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For me, summer break means a break from the reading lab—but it doesn’t mean a break from teaching! I’ve been blessed with eleven grandchildren, six of whom are still in grade school and live very close to me. It’s great to work with them throughout the year on their reading and math, but I love the extra time I get to spend with them in the summer. As with many kids, it can be more difficult to motivate them over the break. Can any of you relate?

How will your students spend their last day in the reading lab this year? While this might not be their most productive day ever (we all know how the last few days of school can be!), there’s still an opportunity to make it count. A great goal for this day is to set students up for summer success. Consider the following ideas.

Teacher Appreciation Week is just around the corner! Here are five meaningful ways students can honor their teachers during this special week.

We're approaching the end of another challenging school year. Your students have worked hard to accelerate their progress in reading, despite learning disruptions due to the pandemic. As you know, they can't afford anymore setbacks in their reading. Avoiding the summer slide is more important than ever.

Teacher Appreciation Week officially begins on May 8. Let's celebrate with a bunch of free resources for you. These resources include phonics games, vocabulary exercises, cue cards to help emerging readers with visually confusing letters, a system for mastering the most frequently misspelled words, and more--all free!

We’ve reached the time of year when many of you are filling up your summer calendars, making plans to keep your children’s minds and bodies busy. Quiet time to read might not earn a spot on your family calendar, but it should be highly prioritized nonetheless.

Here are some tips for boosting your children’s literacy this summer:

​​​​​​​If you’re a Read Live user, we hope you’re taking advantage of FREE One Minute Reader Live access this summer to accelerate your students’ gains and ensure they don’t lose the progress they’ve made this year. OMR Live is completely independent and ideally suited for summer learning. Teachers typically have just one concern: How can we trust that the students will put in the time and effort on their own? Rest assured, OMR Live is inherently rewarding, and kids love it! Beyond this, consider boosting their motivation by implementing a fun incentive program.

​In my last post, I shared the many assessment mistakes I’ve made over the years. Blunders aside, I actually love spring assessments for one simple reason. The spring assessment gives me an opportunity to show my students the big picture and remind them that the best reward of all is taking ownership of their own progress. This is usually just a short conversation, but it’s one of the most important talks I will have with them.

​Is it really assessment season again? It feels like yesterday that I opened the lab at this new school, met my students, and screened them for reading difficulties using benchmark assessment. The winter assessment window seemed to arrive just a short time after that. And now it’s springtime already, and spring assessment window is almost here. It is time to prepare to assess the students yet again.

In order to know whether a student has made enough progress to exit a Read Naturally program, you need to assess the student with grade-level material. It is important to celebrate your student’s daily growth from cold to hot timings in a story, the student’s goal being increased and the student moving up a level. It is also exciting to see a student’s cold-timing scores increase from story to story. These are all indications that the student’s reading skills are improving and that he or she is making progress in the program. But it is essential to keep the long-term goal in mind.

Make Your Student a STAR!

Read Naturally Star of the Month​Share your student’s success story—nominate him or her for our Star of the Month award. Win a Barnes & Noble gift card for the student and a Read Naturally gift certificate for your class!

pointer Submit a Star-of-the-Month entry

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