ELAsuccess
Teaching students to vary the word order that they use in their sentences to add interest and variety is a skill that you can model as you support your students in their growth as budding writers. Of course, sentence fluency is one of the effective traits that good writers develop
ELAsuccess
If you have been tracking with my series of silent final e posts, you don’t want to miss Part 4: The Catch-all Rule. My students always enjoy this one because of its name and how it works! So far, you know the first 3 rules for why an e
ELAsuccess
Back again with Part 3, which I call The –le Ending Rule for Rule 3. If you have been checking in with my blog posts, I have been delving into the hows and whys of Silent Final E. (So far, we have discussed Rule 1 and Rule 2.) Students easily
In the Spotlight
Do you remember story time when you were little? I hope you have experienced story time at least at some point in your life. But even if you haven’t, it’s not too late to learn how to enrich the lives of children through this worthwhile process. Yes…when
ELAsuccess
In Part 1 for Silent Final E, I discussed how Rule 1, The Split Vowel Spelling Rule, can ease students into the concept of a silent final e that makes a middle vowel sound long. This installment will further explain why many English words end with the silent final e—
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To a word lover, a cleverly constructed phrase with eloquent vocabulary can bring you to tears. I love studying how words look, how they are spelled—knowing how their structure, use, and placement determine their meaning. (Yes, I am a word nerd and proud of it. But that’s for
ELAsuccess
One of my favorite things to do is to play with words. I love to figure out how to turn a phrase in just the right way to make my meaning clear. That’s my goal for all students so that they can master the language and control it. Being
ELAsuccess
I don’t know about you, but when it was time to introduce the concept of long vowels in the middle of one-syllable words ending in “e”, I would spend long hours in prayer…first for my sanity and then for my students’ comprehension! Sure, there are some great ways
In the Spotlight
If there’s one subject I enjoy teaching almost as much as English grammar, it’s phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling! I know it’s strange, but my linguistic brain has always identified with letters and the sounds they represent. When I began teaching phonemic awareness and phonics as an
ELAsuccess
While the jury may still be out regarding the importance of teaching handwriting/penmanship, from where I sit, it isn’t something we want to leave out of our teaching repertoire. Though some might think the time needed to develop fluent handwriting would best be spent teaching keyboarding skills, I
ELAsuccess
Are complex sentences all that complex? Not really! If you want to see how simple complex sentences can be for young writers, read on. When I work with young, developing writers, I like to make new concepts seem like they’re no big deal, even if they are a bit
In the Spotlight
One of my favorite strategies to teach writers is the effective use of appositives. I like to show kids how appositives, like prepositional phrases, can create a wonderful context for the sentence. So, what’s wrong with adjectives? Usually, with younger writers, we might simply encourage the use of strong