The beginning of the school year brings with it the feelings of anticipation, excitement, and nervousness for students and teachers alike. Dusting off our classroom libraries, moving furniture, and preparing bulletin board space for our students’ first projects are physical tasks we do to set up our classrooms. But we also set up our classrooms by thinking through the classroom structures and routines we’ll use this year.

Were the management structures you used last year effective? Are revisions needed?

Here are 3 quick steps to set up your GLAD® classroom: 

1. Create your heterogeneous seating chart

Place student desks in teams of 3 or 4. Use any data from last year you have available to create your best guess of heterogeneity. Mix students from different reading levels, problem solving abilities, language proficiency levels, behavior, gender, etc. You’ll be able to update your seating chart the second time around as your beginning of the...

Tone down the talking (teacher talk, that is!)

Project GLAD® has become synonymous with making content accessible and retainable for all students.  It’s known for creating positive, collaborative classroom cultures.  We tout its ability to increase relevancy and cultural proficiency in the learning process.  

Beyond all those benefits...

Project GLAD® is about learning language! 

All our students are language learners.  Whether we’re teaching in a dual language classroom or introducing content specific vocabulary in math, science, art, and literature.  

Guided Oral Practice is one of the main components in Project GLAD.  The idea is for students to learn language, they need to practice speaking that language.

The question is... 

How can we increase and guide student talk? 

How much space is there in the day or class period for students to talk?  Imagine if we took all the time we try to get students to...

Favorite Strategy Extension: Add to the Walls

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.  Bright copper kettles and…

Ah, February is a month for favorite things! 

Favorite people. 

Favorite flowers.

And favorite strategy extensions.

A favorite conference presentation for teachers is when we present a strategy with extensions that go beyond the basics.  This year at NABE and WABE we’re focusing on extending Chants above and beyond with various Add to the Walls options.   

INTRODUCING: ADD TO THE WALLS

Today, we’re focusing on using Add to the Walls with Chants.  But the process works alongside any GLAD® chart: Pictorials, Found Poetry, you name it! 

Once a chant has been processed whole class, it's time for teams, partners and individuals to interact with the vocabulary and content through a variety of menu options called Add to the Walls. This strengthens student vocabulary usage and deepens content...

I admit, I’m one of those people who wait until the beginning of a new year, a new month or a new week to launch a new habit or goal. I just love that feeling of a fresh start. 

And yes, I have dozens of half finished journals around the house. Each one heralding a fresh start with a habit I’m still working on actually becoming a habit.

If you’ve been in our coaching courses or training, we will tell you, 

“Any day and every day can be a fresh start.” 

It’s true.  But there’s nothing quite so encouraging as a NEW YEAR to push the reset button. 

As educators, we get to experience the impact of a January new beginning in the middle of our school year. 

Wherever you are in your GLAD® journey, we invite you to make January a fresh start month!  The secret is to make that fresh start something that will last longer than my unfinished journals. 

This week at Costco, I ran...

Looking for a low-prep December strategy that still packs literacy benefits? 

The classroom is a buzz of activity and energy this time of year. If you're looking to calm the energy, increase engagement, all while practicing literacy skills, look no farther than Listen and Sketch. 

Listen and Sketch is a GLAD strategy where teachers read a descriptive text in chunks. During the reading, students listen. When the teacher pauses, students sketch. The Listen and Sketch strategy practices listening comprehension and visualization.  

There is a growing body of research on the importance of oral language development and listening comprehension. The more background knowledge and vocabulary young children have early on, the better readers they will become.  

Primary reading instruction is a 2-prong model. Students learn decoding skills and comprehension and language skills. However, the same texts cannot be used for these two types of instruction...

Teaching through stories is a fun, engaging way to teach your standards and vocabulary. The Project GLAD® strategy, Narrative Input Chart, is the strategy we use to teach fiction and non-fiction content that embeds academic language. But some teachers find the prep to create a narrative daunting. We are often asked, "Can the Narrative be done electronically?"  

Yes! The benefits of creating a Narrative in a slide deck are ease of prep and set up, ease of sharing with colleagues, and using the narrative with small groups. You can even convert your power point narrative into an mp4 that students can play on-demand. We created this tutorial to show you how. Check it out!  

Narrative Tutorial 

Thanks for reading!

Sara and Jody

_____________________________

Here's what coming up Next!!

Acceleration 301: Read All About It!

If you liked learning about the Narrative Input Chart, you'll love our winter Acceleration boost. This module launches...

Welcome to a new school year! By now your students are getting to know each other pretty well, and you have laid the foundation for your classroom culture. Part of creating an inclusive and supportive classroom community is to understand and value students’ identities.

Every person has layers that make up their personal identity. Norton describes identity as “how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future.” Identity is made up of a person’s experiences, memories, values and beliefs, culture(s), and language(s).

When educators embrace all the facets of all the students’ identities it creates the equitable and supportive environment where learning thrives. When multi-cultural multi-lingual students come to school and feel like they have to leave parts of themselves at the classroom door to fit in, it creates a dissonance...

We experimented, we've listened, we've grown and we've changed! 

Are you already feeling the intoxication of summer vacation? Yes, we resonate with you! But really, do we stop learning in the summer? Of course not!

We may be learning different things, like how to drive a 5th wheel, or the best vacation spots on a budget, or what it feels like to read a …. novel!

As educators we’re pretty much addicted to learning.

And we’re instilling that passion for lifelong learning into our students. The last few years have had us all on a steep learning curve and our instructional flexibility and creativity has grown as a result.

We launched Next Steps with Project GLAD® just before the pandemic began, and have been right there learning and growing with you. Thank you for sharing your celebrations, challenges and ideas with us. We've been listening and asking:

• What’s working?
• What do you need?
• What would be even more helpful?

We’ve taken all your...

Final report cards are coming up!  

The school year is about to wrap up and assessment is on everyone’s mind. We will soon report for the final time the content and skills our students learned this year.

For our English language learners, the ELD standardized test they took this spring will give scores how their language skills have progressed in listening, reading, speaking, and writing.  Unfortunately, these scores are not helpful in informing what we write on our report cards or supporting our students oral language development in these last weeks of school. 

What classroom-based assessment will help me determine my students’ oral language growth and proficiency?

The Project GLAD® strategy, ELD Group Frame, is a no-fuss, low-prep way to get a snapshot of students’ English proficiency. From this running record of oral language, we can get a record of language skills they have mastered and ones that will inform our future...

Our school year is steadily moving along. Spring break is over and testing season is upon us. At this time of year students in all grade levels have higher expectations for the quality of writing they turn in. 

"By the end of grade x, students will be able to..." 

If they haven't met the writing standards yet, there are only a few months left before final report cards.  

Writing can be one of the more challenging skills to master, and teachers also find it one of the more challenging to teach. In many ways, writing is subjective, yet there are rules and conventions to follow. Writing style is personal, yet correct usage is important.  

A helpful distinction we can make for our students is the difference between revising and editing.  

REVISING AND EDITING 

Have you ever had a student who thought revising meant recopying their paper?

In Project GLAD® we separate the revising and editing processes into distinct lessons with the...