Breaking down complex or tricky standards into digestible "I Can" statements can be very helpful for students and teachers. This post will share free 5th grade I Can Statements for literacy, including ideas on how to use them in your classroom. Need 4th Grade Literacy I Can Statements? Click here! About the Literacy I Can Statements This free set of I Can ... Read More
Browse the archives below for even more great ideas
Close Reading Strategies – Overcoming Common Challenges
Close reading became the new buzz word in education with the coming of the common core standards and new rigorous high-stakes testing. It is an extremely effective strategy at helping students reach higher levels of text analysis, however it can also be challenging to implement (as with any strategy that promotes struggle and critical analysis). On this post, we will ... Read More
Annotating Tips for Close Reading
Have you seen that popular meme where the student highlights two entire pages of a text? It cracks me up every time I see it. One reason that meme resonates with teachers is because it is a very real struggle. Each year, it seems I have some students who annotate like crazy. Or the opposite and the students don't pick up a pencil or annotating tool the entire time they ... Read More
Close Reading Tips and Strategies for Upper Elementary
Close reading is a great way to get students to dig in and analyze a text. Close reading, when done right, allows for rich discussion and reflection while growing your students as critical, analytical readers. In this post, I will share close reading tips and strategies to help you implement this reading strategy into your instruction. Close Reading Tips and ... Read More
Free 4th and 5th Grade Reading Sorts
Using sorts as part of instruction or practice is one of my (and my students') favorite reading activities. I feel like you can never have enough hands-on activities and they are honestly few and far between when it comes to upper elementary reading. This post will share some FREE reading sorts for 4th and 5th grade with ideas for implementing them in your classroom, ... Read More
Free Reading Review Mini-Booklets for 4th and 5th Grade
It seems like I am always on the hunt for new ways to review reading skills with my students. And especially ways that are engaging and don't involve reading a ton of lengthy passages or worse...stapled worksheets that don't excite or engage my students. One of my new favorite ways to review is through reading review mini-booklets. Keep reading to get all of the details ... Read More
End of Year Read Alouds for 3rd-5th Grade
Even upper elementary students love read alouds, and especially at the end of the year. The end of the year is a great time to read short picture books as most of the time your novels or class read alouds have been wrapped up. This post will share three of my favorite end of the year read alouds for 3rd-5th graders (with free printable activities). Note: Depending on ... Read More
Reading Test Prep Strategy – Work the Text
In a perfect world, all of the reading strategies and techniques we teach our students would easily transfer over to testing situations. However, that is not the case for a lot of our students. This post will share one of my go-to reading test prep strategies that helps keep students engaged while reading lengthy texts and supports their comprehension. This reading ... Read More
Test Taking Strategies (Free Resources!)
Purposeful test taking strategies can build confidence and help students show what they know on standardized tests. This post shares tips for teaching test taking strategies, the difference between test taking strategies and best practices, and free resources for the specific strategies I teach my students. Note: I did not create the catchy sayings for the test taking ... Read More
Free Reading Test Prep Helpers | 4th and 5th Grade Test Prep
It never fails. No matter how many times I spiral review reading skills through homework, reading review, read alouds, or guided reading, I always get those looks during test prep review. You know the ones...the deer in the headlight looks when they get asked to determine the text structure of a text or identify the point of view of a story. I learned long ago not to ... Read More
Free Test Prep Activities — 10 Days of Test Prep Freebies!
Test prep is definitely something that I implement all year through best practices and implementing strategies that translate to testing situations. However, I do spend the month before testing on review and using resources specifically created for test prep. No matter how many test prep resources I have, I still find that I am always on the look out for (or creating) ... Read More
Word Work Activities with Jenga (Free Printables)
Engaging word work activities for upper elementary grades can be hard to find. On this post, I will share three free word work activities to use with Jenga blocks. These are super engaging and can be used in a literacy center or played whole group if you have multiple Jenga blocks. Amazon affiliate links provided if you wish to purchase the Jenga blocks mentioned on this ... Read More
