News and Events

Friendship: Having close, trusting relationships and personal connections to others; learning to interact in positive, productive ways While it may seem obvious to state that friendship matters, decades of research by Robert Selman has shown the incredible importance of friendship and how close...

Belonging: identifying as a valued, represented member of a larger community Belonging to a group is a basic human need, as important as nourishment and shelter, which stresses the absolute importance of creating a classroom culture and environment where every child is (not just feels) welcomed...

As National Family Literacy Month closes, we've been thinking a lot about why school and parent partnerships matter . Obviously, kids spend a significant amount of time trying to improve reading skills during school hours. In fact, the average American child spends about 1,000 hours of instructional...

Whether you are a parent reading at home with your young child or a teacher trying to engage a 12th-grade class, picture books matter. Picture books' tactlessness, their glossy covers, and bright pictures beg to be opened, to be read, but also to be experienced. Years after my father read to me...

At the National Council for the Teachers of English (NCTE) Convention in Houston, TX, NCTE members Ernest Morrell and Donalyn Miller spoke to more than 600 new attendees at the First Timers' Welcome on Friday, November 16. Dr. Morrell encouraged the participants to "Be relentless. Be courageous. Be...

I remember, very clearly still, my childhood bedroom, a warm and tidy little space with light yellow walls and a bed with a blue and green floral comforter. I remember many happy evenings in this room, reading with my dad before I fell asleep. I can recall the excitement I felt at the kickoff of...

Over a century ago, American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer J ohn Dewey stated, "We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience."He emphasized the importance of educators pausing to reflect on their practice, asking questions about practices that were...

Podcasts and audiobooks have become wildly popular over the past few years. According to an article in Forbes Magazine ( March 2018 ), "Audiobooks are up about 20% year over year across the publishing industry for the first eight months of 2017, according to the Association of American Publishers'...

When working with pre-service teachers in New York, less than two weeks into their student teaching placement, we asked them to clear off their desks except for a piece of paper and pen. We then asked them to write a class list. The next step was to look over the list and think about whether any...

Regardless of a writer’s age or grade, staring at a blank piece of paper or blank document on a computer screen can feel overwhelming. The easiest way to start? Encourage students to write their name on the paper or type it on the screen—and voila ! The page is no longer blank. We’ve used this...