Tuesdays from the Teacher- Post Parent Teacher Conference Suggestions

Introduction:
Ms. B. is a 7th grade Language Arts teacher in the Midwest. She has been teaching for 15 years, having taught Special Education for 4 years and Language Arts for 11 years. Ms. B. has a degree in Special Education, Reading and her Masters in Education. In her free time she enjoys gardening, baking bread, being a grandparent and eating fine, imported dark chocolate. 

I have just finished 3 afternoons and evenings of parent-teacher conferences this week.  It is always an interesting adventure when I meet the parents of my students and have a chance to discuss their students’ academic and social activities in class.  So many parents ask what they can do to help their child be more successful in the classroom, and I suspect they are surprised with my suggestions.

Tuesdays from the Teacher- Vocabulary and Your Child

Introduction:
Ms. B. is a 7th grade Language Arts teacher in the Midwest. She has been teaching for 15 years, having taught Special Education for 4 years and Language Arts for 11 years. Ms. B. has a degree in Special Education, Reading and her Masters in Education. In her free time she enjoys gardening, baking bread, being a grandparent and eating fine, imported dark chocolate. 

Today we are going to talk about vocabulary. The decrease in quality of my students' vocabulary is a trend I've noticed over the past 15 years. I have struggled to teach it in my classroom and this year finally figured out the problem! My students really do not have any idea how to learn a word, especially my struggling readers. We started an independent vocab program that requires students to record how they learn a word. Initially, almost all of the students simply recorded the definition-- whether the definition made sense or not.  Through trial and error, eventually my students realized that learning a new word has very little to do with the definition! Learning a new word requires either finding a similar word (synonym) they already know or connecting it to some kind of visual. Then they must figure out a way to review that new word 13 times to permanently add it to their vocabulary. 

Tuesdays from the Teacher- Writing and Your Child

Introduction:
Ms. B. is a 7th grade Language Arts teacher in the Midwest. She has been teaching for 15 years, having taught Special Education for 4 years and Language Arts for 11 years. Ms. B. has a degree in Special Education, Reading and her Masters in Education. In her free time she enjoys gardening, baking bread, being a grandparent and eating fine, imported dark chocolate.