Friday, October 28, 2011

ALL children can read!

I absolutely L-O-V-E the book Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz, M.D. It gives incredible insight into the minds of students with learning disabilities. This book is extremely helpful to understanding a little more about how their brains  work and what needs to be provided to help them overcome their disability and learn how to read.

Something interesting that the book illustrates is how important daily reading is. Students who read less than 1 minute everyday at home read 8,000 words per year. A student who reads 20 minutes at home everyday will read 1.8 million words per year! The book says that poor readers often dislike reading and are not reading at home- they are missing out on important reading time!

I wish I could summarize the entire book, but there's no way to mention all of the wonderful insights! You can check out this interview with the author... she explains it much better than I can. :)
Interview with Sally Shaywitz, M.D. 


And check out the book!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Our Loverly Room! :)

This is our "rocking" resource room. Something very, very, very important that I have learned is how to utilize SPACE! Our itty, bitty resource room might not seem like much, but with warm lighting, designated spaces, and bright visuals, I think it is a welcoming space. :) Of course, I am always rearranging and trying to figure out how best to use the space we have, but this is what our room looks like now. :)

Our bookshelf with some centers and our book boxes. I bought these plastic boxes from the Container Store. I really like using the same type of boxes to store all of my things- it really helps save on space.  :)













Some more reading centers. We use our centers ALL the time. Perfect for differentiation. 










Lovely math centers (I LOVE donors choose, it has helped my students SO much.)












Our leveled readers (In every classroom at our school)

Writing Workshop! BIG initiative at our school... I absolutely love it!









Listening center and computer center










Just a bit of our lovely room! Hope you enjoyed it. :)