Writing
There’s nothing like the dreaded feeling of sitting at your desk with a blank sheet of writing paper staring back at you. You see some of your classmates busily jotting down ideas; you see them creating their prewriting map; or you see some classmates looking upward with a pleasant
ELAsuccess
The word there is a commonly used word that can be difficult to classify because of its various roles in a sentence. There can be used as an adverb, pronoun, adjective, and sometimes as an interjection. But in grammatical constructions like there is or there are, there is considered an
ELAsuccess
I love teaching! I love the challenge of finding ways to teach children how academic content connects to their real life. My love of teaching has carried over into the world of life coaching, and in this capacity, I can help teens feel good about who they are. Let’s
ELAsuccess
A contraction is a word or phrase that’s been formed by combining two words and adding an apostrophe to replace the letter or letters that have been left out. Since the root word “contract” means to squeeze together, the concept of forming a contraction makes logical sense to most
strategies
Most of my blog content comes from questions I’ve answered at one time or another from teachers and administrators who use Shurley English. I often hear the urgency in their voices, and they seem to be looking for a quick fix to the problems their students are experiencing. Sure,
Grammar
How many times have you asked your students to revise their work, only to have all of the papers returned to the hand-in basket within a few minutes with little to no changes at all? The problem is that many students lack the necessary grammar skills required to revise. Simply
ELAsuccess
Let’s get back into the language arts huddle to go over some key plays that will help your students win the game! If you missed Part I of the Playbook of Literacy Success, you might want to go back to the starting line to capture the necessity of a
strategies
I think you will agree that by and large, if something works, you don’t need to fix it. I suppose it is human nature, or maybe just my nature, but I never seem to be able to leave well enough alone. It seems like if you’re a teacher,
Summer Learning
In some of my previous posts, I have touched upon the importance of keeping kids moving in the classroom. Physical movement wakes up their brains, gets their blood flowing, and it’s just plain fun. While many of us typically seek comfort and routine in our daily lives, students in
ELAsuccess
Welcome back to the fourth entry in my series about sentence patterns. Remember, if you recognize the pattern of a sentence’s core parts, the grammar of the sentence (or its word arrangement) will make more sense. So far, you know about Pattern 1, Pattern 2, Pattern 3, and Pattern
ELAsuccess
Welcome back to the third entry in my series about sentence patterns. Remember, if you recognize the pattern of a sentence’s core parts, the grammar of the sentence (or its word arrangement) will make more sense. So far, you know about Pattern 1, Pattern 2, and Pattern 3. Now…
ELAsuccess
Last week, we began our study of sentence patterns. Remember, if you recognize the pattern of a sentence’s core parts, the grammar of the sentence (or its word arrangement) will make more sense. Last time, we discussed Pattern 1 and Pattern 2. Today, let’s start our study with