Repurposing Levelled Literacy Intervention (LLI) – Content Library

With shifts to literacy instruction and intervention and the revised 2023 Language curriculum, many schools have unused Levelled Literacy Intervention books in their book rooms. While LLI isn’t an evidence-based literacy intervention and doesn’t meet the needs of struggling readers, the individual texts can be repurposed to support structured literacy instruction. Developed by Catherine Shawana…

Teaching TV: Learning With Television

In the « Teaching TV: Learning with Television » lesson from Elizabeth Verrall’s five-part unit for elementary classrooms, students are introduced to television as an informative source and its presentation from specific perspectives. The lesson aims to cultivate students’ ability to derive information from media, identify and use information from various sources, including television, recognize informative TV…

Teaching TV: Television Techniques

The « Teaching TV: Television Techniques » lesson, a component of Elizabeth Verrall’s comprehensive five-part unit for elementary education, offers educators valuable insights for incorporating TV education in classrooms. By guiding students in creating their own media productions, the lesson imparts a practical understanding of how technology and film techniques are harnessed in television to convey meaning…

Teaching TV: Film Production: Who Does What?

The « Teaching TV: Film Production: Who Does What? » lesson, a component of Elizabeth Verrall’s five-part unit for elementary classrooms, offers educators a valuable framework for teaching TV. This lesson engages students in exploring the world of television and film production, fostering an understanding of the equipment used and the roles undertaken by various production team…

Teaching TV: Television as a Story Teller

The « Teaching TV: Television as a Story Teller » lesson, within Elizabeth Verrall’s comprehensive five-part unit, equips teachers with creative strategies for TV education in elementary classrooms. This lesson guides students in exploring television’s role as a narrative medium. Key learning outcomes encompass understanding how media products convey stories, recognizing elements like characters, mood, setting, and…

Teaching Summary Writing to Support Comprehension

Watching this webinar from PaTTAN, you will learn why summarizing has been identified through research as highly effective for developing comprehension and writing. It defines a quality summary and how it differs from retelling or paraphrasing.  Practical suggestions for explicitly teaching summary writing based on text and non-text sources will be shared, including scaffolds. The…

Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers

This book is an excellent, reader-friendly resource for kindergarten teachers and Early Childhood Educators. While infant and toddler development takes place before the Ontario curriculum kicks in, the authors are American. Their recommendations for preschoolers generally align with the age of our Year 1 kindergarten students. Much of the research and advice in the book…

Text Complexity: Stretching Readers with Texts and Tasks – Second Edition

When it comes to choosing texts for the classroom, educators have a lot of questions. Should we be looking at levels, lexiles or other readability criteria? Do we limit kids to “just-right” books? How can we scaffold instruction to help struggling readers access age- and grade-appropriate material? This book has answers! The authors cover quantitative…

Reading Road Trip: Novels in the Elementary Class: Best Practices with Clara Maria Fiorentini

Kate chats with Clara Fiorentini this week. Tune in to explore novels in the classroom: how class novel studies fit into structured literacy, how complex text can be scaffolded, using « read-alikes » to choose texts, and avoiding the perils of « extractitis » – don’t miss this thoughtful conversation about chapter books!