Teaching and Coaching Reading Archives

July 13, 2021November 28, 2022

Instructional Coaching That Gets Results

Announcing Our New Instructional Coaching Course

Announcing our new instructional coaching online course: Coaching Heroes and Champions! This course is for you if you are a new school instructional coach in your first through third year of coaching – who wants to make a difference in student success and teacher performance.

Two women talking while sitting at a table. — Instructional Coaches Help Teachers Be More Effective

What Will School Instructional Coaches Learn in this Course?

This top notch course can greatly shorten the learning curve for new school coaches and help you hit the ground running in your new instructional coaching position.

Learn skills such as how to create productive relationships and build trust with your coaching clients. Identify teacher needs and career stages so you can meet your teachers where they are and improve teacher practice.

Delve into the research behind effective adult learning so you can help your coaching clients make a difference in student success within their classrooms.

Identify ways to use data to hone instructional performance, improve student mastery of state standards and improve learning engagement.

By understanding how to use these skills with the teachers with whom you work, you will be in a better position to build positive and productive relationships and improve teacher effectiveness and result in measurable student learning gains.

Learn facilitation skills that you can use to help school teams reflect on student success and create student-centered, focused classrooms that produce academic growth.

Understand how to use mental models to increase powerful communications and help teachers embrace change and mindsets of continuous improvement.

First year teachers thrive when working with a knowledgeable school coach. Working with a knowledgeable school coach helps new teachers increase their classroom effectiveness by as much as 4-5 years of experience in the classroom.

Where Can I Learn More About this Course?

Don’t miss this opportunity to sharpen your skills as a school coach and make a difference for the students in your school. Review the course curriculum by clicking here.

Click this link to learn more about this 6 module curriculum: Coaching Heroes and Champions.

Know someone who has just become a new instructional coach in your school?

If so, please pass along this email to your instructional coach. This course can help them get a head start on learning the tricks of highly effective coaches.

January 4, 2019September 30, 2022

How Public Domain Literature Can Benefit Classroom Reading

What Has Changed?

Public Domain Literature can be a big benefit to classroom teachers if you know how to find great reads.

So what has changed in the world of Public Domain Literature? After a 20 year hold, 50,000 literary titles from 1923 were released to the public in 2020.

These volumes will now enter public domain use for the first time. This is great news for teachers looking for literary materials to use with their students.

Be sure to check out these great resources and see how you can use them in your own classroom.

What is the History Behind Public Domain Literature?

In the past, copyrighted works were held for a 75-year copyright protection term.

In 1998, Congress extended the copyright term for 20 years to works written between 1923 and 1977. This hold prevented specific titles from being released as public domain literature.

Congress placed this hold on these titles based on pressure from Disney. Disney wanted to keep their Mickey Mouse Steamboat Willy cartoon out of the public domain. This gave these works, a 95-year copyright protection term.

Disney faces the imminent release of the first Micky Mouse cartoon in 2024 – that is – unless another extension is granted to Disney to protect their copyright.

Since 1978, copyrighted works are protected for the term of the author’s life plus an additional 70 years. Time will tell what happens to public domain releases after 2024.

Stack of books with student hiding behind the books. — Teachers now have access to over 50,000 works that can now be used in the classroom.

What Newly Released Public Domain Literature Means for Teachers

This is great news for teachers!

As of this release, these newly released materials are now available to be read, adapted, and publicly performed in schools across the United States.

Teachers do not have to worry about royalties or copyright infringement when they use these resources with their students. As of this release, these materials are now available to be read, adapted, and publicly performed in schools across the U.S.

This includes books like Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan and the Golden Lion; Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links and D.H. Lawrence’s Kangaroo.

Public Domain Literature Gives Students Access to Many Classics

This new release also includes great works from authors and poets including Robert Frost, Kahlil Gibran, Carl Sandburg and many other great artists.

This is a treasure trove of material. What ELA teacher wouldn’t love to use some of these works in the classroom?

Be sure to check this collection to see what might be interesting for your students.

In addition to written works, there are also musical works in this release. Artists such as Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, John Phillip Sousa, and many others are also now available for public domain use.

Music teachers may also want to take advantage of these newly released materials. You can find them on the Project Gutenberg website.

How to Improve Your Ability to Teach Reading

African American female teacher writing on a white board. — Learning the Best Ways to Teach Reading is a Great Career Booster for Teachers

Do you struggle with how to teach reading? Do your skills need a boost or a refresh?

Want to learn how to help struggling readers? Do you know how to challenge the gifted students in your classroom?

Are you able to raise the level of rigor in your content classroom? These are just some of the challenges that teachers face in today’s classrooms.

There is no time like the present to fill your professional knowledge cup with solid professional development that can help you improve your teaching skills and boost student achievement.

Refreshing your skills gives you the energy and confidence to make a difference with your students! I am often asked for advice on classes for teachers who aren’t interested in structured degree programs although they still want to improve their classroom skills.

I recommend taking a look at the online course catalog of my friends at Teach N Kids Learn, Inc. for some hands-on, minds-on courses.

Professional Development on How to Teaching Reading and More

Teach and Kids Learn, Inc. is a national training corporation providing high-quality training to teachers since 2009.

It has partnerships with several state departments of education and large school districts around the United States. Partnerships include Michigan, Georgia, Hawaii, California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio to name just a few places where TKL enrolls many teachers. The mission of Teach and Kids Learn is to ensure that teachers receive high-quality professional development that sparks a passion for teaching and learning.

You can learn more about some of the excellent courses they offer at: Teach N Kids Learn.com.

TKL’s courses are practical, hands-on learning experiences designed to meet the needs of practicing educators. Each course helps you learn solid, research-based strategies and techniques that are proven to work in the classroom.

Over 98% of teachers who have taken TKL courses say that they would highly recommend TKL’s self-paced courses to their colleagues.

The course fee is reasonable. Courses are self-paced and can be taken during a semester or as a fast-track, mini-course.

Many states and school districts will award professional growth credit or Graduate credits for course completion. Check the FAQ page or call them to learn more about options for your state or district.

In addition to courses in reading instruction, TKL also offers courses in many other content areas. For example, there are courses in writing, math instruction, classroom management, PBL or STEM.

You can learn how to work with special needs students who have ADHD, Learning Disabilities, or Autism Spectrum Disorder in the general classroom.

Other classes that you may like include: Increasing Student Engagement: Motivating Students; Engaging Parents in Support of Learning; Kid’s Yoga and Mindfulness; Providing Feedback; Supporting Students with Childhood Trauma, Teaching Mathematics with Rigor; Avoiding Burnout and many more.

Who Teaches Classes for TLK?

All of the instructors who develop and teach professional development courses for TKL are seasoned educators. They all have extensive experience in their content areas and in delivering high-quality professional development.

Since TKL began, I have worked with them as a course developer and “guest instructor” from time to time. I often answer questions that students have while taking any of the courses that I have created.

In keeping with full disclosure, as a freelance course designer, I am paid a small royalty for each student who enrolls in any of the courses that I have created for TLK.

I do not receive royalties for courses developed by other experts nor am I an employee of TKL. I offer this reference only as a consideration for teachers who want to improve their own professional development and skills.

If you want to strengthen your knowledge about teaching reading, you may be interested in the following courses:

Building Academic Vocabulary;

Complex Textual Reading Made Easy;

Addressing Attention Deficits in the General Education Classroom:

Supporting Our Students Through Childhood Trauma;

And finally, my newest course: News and Media Literacy: Fact or Fiction? Research in the Era of Misinformation, Bias and Fake News

To learn more about how to teach reading and any other areas of interest, check out the courses available from my friends at: http://teachnkidslearn.com/

Category: Teaching and Coaching Reading