Quote: "She doesn't introduce the words in the order that they're presented in the list, but rather chooses words that she can connect to phonics lessons and literature focus units, and words that children misspell in their writing" (Thompkins, 186).
Comments: I absolutely love this! One of my favorite things about doing the reading for homework is finding ideas for my own literacy program in my class. I wish all teachers really thought about their students' learning. I think so many teachers get caught up in the curriculum/standards, that they forget that their lessons need to be tailored to each class you teach. This teacher still covered all of the words, but she tailored them to what students needed/were learning about so that the words could be applied easily. This helps students remember the words, which is the whole point of introducing those high frequency words. Whenever I see ideas like this, I get really excited about teaching. I like some of the ideas so much, I think I want to start a blog with ideas for literacy programs in elementary schools. (A bit nerdy, yes, but I think that it will be useful).
Question: How do we motivate fellow teachers to focus on students more than curriculum?
I think that one great way to motivate other teachers is to share lesson ideas. It is hard to be super creative coming up with good lesson plans every day for every subject and sometimes there just isn't enough time. But if you have a great idea you should make copies of it and give it to the other teachers if they want it, and hopefully they will do the same. The more brains collaborating, the better the result lesson plans will be!
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