in addition to the real-paper catalogs we mail, but at least people now have a choice about which kind of catalog delivery system they want.

ETA’s FREE interactive on-line catalogs are really clever. These teacher-friendly e-catalogs allow you to leave virtual sticky notes on pages you’re interested in, and they even make a life-like paper-rustling sound when you “turn” the page. The whimsy in that always makes me smile. The catalogs are searchable and take up no space in your teacher’s lounge filing cabinet. Be a good citizen—use this FREE on-line resource from ETA!

ETA’s flagship product is called VersaTiles®. If you haven’t heard of VersaTiles, you should watch this short VersaTiles how-to video first. Then take a look at some of the FREE sample activities.

The ultimate differentiation tool, VersaTiles is self-correcting and keeps kids happily engaged in purposeful practice but requires no grading and is nonconsumable. It’s a definite win-win item for every school and classroom from K to grade 8 and above.

While ETA offers a huge variety of VersaTiles Activity Books in Reading/Language Arts, Math (including Algebra), and Science, sometimes teachers want to make the activities specific to what they are teaching that day or week. That’s why we offer FREE on our website a VersaTiles Activity Template and some secret Pattern Codes. Using the template, you can write your own customized activities, based on your current unit of study. I myself have used the Template to write quizzes I used as assessment devices for professional development sessions. The customized VersaTiles activities are fun, and learners eventually get all the right answers because they can go back to see what they have to do to match the Pattern Code.

VersaTiles is perfect for Centers, After School, Summer School, ESL students, tutoring, and even fun pop quizzes. They are the answer to What are the other kids doing while I'm working with a small group? Print a bunch of copies of the FREE Template and Pattern Codes. Then challenge your students to write their own activities.

I hope you have enjoyed this virtual—and free!—tour through ETA’s website. Come again! Please share your favorite “find” in a comment.

PART 3: TOP TEN BEST FREE RESOURCES ON ETA/CUISENAIRE’S WEBSITE

2009-09-24T13:05:00.000-07:00

By Guest Blogger Mary Watanabe, Senior Associate, Special Projects in Product Development and Marketing

For the past two weeks, I have been adding to this list of ten useful free things available on ETA’s website.

In week one, I spotlighted the Manipulative of the Month feature, which has video that will help you learn how to incorporate manipulatives into your classroom and also offers free downloadable lessons. Item two was our Correlations Center, which allows you to create and download charts that show how all of our programs align to the standards of each of the 50 states (you choose) plus, where appropriate, Head Start.

Last week, I featured our English to Spanish to English Glossary, all 113 pages of which can be downloaded in pdf format for free. It's perfect for ESL teachers who have Spanish children in their classes. The second item last week was our BuildLIT Literacy Search System, a convenient service that lets you browse for books based on the criteria you set up.

I hope you’ve had a chance to explore those features. Now, it’s time for two more.

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This bill provides approximately $100 billion of additional education funding over two years, designed to save jobs and invest in our students' future. Do you want some of that money? ETA’s Educator's Guide to the ARRA Stimulus Funding will help you do two things:
• Quickly access Stimulus funding facts and figures
• Easily identify solutions that align to the Stimulus Act

And finally, the second freebie for this week is this: You can find free downloadable books, activities, and lesson plans at ETA's website. There's lots to choose from. For example:
• SunSprouts: Here are the downloadable books available from our premier K-3 leveled reading series, SunSprouts. Find four complete books and Teacher’s Notes to choose from as well as CD audio samples.

• Also available are plenty of downloadable activities from All Subject Areas--a ton to choose from, ready for use in your classroom!

I hope you have enjoyed this virtual—and free!—tour through ETA’s website. Come again! Please share your favorite “find” in a comment.

PART 2: TOP TEN BEST FREE RESOURCES ON ETA/CUISENAIRE’S WEBSITE

2009-09-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

By Guest Blogger Mary Watanabe, Senior Associate, Special Projects in Product Development and Marketing

In last week’s installment of this blog, I told you about the first two of 10 great free things available at ETA/Cuisenaire’s website. These included the Manipulative of the Month feature and Correlations of all our programs to the standards of all 50 states plus, where appropriate, Head Start. I hope you’ve had a chance to explore these features. Now, it’s time for two more.

But first, in case you don’t know who ETA/Cuisenaire is, let me just say that I wish ETA had been around when I was growing up and learning math, reading, and science. The manipulatives and other hands-on materials that we at ETA now create and train teachers to use make UNDERSTANDING reading, math, and science concepts so much easier, not to mention fun.

For instance, try explaining to someone what 2 means. Go ahead—try it—it’s hard! This basic sense of number is so important. If you don’t get this number sense, the rest of math learning is pretty much a rote memory trip downhill. Number sense can be taught by having young children repeatedly—in a fun way with fun objects—sort similar items, like blocks, into sets. Over time, children will internalize that a set of two blocks or two jungle animals has “two-ness” in common with a set of two cars. With that knowledge as their foundation, children are ready for counting where they can explore why the object we point to and say "two" is really the second object in a set of objects.

So, it is the manipulatives—those hands-on tools that help students move from concrete representations to abstract ones—that is what ETA is all about. Manips can be any variety of things: the change from your pocket, plastic jungle animals, snap-together cubes with letters or words on them, or colorful links that stand for real objects. And we specialize in the teaching methods and management that go with hands-on learning for reading, math, and science. This is why I have started a manipulatives fan club on Twitter. Follow me there (Mary_at_ETA), and we'll search for birds of a feather!

That said, sometimes we develop programs that require supporting components that don’t really have to do with manipulatives. Today’s two best free things fall into that category.

English-to-Spanish-to-English Math Glossary Here we have 113 pages of math terms (We really love math here!). An excellent resource for all math teachers, tutors, and parents, this unique glossary will make your life with your Spanish-speaking students and their life with you much easier. Everything’s better when you can communicate content accurately. This glossary also supports the ESL activities in our InfoTrek leveled reading series.

BuildLIT Literacy Search System Looking to build your classroom library or school bookroom? Our searchable BuildLIT center allows you to enter the criteria you want—genre, level, subject, grade, topic, etc.—and BuildLIT will do the book browsing for you. It’s so easy and fun. Try it!

So, go to http://www.etacuisenaire.com/ and see what you can discover. It’s a user-friendly site with lots to offer teachers, tutors, parents, grandparents, and anyone else who wants to make math, reading, writing, and science fun and understandable.

Please join me again next week for the next two FREE buried treasures on our website.

PART 1: TOP 10 FREE RESOURCES AT www.etacuisenaire.com

2009-09-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

By Guest Blogger Mary Watanabe, Senior Associate, Special Projects in Product Development and Marketing

I joined Twitter a few weeks ago, and I have been hugely impressed with the quality and quantity of information and resources available to teachers. And just as they have done for centuries, teachers are sharing their “free finds” with their colleagues—now through this brave new world of technology.

That set me to thinking about all the cool free stuff available on ETA/Cuisenaire’s website that I’ll bet some teachers would be interested in. So I polled users and coworkers to get their favorites, and here are 2 of the top 10. I’ll share the rest in weekly posts. By the way, there are a lot more than 10 things, but once the links below take you to our website, I’m sure you’ll discover them for yourself.

Manipulative of the Month Feature: You can learn about the featured manipulative, watch a video about how to use it, and download tried-and-true lessons. It’s a great way to get those hands-on materials off the shelf and into the hands of children. Check out the Manipulative of the Month archives at the bottom of the web page for other lessons and videos.

Correlations: Are you trying to match your lessons and materials to state standards? You can find correlations to your state standards—and to Head Start for early childhood teachers—for all ETA/Cuisenaire’s proprietary products. You can save the correlations as a Word or Excel document to show the “purchasing committee” that you’ve done your research.

Two more just-as-good FREE RESOURCES will come in next week’s blog. Watch for it and let your friends know. Sharing the good stuff is what life is all about!

Catch me on Twitter where I'm known as Mary_at_ETA.

Teaching Writing: Reluctance or Relish?

2009-09-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

by Georgine Cooper

Do elementary and language arts teachers dread teaching writing as much as the general population dreads dental appointments? While there is no research (that I know of) to support a conclusion—and no Richter-like scale to measure it—I fear it may be true.

Dramatic exaggeration notwithstanding, why do many teachers feel inadequate as writers and as teachers of writing?

The National Council of Teachers of English asserts, “Everyone has the capacity to write, writing can be taught, and teachers can help students become better writers.” (Writing Study Group of the NCTE Executive Committee: NCTE Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing, November 2004)

How do teachers harness the power in their capacity to write, develop or refine effective instructional strategies, and help their students grow as writers? Are you teaching writing with relish, not reluctance? Can you share a story about effective writing instruction and student success?

More RTI Resources

2009-09-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

by Georgine Cooper

Thanks, Lynne, for your guidance on reliable RTI information in your August 27 blog entry.

Says the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE), "First, national, large-scale RTI implementation appears to be an eventual certainty in the United States. Second, this implementation currently varies widely from state to state, both in its progression and in its emphases and components." (National Implementation of Response to Intervention [RTI] Research Summary, NASDSE, 2008)

Another rich vein to tap for useful RTI resources can be found on the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) website. Among the excellent resources are the following free, downloadables:

National Implementation of Response to Intervention: Research Summary

Response to Intervention—Where to go to learn more

2009-08-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

By Lynne Hagan

Response to Intervention (RTI) has quickly become an excellent framework for many school improvement initiatives across the country. It is incredible to see the evolution of quality of information available at both the state and national levels. Almost every State Department of Education or Education Agency has a dedicated site on their main website with a wealth of state-related information. At the national level, there are several sites that are dedicated to providing information—from webinars and discussion blogs to sample implementation plans and product reviews.

Here are some of my favorite links:

National Center on Response to Intervention – This site is very rich and they constantly update it with new information. They have live and recorded webinars, tools and resources, articles, training modules, and more! You can sign up for their newsletter and get all the newest information delivered to your inbox.

RTI State Database (hosted by National Center on Response to Intervention) – If you are looking for resources and information specific to your state, this is the place. You will find policy documents, training information, implementation tools, and more. I have found that every state is at a different stage of implementation and has a little different approach to RTI. Find out what your state recommends by visiting this database—it is also great for getting ideas from other states.

U.S. Department of Education – Here, you can search on the term “response to intervention” and find such things as research, math and reading RTI practice guides, information on IDEA 2004, and funding information.

International Reading Association (IRA) – IRA has kept current with information on RTI with articles, guiding principles from the IRA Commission on RTI, conference sessions, RTI community (online and special interest groups), and Podcasts to name a few. Use the search box and type in “response to intervention” and you’ll find tons of resources.

Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) – From the CEC SmartBrief e-newsletter I receive, I was informed of CEC’s RTI Blog. This is a great place to interact with other educators and read what the experts are saying. Check it out and join the discussions.

Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) – Jointly administered by Florida State University by the Learning Systems Institute and the College of Arts and Sciences, their mission is to conduct basic research on reading, reading growth, assessment, and instruction; disseminate information about research-based practices; conduct applied research that will have immediate impacts on policy and practices; and provide technical assistance to Florida’s schools. Along with the research information, you can find practical information on such things as Student Center Activities. I found this guide, Using Student Center Activities to Differentiate Reading Instruction: A Guide for Teachers. It is a nice practical guide that can be put to use right away in the classroom.

RTI Action Network – This is a program of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. Talk about a gold mine! You will find all sorts of professional development resources including articles, videos and podcasts, online forums, discussion boards, virtual visits, and webinars.

I hope this has been helpful. If you have some favorite places to visit to learn more about RTI, please share them with our community. My next blog entry will be on using hands-on instruction in Response to Intervention lessons.

You Can Never Have Too Many Books!

2009-08-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

by Lynne Hagan

While working the ETA/Cuisenaire Warehouse Sale the past few days, I was very inspired by all the excitement in the air with the start of a new school year. I saw teachers, university instructors, parents, and students—everyone had a sense of renewed energy for the new year to come!

One of the hot topics was around refreshing classroom libraries with new books. As we all know, you can NEVER have too many books. Some attributes I look for in a good classroom library include—

A variety of reading levels to support both the independent and instructional levels of students
A good selection of both fiction and nonfiction text representing a variety of genres that provide students with experience reading all types of text
A wide range of topics to appeal to the current and changing interests of students throughout the year
Books for shared, guided, and independent reading to include literacy in all facets of the day
Culturally responsive text to honor the many heritages in today’s classroom
Age-appropriate reading selections that are considerate of students’ abilities—especially important in the upper grades
Supplemental reading selections that support the core instruction to provide students with resources that extend their learning
Books with engaging photos, illustrations, and language to hook the visual learner
Audio books with professional narration for building fluency and to support auditory learners

Building your classroom library should be an ongoing process. Interview and assess your students multiple times during the year to learn about their interests and abilities. Two things that will really get kids reading are...give them materials that they ENJOY and CAN READ!

Share a little about your classroom and the library you are building...

What criteria do you use to build your classroom library?
What are your students interested in reading about?
What is going to be this year’s popular book or series?
What are your favorite shared and guided reading series to use?
What is the best organizational tip you give to other teachers for setting up a classroom library?

Welcome

2009-08-07T15:36:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Literacy Corner by Lynne & Georgine. This new blog is meant to be a resource, a diary, and a place to share and exchange ideas that will help make the classroom a dynamic and motivating place for children to learn. In our upcoming posts we will address topics such as—

Response to Intervention

Differentiated instruction

Hands-on learning

Reading instruction

Writing instruction

Classroom management

Instructional approaches

And more!

We invite you to share your thoughts and interact with us, our guest bloggers, and each other. Education is about learning from one another—our hope is to facilitate that through this blog!

We are looking forward to this experience and reaching out to a community of learners. Until next time…

Tell us what areas of literacy instruction you are interested in. What are the hot topics in your district? What keeps you up at night? What works in your classroom?