September 24, 2019

How to Create the PERFECT Language Arts Action Plan

September 24, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

If you follow the Shurley English blog, you already know that our main goal is to give students the knowledge, skills, and practice they need to become competent, confident communicators. Our plan of action consists of applying the following equation during language arts instruction:

(Knowledge + Skills) x Practice = Competence and Confidence.

An important addition to the equation is consistency. As students learn the umpteen language arts skills necessary to use language with competence and confidence, it’s important for teachers to use consistent terminology and some consistent processes with fidelity. Why?

September 17, 2019

More Than the ABCs: Owning the Alphabet

September 17, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

Lately, I have been pondering my linguistic journey. Over the years, it has been a journey of self-discovery. A journey that led me to use a fascinating method to teach systematic phonics and phonemic awareness.

If you could have visited my first and second grade combined classroom about 20 years ago, you would have noticed that I displayed traditional alphabet cards above my chalkboard. I didn’t really use it as a reference tool. It was more of a standard classroom decoration than a tool for learning. That is, until I gained some knowledge about teaching letters NOT as letters of the alphabet, but as pictures of sound. I didn’t realize the power the alphabet has when it is considered as a code made of symbols that allows learners to attach sounds to them.

The fact remains, we have an alphabetic language. In other words, letters provide us a way to encode sounds of speech into symbols…the letters of the alphabet. But for years, that information was lost on many a teacher. When I realized how the code system works, it rocked my linguistic world!

September 10, 2019

Writing Mechanics: When should I write numbers in word form?

September 10, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

The rules for writing numbers in a sentence or paragraph haven’t changed over the years, but for some reason, I still feel the need to double-check them. I’m not sure why numbers are such a stumbling block, but any time I need to communicate a quantity, dollar amount, percentage, measurement, or date, I wind up questioning how to write it correctly. I can never remember if I’m supposed to write the numbers in words, or if I’m supposed to write them in figures?

If you have the same questions, here’s a quick guide to help you know when numbers should be written as words:

September 05, 2019

Step by Step: The Value of Following Directions

September 05, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

For my birthday, I received a beautiful interior sliding barn door as a gift. I envisioned that this hefty, rustic door was going to be a unique addition that would bring more style to my home. With a few extra hands, how hard could this DIY project be if we just followed the instructions? Right?

Well, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be!

Have you ever experienced a situation when you didn’t need to read the directions for a simple recipe or to assemble a new toy? I’d venture to say that sometimes that works out, but not every time. Even when you’ve read the instructions, they sometimes aren’t clear enough to get the final product you’d hoped for. If that’s the case, you may end up with holes in your wall and a barn door that is now taking up space leaning against the wall. (Ugh!) When it comes to reading the directions every time, I’m just as guilty as the next person—I don’t always do it.

In the classroom, many students bypass the instructions and head straight to number one on the assignment. Shurley English students are not immune to this; it happens all the time. As a teacher, it’s frustrating and heartbreaking to see the defeat in a child’s eyes when they realize they haven’t followed the directions and must start the assignment over.

September 03, 2019

Curriculum Toolbox: from hodgepodge to cohesive

September 03, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

During my undergraduate days, I was headlong into all of my pre-teaching training courses. I truly enjoyed all of them. But, as I neared my junior and senior years of college, I began to get more into the philosophies of teaching. It seems that, at that time, the prevalent theories of teaching led my professors to refuse to tout the use of specific curriculum. That was both good and bad. It was good because it forced me to think along the lines that I did not need to depend on current published curriculum to be able to teach well. It was bad, however, because it generated the incorporation of a hodgepodge type of homemade curriculum that was left strictly up to me to develop and teach—risky, to say the least.

After I landed my first teaching gig, I knew I was in trouble because the school district had a mandated curriculum, which is what I was told would probably happen. We were taught in college to “just close your door and teach the way you know is right.” Well, that was risky, too, because my lack of experience in the classroom made it nearly impossible to know “what was right.” So, I proceeded with what I thought was right while still trying to adhere to the required curriculum. What I discovered unsettled me.