A great colleague of mine helped me understand a great strategy for teaching higher-level reading skills. She said, when the reading skill, such as inference, is a higher-level thinking skill, the reading comprehension must be lower. Use a text that is easy for the student to read and understand so they can focus on the more challenging thinking skills. One of my favorite activities was using the story of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss to work on inference skills. We would read the book as a class and I would have plenty of extra copies around the room for the partner work. The students would have to use inference skills to try to interpret what the Once-ler was and was not thinking. I've attached the graphic organizer we used, here I will explain the four columns. Self Talk: these would be comments and thoughts the once-ler was saying to himself that were not included in the book. For example, was he ever thinking "should I stop?". Peer talk: comments other characters would be saying to the Once-ler. The book is only dialogue from the Once-ler and the Lorax, what about the others? Were his family members in the business enabling him and encouraging him? Was there a family member who ever spoke up to support the Lorax? Example: Comments the Once-ler was saying to other characters not already included in the story. Non-example: These are comments the once-ler definitely would never have stated to other characters. This activity was used in fifth grade. Most students by then had heard or read the story before so it was familiar to them. The comprehension and understanding of story was not the focus, but the expansion of the ideas in the story. Please use, modify, and share the attached resource however you would like to benefit your students and colleagues! The Lorax Inference Worksheet

My district has used a few snow days to keep everyone home and safe but made it asynchronous learning. This is a great way to keep the students engaged in the content, not add days in June for teachers, and utilize the resources we have available. What are you assigning to students on these days? Something new and related to snow? Similar content to what they would be doing that day in class? Also, what is your strategy to judge how long it will take students to complete?

How can we better engage students who are learning virtually? It seems like such a struggle at times to get kids enthusiastically involved in lessons. Has anyone found any good strategies, tricks, or fun games to help motivate students to be more enthusiastic about learning virtually?

What are your strategies and/or tools for using exit tickets in the classroom? If a teacher wants to more consistently assess students to gauge understanding, what strategies do you use? It doesn't necessarily need to be at the end of class. Please share both tech and non-tech ideas!

Have you every heard of Donors Choose (www.donorschoose.org). It is a fantastic company that supports educators in creating online crowd funding campaigns to gain supplies for their classrooms. This post is not intended to push anyone away from using it, but there is another great website out there to also accomplish the same goals. PledgeCents (www.pledgecents.com) provides teachers with the same experience, just some additional perks. - If you do not fully fund your campaign, you will receive the funds you did raise and still be able to purchase some of the project. - You can choose from the vendors supplied, Amazon, or any other vendors your district is already partnered with to give you total freedom in your products of choice. - You can overfund your project and purchase more! - They do not collect a percentage of your campaign, it all goes to your classroom! There are many other perks, but those are some of the key highlights. This is just one way to gain funding and supplies for your classroom outside the traditional grants.