Sarah Plum

K-5 Resources for Diverse Classrooms

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5 Reasons You Need The Reading Strategies Book

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5 Reasons You Need The Reading Strategies Book

I’m excited to team up with my colleagues from the Teaching Mosaic to share with you what I’ve been reading this summer – please head over to Tamara’s blog to check out all of the other fantastic posts from my “peeps”!

Chances are, you’ve seen or heard about The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo. It might’ve been on a colleague’s book shelf, discussed in a staff meeting or PLC, or come across one of your social media feeds. If you’ve already bought it then you’re already in on what I feel is the single best professional resource for teachers, EVER. If you haven’t, then read on (and share with a friend) for the five reasons YOU need The Reading Strategies Book.

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1. You teach readers.Basals. Balanced Literacy Model. Reading Workshop. And on and on and on. We all teach READERS.

This is the most obvious reason you need this text – you teach readers! If you (like me) teach readers – of any reading level – you need this text in your arsenal of resources. Veteran teacher, first year teacher… it matters not! This text has something for every teacher of readers in any school in any location. It doesn’t matter if you use a basal, balance literacy model, or anything else – this text is adaptable and compatible.

2. You differentiate (or want to).

Most professional texts help you differentiate reading instruction in theory. This professional text helps you differentiate in practice. In my humble opinion, there’s no more important of a subject to differentiate than reading. Reading is the key to success for our students, and if they do not receive what they need – not what the average of their classmates need – they will not experience the success they deserve.Differentiation is not a buzzword. It's a promise to each of your students to teach them, the individual.

Jennifer Serravallo has laid out this text so that you can easily target your students’ needs and differentiate in multiple settings. The text is laid out first by goal (such as fluency or identifying main idea in fictional texts), then by strategies specific to supporting that goal. The strategies are organized by a range of suggested reading levels to help you further select strategies that are just right for your students. You can also see whether a strategy is limited to a particular genre, or applicable to any genre. This organization allows you to differentiate not just within a students’ reading level, but with their strengths and weaknesses in comprehension or particular genres as well. With this text, having mixed strategy groups and the flexibility to move students frequently is a breeze.

3. You set reading goals with your readers.

Example of table of contents from The Reading Strategies Book (from Amazon.com preview).

Research tells us that goal-setting in reading is increasingly important. One of my personal goals as a teacher of readers is to improve my practice when it comes to supporting my readers. The way I’ve chosen to do that is focusing on setting specific reading goals with each of my readers — and following-up to refine and select new goals as appropriate.

Serravallo is a proponent of goal-setting, and makes it easy to use The Reading Strategies Book as your primer for your students’ goals. Her table of contents is setup by reading goals, which makes it easy to select an area of focus with your reader and follow-up with a teachable strategy. You can then track students’ progress toward their goal as they integrate each strategy into their own reading behaviors.

4. You love attractive, purposeful anchor charts.

Raise your hand if you’ve searched anchor charts on Pinterest or on Google in the recent past. Raise your hand if that past was this week. Or yesterday. Or today. My hand is held high! I am a total sucker for an attractive, purposeful anchor chart – the real key being purposeful. While I love my Mr. Sketch markers and anchor chart supplies something fierce, I love my students’ ability to repeatedly refer to an anchor chart to scaffold and support their learning even more. 

Sample page from The Reading Strategies Book of a strategy for emergent readers (from Amazon.com preview).

The vast majority of strategy lessons that Serravallo includes in The Reading Strategies Book are accompanied by a sample anchor chart for you to co-construct with students. This text is literally like having a completely organized, research-based Pinterest for readers at your fingertips. Serravallo gives you great suggestions for how to make them your own, and how to adapt them for a variety of learners (including English Language Learners like the students I teach). These anchor charts have been some of the most powerful I’ve ever had in my classroom – and students do refer to them long after you’ve completed the mini-lesson.

5. You want explicit, easy-to-implement strategies.

I love professional reading. I own a lot of professional texts. I have not, however, read them all cover to cover. What I love most about Serravallo’s The Reading Strategies Book is that you don’t need to read it cover to cover (though I have because I just love it that much). This text is made for teachers, by a teacher, to be used daily as a tool. This is not just summer reading, this is everyday reading that you put into practice!

At our twice-a-week PLCs, my team (including our administrator), often pulled out The Reading Strategies Book and utilized it to drive our small-group and whole-group reading instruction. We talked about what worked and what didn’t, what students needed which strategies, and what we need to emphasize as a whole grade level. This is an incredible text to use as a team – and it gets results.

Ready to get started?

This text is easy-to-read – you will not fall asleep, I promise! It gets straight to the point, explains each strategy, offers teaching ideas, prompts you can use with your students, “hat tips” for further reading (I loved these), and often a visual to pair with the strategy. I can’t say enough about how easy this text is to use – and how much it is used. This will not take up real estate no your bookshelf – it will take up permanent residence in your teacher bag!

  • Buy The Reading Strategies Book (or ask your administrator to!) – I bought mine on Amazon for about $40. (This is not an affiliate link – I don’t receive any kickback for sharing about this awesome text, I just love it that much!)
  • There is a wonderful Facebook group for users of the text that you can join here.
  • You can follow Jennifer Serravallo on Twitter here.
  • You can download a FREE study guide for the text here.

5 Reasons You Need The Reading Strategies Book

#VATeacherBloggersMeet

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Last Friday a group of 30 fabulous Virginia teacher bloggers {including myself!} descended upon the Jefferson Lakeside Country Club for an afternoon of networking, laughs, food, drinks, and some incredible swag and prizes! It was an incredible time, and well worth all of the planning and logistics that went into it. I want to share some of the experience with you!

First of all, I have to tell you how absolutely AMAZING all of our sponsors were to work with. If you are making any back-to-school purchases this year, I really urge you to consider purchasing from these businesses and individuals — they truly value teachers and aren’t afraid to show it!
A HUGE thank you goes especially to Educents (one of THE best companies around!) for helping with the costs of the meetup and providing some FANTASTIC swag! Make sure you check out their new Educents Wallet feature to get all of those resources for your classroom at a steep discount! If you sign-up for a new teacher wallet account you’ll receive $10 to spend on your classroom — who couldn’t use $10?!
GoNoodle provided us with a great tote to carry all of our swag in, as well as lanyards. I’m *super* thankful for the lanyard because mine broke during summer school and I did not want to rock a lame lanyard the first day of school!
We had over $4,000 in prizes thanks to these fantastic folks! I have to say I was torn between two prizes: one of the Ellison die-cutting packages and the SitSpots giftcard. I am SUPER excited to report that my raffle ticket was pulled from the SitSpots bag, so I’ve got yellow brick road SitSpots coming my way — WOOHOO!
Check our our FANTASTIC sponsors:
And some AMAZING TpT sellers that contributed raffle prizes or digital swag:
1. Seeing everyone milling around, getting to know each other while they played their “Find Someone Who…” for an extra raffle ticket was so special. Many of us had never met each other in person, but you didn’t see a lonely person in the bunch! I love our group because we are so diverse but also so welcoming and collaborative. {Have I mentioned we’re starting a Virginia collaborative blog?!}

2. Seeing everyone’s face when they saw the prize table and picked up their swag bags! No one except myself and my fantastic co-hosts knew about the swag or prizes. We wanted our fellow teacher bloggers to be pleasantly surprised and they certainly were! So many of my colleagues walked away with incredible prizes that will help get their years off to a GREAT start.

3. We had a HUGE Oprah moment at the end of our meetup. You see, our incredible sponsor Learning Resources worked so hard to get our swag there on time but we weren’t sure it’d make it. Nikki’s husband and son were on the lookout for the FedEx man and they brought it to the meetup site as soon as it arrived. We got to play Oprah — “YOU get a set of magnetic border! YOU get a set of magnetic border!” — it was SO MUCH FUN.

You can see more fun meetup photos by looking at the hashtag #VATeacherBloggersMeet on Instagram, or by looking at the photo album below!

On Friday, July 31st, a group of 30 fabulous Virginia teacher bloggers {including myself!} descended upon the Jefferson…



Some of the fantastic Virginia teacher bloggers from the meetup are linking up with me to share their favorite moments and photo memories from the meetup, as well as share their swag and prizes! Be sure and check-out their posts!



A Peek at My Week Ahead – 3/15

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Two weeks in a row?! YES ma’ams and sirs! I am on fire!!! Or, I’ve just figured out a routine for myself so I can bring you my visual plans each week. Either way, I am so excited to be linking up again with the one and only DeeDee Wills to give you a peek at my week ahead!
Disclaimer (Again): I have to do extensive lesson plans for my district, so rather than reinvent the wheel and put them in a more standardized format, I’m going to be giving you the “big picture” of what I’m up to. At the end of the post, you can download a PDF version with clickable links. Anything that’s outlined in black is clickable and will take you to that resource, video, or product. I use a mix of free and paid resources, so definitely check it out if you like what you see!

We finally took our unit assessment (the kids did GREAT, wahoo!!!) and so now we’re moving on to our next unit. We did some review last week of money concepts and place value, and now those skills will be put into our centers for independent and guided practice. I like doing that because I don’t have to waste valuable whole-group instruction time, but during guided math students still get to access, practice, and receive feedback on those skills.

This week is ALL about word problems. Two to three times a year I do a week-long “Word Problem Bootcamp” to refresh our word problem strategies. I utilize the 4.5 Step Plan, based on Polya’s problem-solving framework. My kids eat, sleep, and breathe this framework and it helps them TREMENDOUSLY. I can confidently say without it we would not be the effective problem-solvers that we are.

This week we’ll be using our March themed word problems to practice showing what we know at each step of the problem-solving process. (You can grab a freebie St. Patrick’s Day sampler, here.) With the snow days and distance between us and our last “Word Problem Bootcamp” some of my friends have gotten a little lax and it’s beginning to show in their “My Answer” boxes. So! We are going to fix that up by going back to basics, doing a little interactive note-booking, and TONS of practicing. Toward the end of the week we’re going to focus on writing our own word problems (I’ll be posting those resources shortly!).

We took our making predictions assessment (they did fabulously, by the way!) and now we’re ready to head into two weeks of intensive reading instruction before we have Spring Break. We’re continuing to meet for 25 minutes daily in a small group setting with each student. We’re continuing our “Bootcamp” to refresh our centers — pictured above — and really work on those decoding and fluency skills. I’ll be infusing another one of my favorite close reading resources with our series’ reading books too. I’m excited to continue getting to know my students as readers even better than I already do!

We’re also going to continue our group read-aloud of The One and Only Ivan, which has stolen our hearts. Friends, please please please run out and get this book and read it with your class. I have never seen my kiddos more engaged, invested, and just in tune with themselves as little humans. It is unbelievable.

In writing, we’re beginning our persuasive letter-writing unit! I adore this unit because I get to bring out some of my favorite mentor texts, including one that I was read when I did my own letter-writing unit in second grade! We won’t be doing a lot of formal writing this week, but rather we’ll be responding to each text, deconstructing what letters have, etc. I look forward to sharing our anchor charts with you toward the end of the week!
This week we’ll be diving into compound words (with silent letters) in our phonics unit, so I’ll be using two great resources from some TpT friends — Compound Words Task Cards from the awesome Teaching With a Mountain View, and Bloomin’ Compound Words Craftivity from the awesome Applicious Teacher. I’ll also be using my bloggy BFF’s new phonics card games again for review — we love them!
It’s still MATTER time!!! Gosh, I could just teach this unit all year. Really, I could! With me being unexpectedly out of the classroom a few days last week (writing a 21st Century Grant — more on that later this week), we’re still at the beginning of our study. We’ll continue to lead with our visual vocabulary posters, co-creating an anchor chart, having a learning experience using our interactive PPT, and then close with our vocabulary four-square. We’re going to do some experiments toward the end of the week which I’ll be documenting in detail… And we’re going to incorporate some informal assessments (with the exit slips pictured) as well as some interactive flipbooks for them to study at home. {My matter printables will be up on TpT by mid-week.}

If you’d like to download my visual plans and have ALL of the links to click on and refer to, click the button above. 🙂

A Peek at My Week Ahead – 3/8

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I am so excited to FINALLY be linking up with the one and only DeeDee Wills to give you a peek at my week! I have always always always wanted to do this, as I absolutely love going through and seeing what everyone else in blogland is up to.
Disclaimer: I have to do extensive lesson plans for my district, so rather than reinvent the wheel and put them in a more standardized format, I’m going to be giving you the “big picture” of what I’m up to. At the end of the post, you can download a PDF version with clickable links. Anything that’s outlined in black is clickable and will take you to that resource, video, or product. I use a mix of free and paid resources, so definitely check it out if you like what you see!

We’re catching up from an INSANE number of snow days since we returned from winter break — we’ve been so behind, so this week we’re taking our unit test on patterns {number patterns, repeating patterns, growing patterns, and even/odd} and then review some key concepts before we dive into regrouping.
One of the things I’m relying heavily on this week are the anchor charts we’ve made together, our interactive notebooks {where our vocabulary pages pictured above live!}, and my money strategies pack. My kids did really well with our money unit test, but we’re increasing the amount they must be able to count {up to $2.00 mixed coins and bills} and they definitely need a refresher after our snow days. We’ll also be playing Prince Padania’s Race to $1.00 which is one of my favorite quick, low-prep games!

In reading we’re going to be taking our unit test on making predictions at the beginning of the week and then buckling down. It has been so difficult these past two months with snow days to consistently do guided reading groups! Between required assessments, once-a-year ESOL testing, and mid-year testing, we haven’t done guided reading in WEEKS.
So this week and next we’re forgoing the mini-lessons and doing extended groups! I’ll get to meet for 25 minutes daily in a small group setting with each student. We’re going to do a “Bootcamp” to refresh our centers — pictured above — and really work on those decoding and fluency skills. I’ll be infusing some of my favorite close reading resources with our series’ reading books too. I am SO READY for this change of pace with my kiddos and to give them a strong foundation for our big push toward on-grade level at the end of the year.

In writing we’re going to work on finishing up our research unit. Boy, you want to talk about difficult? Try doing a research unit with snow days all over the place! Luckily my kids have been able to keep up with things, and I really attribute that to the simple research resources pack I made with them in mind. We do a 5-10 minute mini-lesson on the carpet where I model things using a famous American (Rosa Parks) that none of them are studying — then they break into their research groups and work! I get to meet with each group as-needed, and they can continue working on it beyond the writing block because of the scaffolded supports.
We’ll also be working on getting back on track with our phonics focus, as well as reviewing those pesky skills that somehow they always seem to forget! I’ll be using my bloggy BFF’s new phonics card games for review, and one of my favorite suffixes resources from Ladybug’s Teacher Files to work on our weekly skill.

In social studies we’re doing a quick review of vocabulary {look at that FULL vocabulary reference wall — finally!} before we take our big end-of-unit test on Tuesday. I don’t know what I would’ve done without this visual vocabulary pack I made… my ELL kiddos have just soaked up this vocabulary as you can see from the anchor chart I dictated for them (and they illustrated). Fingers crossed that as we review our vocabulary four-squares and make our vocabulary word posters they are ready to go on Tuesday!
Y’all, I’m so excited. It’s MATTER time!!! This is hands-down one of my favorite science units, and this year we’re doin’ it up big with some brand new resources. I am kicking myself for not having made these resources sooner, but I’m jazzed to have them for this group of kiddos! We’ll be doing the same thing we did with economics as far as vocab — leading with the visual vocabulary posters, co-creating an anchor chart, having a learning experience (experiment or our interactive PPT — which will be posted this week on TpT), and then closing with our vocabulary four-square.
I am so ready for them to rock this, and I am so ready to get in there and be a mad scientist with them! Woohoo for science!!!

If you’d like to download my visual plans and have ALL of the links to click on and refer to, click the button above. 🙂

One thing not pictured in my visual plans is a last-minute but always present addition — our Word Problems for Success. We do these a few mornings a week and then we do two at the end of the month to take as data that we track to make sure our problem-solving skills are where they need to be. I’m excited about some of the complexity of the problems this month, as I know it’s going to lead to a great discussion amongst the kiddos.
Speaking of that — would you look at the mathematical thinking that’s going on?! I am so stinkin’ proud of my kids.

Grab your free sample on TpT just in time for St. Patrick’s Day!

The Key To Communication: A Link-Up

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Communication. It’s an obvious focus for teachers and administrators, but it’s not an easy focus. There are many barriers to communication, including, but not limited to: time, money, language, and energy. Despite these barriers, however, it’s critical to student and teacher success to establish open lines of communication between home and school.
The district in which I teach is very diverse. There are DOZENS upon DOZENS of languages spoken. In my classroom alone last year there were six different languages represented. Unfortunately, I only speak two: English and Spanish. Luckily, my district provides translation services of both print materials and in-person or on-the-phone communication. Many districts across the United States offer similar resources — you just need to know where to look and how to access it.
But even within your own classroom, there are several things you can do to start the year off right with strong communication. Here are a few that I use myself:

Before the year even starts, and before “Meet the Teacher,” I send home postcards to my students. I write a short, personalized message to them and their families, and include the date/time of our Open House event. Whenever possible, I write in the language noted on their emergency card — even if it means planning ahead and enlisting the help of colleagues that speak another language. {You can head over to my FB fan page to grab these as your August freebie!} These postcards set the tone for communication between parents/students and you; they are friendly, inviting, and put families at ease. It’s a small way to show you care.
If money is a barrier and stamps aren’t something you’re able to come by before school starts, have these ready to hand students at your “Meet the Teacher” event. The sentiment remains the same, and you can add a smile-bonus as you hand it to them! {Tip: place a fun sticker over the “Place Postage Here” spot!}

When you first meet families — at “Meet the Teacher” — or have your first opportunity to send home communication, send home a business card. I made this simple business card in PowerPoint — and you can too! I made a text box 2.5″ wide by 1.5″ tall, added a graphic, and typed in my information. I then grouped it all together {CTRL+A and then “group” in the “arrange” menu}, and copied them several times on the page.
When I handed them out I gave families two copies: one laminated with a small magnet on the back (for quick fridge reference!), and one unlaminated for their wallet. All of my parents LOVED receiving this and several remarked throughout the year how easy it was to contact me because they had my information on-hand. If you make it easy for parents to contact you, they will. Establish open lines of communication with a single card!

The last thing I do at the beginning of the year is have parents fill out an information form to establish a contact log. This form isn’t intended as an emergency contact form, but rather as a tool for me to hear what *they* want me to know about their child and what they, as a parent, expect this year. Expectations are SUCH an important, and in my opinion, overlooked piece of the puzzle when it comes to communication. I urge you to try something new this year and ask for parent’s expectations — I think you will find it gives you a great foundation from which to build key communication.
This form then goes into my teacher binder where I house student information pages, data, etc., and I use it nearly-daily. When I make contact with a parent, I log it. Documentation of parent contact can be important when issues arise, but it’s also important for you, the teacher.
Are you making contact with parents regularly? Are you sharing a child’s successes, not just instances of misbehavior or academic deficits? Regular positive communication is critical. I’ve linked a free copy of this form for you to use — keep the lines of communication open, and free of cobwebs!

Three simple, low-to-no cost ways to establish communication from the start of the school year and keep it going all year long: send home a postcard, send home a business card, and establish a contact log.
I would love for you to link up below and share what your “Key to Communication” is for the beginning of the year! Grab the graphic at the top of the post {right-click, “Save As”}, link back here, and join the linky below. I look forward to hearing from you and reading your tips & tricks!
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