"The Boost" Literacy Builders Newsletter

Week of September 24, 2011

Volume 2 - Issue No.4

The Boost

In This Issue

Keeping Connected

Sharing

... And Collaborating

Quick Links

Literacy Builders Website

Literacy Builders Blog

Literacy Builders Store

Quick Links

One of the best ways to improve your thinking and learning is through writing. In this day and age, writing tools abound, with one of the best being blogging. In this issue, we nudge you to start your own teaching or class blog and share it with us so that we can invite a larger community of educators to collaborate and challenge your thinking. In addition, we share some other blogs that we think you'll enjoy reading to help ease you into the world of blogging! Happy writing!

Kim Yaris

Executive Director
Literacy Builders

Keeping Connected

Let your voice be heard! Blogging is a great way to share your teaching experiences and ideas with others! If you have embarked a teaching or class blog that you would like to share with others, email us the link so that we can feature it in the next edition of The Boost and help you start making connections with other educators thinking about the same issues as you.

If you're not comfortable blogging, you can still participate by responding on the blogs of others. Remember, Literacy Builders posts a blog each week which you can subscribe to. This week's feature Sitting for the Test, explores questions that we need to be thinking about when interpreting our ELA test scores.

What's FREE FOR NOW?

Because we realize that once a month may not be enough of a mini lesson "boost," we are rolling out a new mini lesson freebie program called Free for Now. Throughout the month, we will be posting different mini lessons and mini lesson collections and keeping you updated via Facebook and our website homepage. Be sure to check back often so that you can download the lessons that are relevant to your teaching!

Sharing...

Reading Workshop

Helping match children to books is important yearlong work but especially important as we are working to get to know our students as readers. Visit our photo gallery for mini lesson ideas or check out our e-pak Choosing Books to Sustain Independent Reading for more than fifteen lessons for helping promote good fit books!

Writing Workshop

Words have the power to change the world. Watch Historia de un letrero , short story winner from the 2008 Cannes Film Festival to help inspire students' writing and purpose for writing.

... And Collaborating

Anchor charts are like big post-its that capture our thinking about the reading and writing process. If you are looking for ideas and thinking that will help you to improve the quality of your charts, check out Chartchums, a new blog by Kristi Mraz and Marjorie Martinelli, literacy consultants at the TC Reading and Writing Project.

Do you enjoy the tidbits and links in The Boost? Then you would LOVE what we do on Facebook. If you "like" us on Facebook you'll never miss a thing! Our community is growing and we want you to be a part of it!

Literacy Builders is committed to sharing ideas and collaborating with teachers around the globe. If you'd like to participate in this effort, please .

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