Communication is not about trying to say the same word or grammar concept a number of times over and over in class. Communication is about sharing ideas. It is about focusing on the people with whom we are communicating. Communication is not about teaching lists of words. It is about learning about the other person […]
Most of us take on stuff in our classrooms that isn’t our responsibility. We do everything in our power to uplift others and make them feel better so we can make all the comprehensible input work better and thus feel better ourselves too. The Invisibles approach works to bring a lot of happiness, levels of
Those who go back over the years know that the mental health piece has emerged, percolated to the top, as the most important thing we discuss here. So as we now start moving into the thick part of the year, we need to reinforce, always reinforce, our mental health. Otherwise, this job is just too
Here is a repost from 2016 for Dana, following our recent discussion on the 25 minute thing on NTCI stories: There are, of course, many keys to success with storytelling. But one of the most important is brevity. We tend to clutter our stories with too many facts and then we wonder why our kids
The problem we face is one of intent. If our intention is to use stories to deliver instructional services, and thus please those who run the schools, then we will fail in our mission to teach the children the language. On the other hand, if we use stories to bring joy to children, joy that
Q How can I incorporate 100% CI into my classroom using: Invisibles/OWI/story listening while writing/incorporating a curriculum? If we stop having those weekly or monthly markers for certain words that are supposed to have been taught by a certain date, we have the luxury of not being tied down into small increments of time by
The Curriculum Should Align with the Instruction Read More »
Hi Ben – I’d like to know what you, or the group, would suggest for classes that just don’t work. By “don’t work” I mean they lack the interest, motivation or communication skills to do what a CI class should be able to do.Classes that will not abide by the 6 simple rules and that
When we ask students to produce writing or speech to align with some kind of desired outcome written in a document somewhere, in the form of either an observable skill or a measurable content task, it inevitably results in a portion of the students feeling not as good as others in the class, or better
Who has indicated interest in working with Julia on her NTCI project? (Texas A&M). We need email addresses. Pls. send to julia.lynch@tamu.edu
I was talking with a teacher this morning and she said that she never needs to worry about her classes because she always knows, and has taught her kids to always know, where she is on the Star Sequence at any given moment in class. Hearing this made me very happy. The idea of always
Robert on laughter: Humor and laughter are amazing supports for learning. Here are some research-based comments about that. An article from the American Psychological Association points out that “Laughter Aids Learning.” http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun06/learning.aspx Susan Weinschenk, PhD in Behavioral Science, writes: “There are many research studies that show that when children laugh, it enhances their attention, motivation,
I can see that my entire career as a teacher was devoted to trying to be able to find ways to teach that lift children up, to find some way to teach that brings light into their eyes, some way, any way, to find a way to chase away the darkness that characterized most of
