I have students who are struggling with reading. What are some strategies that I can use to help them?

First, you need to determine the area of focus that the student is struggling with. This can be done by using various assessments. Gather data on different areas of reading: decoding, sight words, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Once you have determined the area(s) of concern, you can apply reading interventions to address these needs.

Word Study

Phonemic awareness

Decoding

High Frequency (sight words)

Syllabication

Spelling

Fluency

Modeled and assisted oral reading

Prosody development (pacing, intonation, volume, smoothness, phrasing, expression)

Guided reading

Partner reading

Vocabulary

Teacher models and explains

Technical

Content specific (using different genres)

Teaching word parts (roots, prefixes, suffixes)

As teachers, you already use a variety of engagement strategies in classroom instruction. However, given students’ special needs and different learning styles, many teachers may struggle with finding the right approach and the time to engage all students fully. As teachers, we become able, often through trial and error, to identify strategies that work within a particular group or ability level.

Can you describe a specific memorable lesson or activity when most of your students were engaged or worked particularly well for a particular student or group of students?

Resilience - The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

Teaching requires more emotional resilience than most other professions. Lacking resilience is a common thread that creates burnout and leaving the profession. Resilience is not something we are taught in school, but there are things that we can do to strengthen our resilience.

Don’t isolate yourself in your classroom. Get to know other teachers in your building and your students’ parents. Building relationships with your co-workers and parents can strengthen your resilience. Take care of yourself. If you’re worn out and not feeling well, you are more likely to isolate and avoid others.

What is your resilience level?

Resilience - The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

Teaching requires more emotional resilience than most other professions. Lacking resilience is a common thread that creates burnout and leaving the profession. Resilience is not something we are taught in school, but there are things that we can do to strengthen our resilience.

Don’t isolate yourself in your classroom. Get to know other teachers in your building and your students’ parents. Building relationships with your co-workers and parents can strengthen your resilience. Take care of yourself. If you’re worn out and not feeling well, you are more likely to isolate and avoid others.

What is your resilience level?

What do you do when you have a student who can’t get their assignments completed?

Break assignment into smaller segments

Allow extra time to complete

Break the work time into shorter times with small breaks in between

Provide their assignment in written form (as well as verbal) with examples of what is expected

Use a timer with small intervals. Have the student get up to walk around and check for completion and accuracy.

What are some strategies you’ve used to build positive relationships with school personnel?

Establishing professional relationships is a cornerstone of the teaching profession. While we all aim to build positive relationships, there are always challenging situations.

Building positive relationships requires understanding of diverse cultures, various personality styles, and different perspectives. It also requires the ability to effectively communicate and function in a political educational environment. Finally, it requires always treating students, parents, colleagues, administrators, and other school personnel with respect.

How Can You Make IEP Students Successful in Your Classroom?

Even though you may not have a degree in special education, it is likely that you will have students in your classroom that have an IEP. These students can be just as apprehensive as you might be. As their teacher, you have the power to turn this apprehension into something positive. What can you do to make their year successful? Here are a few tips:

Work with the special education team for ideas and strategies.

Get to know them and find out their strengths. Utilize these strengths as you are working with them.

Break things down into smaller chunks – this will help to make things more manageable and provide steps of successful tasks. The more success they have- the more confident they will become.

Working with students who have learning needs can often be challenging. Be aware of your body language and your voice – this might influence the other students’ attitude toward them. You want all your students to feel that each one brings something unique and special to the classroom.

Celebrate each success your students have, no matter how small they are. There is no better feeling than seeing the joy of their accomplishments.

What ideas can you add to this list?

How would you rate your self-efficacy skills as a teacher?

Teachers who believe in their abilities ( handling tasks, obligations and challenges) increase their level of self-efficacy.

Do you value the importance of continuous professional development?

Do you use reflection to improve your teaching practice?

Do you set attainable goals?

Do you maintain a strong academic focus throughout your lessons and provide
constructive feedback to students?

Do you demonstrate resilience and view knockbacks as temporary stumbling
blocks?

Answering yes to these questions, shows powerful predictors of a teacher’s effectiveness. Self-efficacy means believing in your ability to succeed in any situation.

"How do you avoid teacher burnout?"

This is a question that I often get asked. Let's make a list for the beginning career teachers..................

I am always open to learning and using new resources and skills. Teaching the same way over and over gets boring, so I am always searching for new ways to keep things fresh and exciting. This not only helps me, but it also keeps my students excited to learn.

Do you incorporate practice into your students’ daily schedule?

There is evidence that classroom techniques designed to get students to participate in the learning process can produce better educational outcomes at all levels. Practice is essential to learning and practice-based experiences should be integrated throughout the curriculum. Learning and improving with practice depends on how frequently the skill is engaged. The more students do something, the better they get at it. If students do not practice often, the skill fades and they are going to forget what they learned. It’s all about bringing the consistency of practice into your daily schedule.

How can you foster a positive classroom environment?

Get to know each of your students

-Greet them at the door each morning

-Use their interests when communicating with them

-Honor their talents

Encourage your students to interact in positive ways with one another

Praise your students in public. Discipline them in private.

Introduce non-violent ways to solve conflicts.

Praise your students for taking challenges even if they aren't successful

How do you set up a classroom?

When you think about it, your classroom arrangement is probably one of the most important tasks that you will do at the beginning of the year. This is where everything will take place: learning, building relationships, sharing, etc. Your classroom is one of the very first impressions that you will make on your students. What kind of impact do you want it to portray?

Look at the entire space. What types of interactions will be occurring? Will you need a place for group gatherings? Keep in mind the flow of the room – is there room to move from one space to another without too much of a distraction. How will you arrange the student desks? Will you be utilizing centers? Don't forget to consider where and how you want your own space in the room.

Whatever you decide, know that there is no right way. It can be beneficial to walk through the building to check out how the “seasoned” teachers have set up their classroom. If you want more ideas, you can check out this resource: https://www.azk12.org/Homeroom-SettingUpYourClassroom

Time Management

Do you often feel that there is never enough time to get things done?

This is often a big challenge for teachers, causing stress which can lead to negative consequences. If this is you, know that you are not alone! The good news is that there are ways to increase efficiency and productivity in the way you plan and execute your day-to-day work. Using adequate time management can allow you to have a balanced professional, personal and social life.

Before you start your day, create a To Do List:

Make a list of all the tasks you need to complete and the amount of time you spend on each.

Put them in order of importance with things that must be done at the top. If you have large tasks to do, you can break them up – you don’t have to do them all at once.

Look at your day and see where you can schedule these tasks throughout the day.

Commit to the schedule – find a place to work away from distractions or have 3 set times of the day to check your phone.

You can’t add more time to the day but with some tips and tricks, you can make good use of your time.

A lesson hook is a short opening to a lesson. It should grab your students’ attention and leave them wanting to learn more. Hooks can prepare your students for the content they will be learning.

A good lesson hook strategy can make all the difference when it comes to engaging students and maximizing their learning. You can use your lesson hook to establish connections between existing knowledge and the new content.

Any break from the ordinary can be exciting. Change your learning setting to get students engaged and excited for what’s to come.

There are tons of lesson hooks that you can use and find online. Here are some ideas:

Theme your classroom for the lesson (posters, learning centers, bulletin boards, etc.)

Use “feely” boxes or bags

Create a survey and graph the results

Use music

Guest speaker

Would you like to start the upcoming school with less stress and feel more organized?
Right now, at the end of this school year, there are things that you can do upfront to make the upcoming school year start out smoothly:

1. Reflect on your Procedures and Routines - What worked? What didn't?

2. Get your room organized by getting rid of things that you will not use.

3. Plan for the First Day (or Week)
* getting to know you games
*first day read alouds
*procedures to teach
*a fun math about me craft
*tips for managing supplies
*community building ideas

4. Map Out Your Year.
Mapping out your lesson plans a year at a time is an effective way to stay organized and focused as an educator. While it may seem like a lot of work upfront, taking the time to plan out your lessons in advance can help you stay on track and ensure that you’re meeting your students’ needs.

5. Get Ready For Open House / Meet The Teacher:
*Introduce yourself with a slideshow
*Provide important dates
*Share your goals and expectations
*Provide a schedule of a "typical day"

What things can you add to this list?

Differentiated instruction vs. Scaffold Instruction How are they different?
Scaffold instruction provides support for students to understand the material. This type of instruction is temporary, and the support is only used until the student understands the material.

Differentiated instruction is a teaching approach tailoring it to address students' needs. Each student has the same learning goal, but the instruction is varied based on the student’s learning style, strengths, and interests.

To meet the different needs and interests of each student, the teacher may vary the

-course content

-activities or

-assessments

Differentiated Instruction takes time and patience. It is not a one-size-fits-all approach but based on each student's needs.

What are some ways that you differentiate to meet the needs of all your students?

Ways to Quickly Check for Understanding
Edutopia, an online source that highlights best practices for educators, recently polled
teachers and asked them how they do quick checks for understanding. The attached file contains numerous ways that teachers have used in their classroom.

Do you have anything that you can add to the list? Have you tried any of these quick checks with your students?

Why is Phonemic Awareness so Important?

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to identify, manipulate, and work with individual phonemes—the smallest units of sound in a language.

Participating in phonemic awareness activities, students can decode words, spell, and comprehend text.

How do you incorporate phonemic awareness into your daily activities?

How do you use a graphic organizer for reading comprehension?

1. Determine what information (sequencing, supporting details, story structure, etc.) you want your students to pull from the text.

2. Model your expectations for exactly how the graphic organizer should be filled out.

3. Instruct your students to fill out the graphic organizer as they are reading or after as a summarizing technique.

You can find many examples and free downloads of graphic organizers. What type of graphic organizers have you used?

As your students walk out the door at the end of the year, what do you want them to remember? Many teachers end their year with a final reflection project. I have seen teachers who do a themed project on a topic that the student is interested in. Some ideas included a specific dog breed, space, tornadoes, surfing, etc. The project included activities using skills that they learned through the year: writing a persuasive paper, an acrostic poem, creating a graph, making a bookmark, historical facts.... They ended their project by presenting them to parents and other classrooms in the school. This project allowed the students to reflect and celebrate their year while using their skills on a topic that was appealing to them.

What kind of activities do you have planned for your students to make the end of the year memorable?

As your students walk out the door at the end of the year, what do you want them to remember? Many teachers end their year with a final reflection project. I have seen teachers who do a themed project on a topic that the student is interested in. Some ideas included a specific dog breed, space, tornadoes, surfing, etc. The project included activities using skills that they learned through the year: writing a persuasive paper, an acrostic poem, creating a graph, making a bookmark, historical facts.... They ended their project by presenting them to parents and other classrooms in the school. This project allowed the students to reflect and celebrate their year while using their skills on a topic that was appealing to them.

What kind of activities do you have planned for your students to make the end of the year memorable?

Dealing with Difficult Parents

As a teacher, it is inevitable that you will have a parent that is going to challenge everything that you do in your classroom. Unfortunately, teachers will encounter rude, misbehaved and difficult parents. These parents can make us question our decision to become a teacher. Constantly listening to their complaints is tiring and frustrating. As a teacher, you can prepare yourself ahead of time with some strategies.

Share your story! Have you had a difficult parent? What strategies did you use to diffuse the situation?

Student Engagement

At this time of year, with the pressures of state testing either behind us (or soon to be), how do we re engage our students? There are opportunities to both reflect on what has worked so far and try some new approaches that may require some change in practice and experimentation. Both opportunities will help you keep students engaged in instruction as the year starts to wind down and also start shaping new and more developed ideas for instruction next year.

What are some new strategies you will use to engage students in instruction?

What are some interesting project ideas or instructional approaches you’ve heard about and want to try?

Behavior Management

Students enjoy classrooms with a good management plan. In fact, students desire interesting, engaging teachers who create an effective learning environment. Watch a veteran teacher who has strong management skills. Somehow, management becomes nearly invisible, and the teacher seems relaxed and confident while students appear to be engaged and learning. How do they do this? It doesn’t happen by accident. Experience helps, but one difference is a strong management plan that builds on a foundation of good teacher/student relationships, clear expectations with consequences, and thoughtful organization that empowers instruction. A strong, well-thought-out plan prevents management problems before they arise.

What intervention strategies do you use to handle student behaviors?

What’s your Goal this Year?

At the beginning of every school year, effective teachers will set a goal for themself. Why? Setting a goal gives you a purpose and can point you in the right direction of improving your teaching performance. As your skills improve, a new idea might be discovered that keeps you motivated, which in turn will also improve your students’ performance.

As you begin setting your goal, remember to consider the “why” behind it. Try to decide where you really need to improve. As a new teacher, you might have several areas that come to mind. Instead of trying to tackle everything at once, try to focus on one thing.

Start by reflecting on your past year. Did you have a feeling of dread with certain educational buzz words like technology, differentiation, data, etc.? As you reflect on some of your students, were there some that made you lack confidence? How about your engagement with other teachers in the building, is there anyone that you might need to build better relationships with?

Once you have decided on your goal, create an action plan. What steps do you need to take to achieve it? How often will you address it? How will you know if you have been successful?

What are some examples of goals that teachers might set for themself?

Tips for New Teachers………
What tips can you add to this list??

1. Starting on day 1, spend time getting to know your students
2. Find a digital organization system for your lesson plans or resources so that you always have access to them.
3. Collect and document student information at the beginning of the year - keep it in your digital organization system.
4. Stick to a routine
5. Keep it simple - it’s ok to use premade material
6. Don’t be afraid to ask questions - use your veteran teachers for support
7. Use different colored pens to provide feedback to students (avoid using red!)
8. Celebrate successes - no matter how small
9. Stickers can be rewarding for any age.
10. Find ways to keep your students attentive (velcro strip on desk, alternative seating (exercise balls for chairs), take frequent mind breaks
11. Play instrumental background music while your students work.
12. Self-Care is a priority - be sure to schedule this in
13. Classroom Management is the key to a successful learning environment
14. Decorate your classroom with inviting colors and decor for all grade levels.
15. Show your students that you appreciate their work by displaying it.
16. Mistakes happen! Even veteran teachers make mistakes.
17. Find a communication app to communicate with your students and/or their parents.

Teaching is a hard profession. There are so many people to "please". The most important is your students, but then you also have parents, special/elective teachers, related service providers, principals, district office staff, and the list goes on and on. With so many people to collaborate with, there are bound to be obstacles, disagreements, and challenges. In this career, it is unavoidable. So.....what strategies can we use when we come across obstacles? First and foremost, we can rely on our coworkers and peers to be a listening ear. Also, we can share stories of obstacles that we have overcome and how we overcame them so that others may add tools to their toolbox for future use. As you reflect on your teaching experiences, what is an obstacle that you had? What strategies did you use to overcome the obstacle? Why do you think this strategy worked?

What is an effective tool that I can use in my classroom to support learning?

Do you have students in your classroom who have difficulty staying on the lines when writing? You can buy spiral notebooks that have every other line highlighted in blue or you can easily create your own: https://pin.it/7JnnPXr1Q

Teaching is hard work. There are going to be times when you are wondering "what have I got myself into?" What can you do when you are experiencing these feelings of being overwhelmed and disillusioned?

How can you differentiate assignments to make them more appropriate for all the levels and needs of the students in your classroom?

How can you teach empathy in your classroom?

How can you make your classroom a positive and inviting environment?

What are some ways to build rapport with your students?