Peer to Peer Participants Enjoy Whitecaps Win

Students from Grandville, Caledonia, Kenowa Hills and Kentwood who participate in their districts’ Peer to Peer programs went to a Whitecaps baseball game to enjoy friendship and some summer camaraderie. The Cap’s were victorious and a wonderful time was had by all. The annual outing is supported by a special grant from START, Statewide Autism Resource and Training and Kent CAN (Collaborative Autism Network).

The Secret Ingredient for Developing Lifelong Writers

Recently I spent some time looking at new programs on the market to teach literacy. They all came from large, reputable companies and were designed to teach The Common Core State Standards.

While I saw a lot of good, current thinking in these programs, when I glanced at the writing sections within each, I sighed—deeply.  In a nutshell, the writing in these programs calls for a lot of teacher-directed writing, emphasizing product over process, and steeped in the idea that the most important aspect of student writing, by far, is the ability to write with evidence from sources.

Now don’t get me wrong. I understand the importance of writing with evidence in our standards and love the challenge of helping young writers develop this skill. I embrace the three types of writing in The Common Core and

Academic Success of Champions

“If you have a child’s heart, you have his head.”™ – Flip Flippen

I remember over ten years ago when I first got a phone call asking about Capturing Kids’ Hearts.  I went on the internet and did some research and saw the Flippen Groups website. I thought who is this Flip Flippen guy?

Fast forward to 2016 and Steve Dieleman (Kent ISD) has been working with Kent County districts and the Flippen group for over a decade.  All of the schools in Kent ISD’s service area have been trained in Capturing Kids’ Hearts and have had success stories with the program.

Here is a video of Kentwood Public Schools

Deep Thinking about Character: A Starting Point for Writing Fiction

Fiction. Certainly this is one of the most popular genres to read for students and adults. Realistic fiction, fantasy, mystery, and legends, among others, are popular with readers of all ages. Yet, while this type of writing is fun to read, it can be very challenging to write, particularly for young writers.

In the past, many of us have used planning sheets for fiction writing that are, quite frankly, ineffective. These sheets

Helping Students Become Active Thinkers, Part 2

Last week, Tim Hargis wrote about four areas of focus to help students become active thinkers and independent writers. He described purpose and craft in detail.  In part 2, he will go over the final two focus areas: genre and text structure and content.  To learn more about this subject, register for The Writing Diner 2: Creating Active Thinkers for Common Core Success (Elementary & Middle School) on August 6th at Kent ISD.

A Focus on Genre and Text Structures

Teaching the three different types of writing through genre and text structure units is another way to up the level of thinking for student writers. If students have to grapple with

Helping Students Become Active Thinkers, Part 1

The ultimate goal of all writing instruction has to be to help students become active thinkers while they are independently writing. This is the foundation of my writing beliefs. We need to teach writing in a way that will allow students, when they are sitting alone with a blank paper or computer screen in front of them, to have writing knowledge and skills inside of them that they can apply, on their own, in any situation.

If this is our goal for our writing instruction and we achieve it, then students will not only be successful in our classrooms, but they will be successful in grades, on standardized tests, writing in the content areas, and beyond.

The Common Core State Standards demand this of our student writers. The authors of The Standards outline seven characteristics of students who are “college and career ready.” At the top of the list is that students “demonstrate independence.” As teachers, we need to

Why We Love MTSS (And You Should, Too!)

Data-driven decision making, positive school climate, evidence-based reading instruction and interventions . . . all critical components of setting up a Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS) Framework.

Kent ISD is currently supporting local districts in bringing the MTSS Framework to life to systematically raise achievement both