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Heather Rader
When asked for a label, I refer to myself as a MWT: mother-writer-teacher. My mothering and writing have always informed my teaching and in return my teaching powers my parenting and literary passions. I've taught in Korea, at a private school, as a homeschooling mom and a teacher-librarian, but most of my years have been spent teaching elementary students in public school. I now work as an instructional coach and support the everyday hard work at thirteen elementaries (my lucky number) with an amazing team of coaches. My motto is "Stay Curious" - and I think the "apple for the teacher" should be an avocado instead.
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Procedural Writing in Math
Heather Rader
Truly, I love a good story and interesting anecdotes, but only when I'm reading for that purpose. Right now what I'm interested in is accurate measurements, clear ingredients, and a step-by-step easy-to-follow guide. The word choice should be precise language of the discipline (in this case, culinary) and the voice should be clear and factual. Still, while procedural writing is "just the facts ma'am" simple, it's not as cinchy to teach. . . .
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Math, Writing, and Coaching to Learn
Heather Rader
Lisa, like many intermediate teachers, works in a departmentalized arrangement. She begins the day with her homeroom kids, and then about every 80 minutes she rotates through three different groups of fifth graders for literacy. Lisa was excited to learn more about writing in the content areas, as well as the connections that might build with other members of her teaching team. . . .
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Wii Summary
Heather Rader
What I find, and was true in Ingrid's classroom, is that some complex skills like summarization are taught in only two modes: all teacher (I-do) or all students (you-do). In the I-do mode, teachers can easily be disillusioned that the kids get it because the smart ones offer to answer our questions and everyone else nods to make us happy when we ask, "Does that make sense?" In the you-do mode, that illusion falls apart with a chorus of "I don't get it" or work that misses the mark. That's where the students were when Ingrid deemed the progress "awful." In between those two modes is an entire continuum of we-do . . .
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A Sponge is a Summary
Heather Rader
When I'm working with a concept that I know may be difficult to grasp, I like to hook kids' attention with a metaphor or an analogy. While doing the dishes, I thought about how a sponge holds water, but when you squeeze it, you are left with the right amount of dampness to wipe down a counter. The point of a sponge is to be moist without being over-saturated. Ah-ha, I thought: a sponge is a summary. We take hold of saturated text and squeeze out all the unnecessary details, keeping what we need. Although there are limitations to my metaphor, it seems to work for kids until they come up with their own connections. . . .
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Getting and Giving Student Feedback
Heather Rader
When I consider "Who is the best educated and the most experienced thinker in the classroom?" The answer is the teacher. If I am understanding how the students are making meaning, I can adapt the questions, lessons and interventions. The only way for me to have access to that information is to get it in the form of kid talk, lots of it, and later, in writing too. Schema, 10:2 Theory and Exit Slips are ways to constantly seek feedback of students' understanding. . . .
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There's Been a Misblunderstanding
Heather Rader
I believe there are two misblunderstandings at play here and in many of our classrooms. There is a myth that teacher talking is the same thing as teaching. We need to switch our focus from what the teacher is saying and doing to what the students are saying and doing. Just because she said it, doesn't mean she taught it. If kids aren't doing something independently (like fourth graders generating a paragraph), we can begin where they are at. . . .
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You Get What You Ask For: The Art of Debriefing
Heather Rader
I started out as a question collector. I used questions from the University of Kansas, Cathy Toll and every coaching article I put my hands on. I typed every word that came out Literacy Coach Katherine Casey's mouth during trainings. I thought that somehow if I collected enough good questions, that I would know what to ask and how. The truth is, while the list focused my attention on questioning and I have kept a couple of gems, I didn't really get good at it until I started paying more attention to the responses from teachers to my questions. My inquiry skills didn't come from a list or my mouth; my questions came from my ears. . . .
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Writing Do-Overs: ERPs in the Classroom
Heather Rader
We loved do-overs on the playground, but young writers don't have the same enthusiasm for do-overs in writing. When I was teaching I thought maybe it was just my students, but now as a coach, I see the trend in many writers. When I go into a classroom to work on revision, I ask the students to answer three simple questions on a half-sheet pre-assessment. . . .
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Extreme Makeover: Revision Edition
Heather Rader
Once upon a time in my third-grade classroom, I had an eight-foot pencil poster on my wall that listed the steps of the writing process from prewriting at the point to a publishing ferrule (the crimped metal band that connects pencil and eraser). About half-way down that pencil was the bold word "revising". It came after drafting and before editing and it was not, shall we say, beloved in our classroom. . . .
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The Over-Prompting of Young Writers
Heather Rader
I have been teaching long enough to remember a time before our large-scale state writing assessment when the word "prompt" wasn't connected to writing. Yet after receiving our first set of unfortunate writing scores years ago, my team bought a Book of 101 Everyday Prompts. Our well-intentioned assumption was if teaching kids to respond to a prompt helped, then having them practice more would really increase their success. Some teachers tell me their students respond to a writing prompt every day. Here are a few prompts I've read student responses to . . .
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How to Be of Use: Starting Strong
Heather Rader
After I ask the question, "What do you already know about coaching?" teachers often tell me "Very little." There is also misinformation that coaching is only for the struggling or new educators, not teachers at the top of their game. Sharing with teachers a "This I Believe" reveals my intention and they appreciate repetition of my mantra, "I believe all teachers deserve coaches." . . .
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How to Use a Coach: Four Things to Consider
Heather Rader
I'm not an expert in the classrooms I enter, but I often know enough to help a teacher move forward. As an instructional coach, I've worked with first year teachers, a thirty-two year veteran and many stages in between. Some teachers seem instantly comfortable with the coaching arrangement while others because of apprehension, misinformation or just being new to the process learn "how to use a coach" to their advantage through the process. . . .
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Sarcasm Is a Useful Teaching Tool--NOT
Heather Rader
Technically, sarcasm is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as "a cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound" and "a form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule." From its Latin and Greek roots it means "to bite the lips in rage." These words: wound, victim and rage suggest that the speaker has poor intentions. On the contrary, I don't believe any teacher gets up in the morning and says, "I'm going to go be a negative influence in the lives of children today." Not at all. So why do teachers use sarcasm with kids? In our conversations here is what they tell me . . .
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A Coach's Perspective: Is Sarcasm in Style This Season?
Heather Rader
This isn't the first time I've encountered sarcasm in the classroom and while these are fifth graders, I've heard it all the way down to classrooms of five-year-olds. Like a Magic Eye picture that begins to emerge as I relax my focus, I see a positive correlation between teachers who are resistant to coaching and also struggle with classroom management. A commonality I've found among teachers struggling with classroom management is the element of sarcasm in their classrooms. . . .
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