The Literacy Dive Podcast: Reading and Writing Strategies for Upper Elementary Teachers and Parents

I hope you’ve been enjoying this month’s biography theme. The last two episodes I gave tips for introducing biographies to your students and tips for using mentor texts. At this point your students should be familiar with the genre, which leads me to today’s episode. I will be sharing how to use biographies to focus on key reading skills that go hand in hand with this genre. These reading skills r...

Welcome to another episode to highlight February’s topic of biographies! If you listened to last week’s episode then your students should know what biographies are now that you’ve introduced them. Biographies may not seem like the most interesting genre, so today I’ll be sharing nine mini-lesson ideas that are going to be engaging and interesting for your students. These ideas should leave you ins...

Black History is celebrated this month, but I have been one to celebrate Black and diverse history all year long. This episode will support teachers who are wanting to implement African American history into their classrooms whether it's their first year or tenth year. You will gain helpful reminders when navigating your conversations about Black influential individuals with students, as well as a...

As we enter the month of February it is time that we discuss and celebrate what Black History Month really stands for with our students. My favorite way to do this is by acknowledging iconic Black and African American figures.  This is truly a great opportunity to teach biography and I have so many creative ways to do this that I’m going to share with you today. In this episode I will share how to...

I don’t know about you, but I have really been enjoying this Resetting Series to start off this new 2022 year! We’ve talked about topics such as routines and writing blocks, but this episode will be focused on something more pragmatic: parents. It is never too late to reset your relationship with parents, or as I like to call them,”your student’s grown ups!” This episode is important for so many r...

This time of the year is perfect for resetting, and I personally find it to be such a powerful opportunity. In my previous episode I provided tips for resetting your writing block and in this episode we’re going to speak about the other part of literacy, which is reading. We all know that reading is a complex skill and you may be surprised to learn that the reason your students are having difficul...

In today's episode I’m going to address the elephant in the room, which is the fact that teaching literacy is hard. There, I said it! In my personal experience, I found that compared to all other subjects, reading and writing were without a doubt the most difficult for my students. If you’re anything like me and refuse to let your students fail because something is difficult, this episode is for y...

Happy New Year! After all the reflection that you did in December, it’s now time to decide which processes you should continue and what needs to be changed in your classroom. A lot of people think that it’s a necessity to reset or restart their procedures when they return from break. This isn’t always the best strategy, so I’m going to make sure you are prepared to make the best decision on what s...

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is my last episode of 2021! I’m going to take this opportunity to continue my conversation from my last episode when I shared my personal reflections from 2021. In my opinion, January is the perfect time to reflect on the past year and set goals for moving forward and this episode I’m going to share how to do that with your students. By looking at the posi...

It seems like just yesterday we were ringing in 2021 and yet I can’t believe it’s almost 2022! I always like to think back on the good times and the challenging times as the new year approaches. In this episode, I reflect on the priorities I will be carrying over to 2022. These routines and practices have been important to me and I think you’ll find they can be important to you as well! Every year...

If you’ve been following along the last two weeks you know that this is the last episode of the three-part holiday series. I’ve provided you with six strategies thus far and today I’ll be giving you four more! The purpose of these strategies is not to add more onto your plate, but rather incorporate small changes into your current schedule. You’ll be working smarter, not harder! There are multiple...

Last week I started my three-part series about how to keep your students engaged during the holiday season. I decided to expand on those holiday literacy ideas by giving you three more ways to keep your students on task. As always, these ideas are simple and can be put into practice the very day you listen to this episode. We all know one way to keep students interested in our lessons is to avoid...

While the holiday season is exciting, it is also notoriously a time that students are distracted and energetic. There are so many extra activities that need to be added to the schedule which means ditching those daily academic lessons. In this episode, I will discuss how to get through the holiday season without abandoning teaching your literacy components. This holiday season seems to be even mor...

I have to admit that my episode last week with my guest and good friend, Aylin Claahsen, got me thinking more deeply about reading fluency. I realized that we can grow our student’s reading fluency with something that we’re already doing, which is read alouds. I’m not talking about those days when you pick a book off the shelf and decide to share an enjoyable literacy-driven experience with your s...

I can not wait for you to listen to this episode with a special guest and friend of mine, Aylin Claahsen. Aylin is a certified reading specialist, literacy consultant, and curriculum designer who loves sharing literacy tips for teaching readers. Specializing in Kindergarten-5th Grade, she can be found sharing literacy tips on her blog, social media, or in her newsletter. She is sharing all kinds o...

Last week I talked about writing prompts and this week I will continue the conversation by giving you tips to implement writing prompts. If you haven’t been using writing prompts regularly, I can imagine it may be intimidating to put it on your schedule every day of the week. What I can also tell you is that if writing prompts stress you out, then I’m about to change your mind. Writing prompts are...

Guess what?! Today’s episode is my one year anniversary of The Literacy Dive Podcast. How exciting is that? Whether you’ve listened to one episode, every single one, or somewhere in between…thank you! To add to the excitement, this episode is airing on November 1, 2021. The beginning of a new month is always a fun and refreshing time. I remember my students coming in at the beginning of a month ea...

Last week I talked about context clues strategies, but I’m sure many of you are wondering how to apply them and when. I got you! This episode is going to cover how to use the different strategies I shared and really give you a framework for implementing them. Just like all the great activities in literacy, you can start teaching context clues by using highlighters and anchor charts. As you listen...

There’s a good chance that your students have heard the term “context clues” before. But do they actually know what it means? Are they really able to apply strategies to figure out the meaning of unknown words? In my experience, using context clues is one of those skills that students are aware of, but struggle to implement independently. Today I’m sharing several different types of context clues...

How do your students become successful and descriptive writers? I get this question all the time. Do you want to know my secret? The one thing that plays the greatest role in helping young learners improve their writing skills is the art of storytelling. The power of storytelling became clear to me when I was teaching kindergarten. Telling personal stories is how my kindergartners learned how to w...

Today’s episode is about something we all wish we had more of: time. There are so many demands on teachers and it always feels like there’s not enough time in the day. I found there are some ways to maximize your schedule and I will be sharing some tips and tricks I’ve found helpful. I hope these action steps will allow you to really focus on what is important, your students! By the end of this ep...

To continue the celebration of reaching 50 episodes of The Literacy Dive, I've got a BONUS episode for you today! This is a replay of a listener favorite, episode 2! It's all the importance and power of a mini-lesson. Enjoy! SHOW NOTES:  theliteracydive.com/podcast-episode2 In this episode I share: -The definition of a mini-lesson -How to find content for your mini-lesson -The structure of a mini-...

Oh my goodness! This is the 50th episode of The Literacy Dive Podcast! I am so thankful and have been having a blast with all of you. To celebrate this milestone we will be doing something spontaneous and laid-back. I hope you enjoy this question and answer format just as much as I enjoyed recording it! I originally thought I would answer 50 questions for the 50th episode, but my dear friend has n...

Have you been searching for ways to assess your student’s understanding of your lessons? An easy way to do this is by using exit tickets. Contrary to what some people may think, exit tickets are not tests, but definitely are a way to measure your student’s comprehension of that day’s topic. Exit tickets may look different each day, but if used correctly they can be a driving force for your curricu...

If you don’t already know this, it may shock you, but my favorite subject is actually math. Crazy, right? There’s nothing better than when I can combine my two favorite things, math and literacy, at the same time with math word problems. In this episode I will provide you with strategies for incorporating comprehension and writing practice while also working on math. When I was a self-contained te...