The brilliant Carl Hendrick has taken the massive tome Theories of Instruction by Engelman and Carnine and distilled it down to 10 Rules for Designing Effective Learning. 

This is a fascinating article and absolutely worth reading! It has already forced me to re-think some of my basic teaching methods. 

As Hendrick explains, the basic premise of the tome is that:

"...all learning follows predictable, logical patterns when instruction is properly designed and that violating these logical principles doesn't merely make teaching less effective, it makes concept formation impossible..

The tragedy, as the book demonstrates, is that capable students often overcome our instructional failures through their own cognitive resources. They can filter irrelevant information, self-correct errors, and bridge gaps in logic. This creates the illusion that our teaching works, when in reality it only works for those who least need it. Meanwhile, students who struggle are left without the precise, systematic guidance they require to succeed."

But Hendrick doesn't leave us there to despair. He provides ten solid rules for how to design your teaching so that students, especially the struggling ones, can be taught effectively. 

This is an article to be read again and again by all of us who want to ensure that those struggling students don't get left behind.  

The incomparable Dr. Jennifer Petrich of The Literacy Dr is holding an in-person SWI mini-conference. As far as I know, other than Dr. Pete Bowers' annual Wolf Island Workshop, this is the only SWI conference being offered in person. While that requires travel, which I know is a barrier for many of us, the chance to meet and talk with other people in this field in-person can be life-changing.

This is going to be a one-day event on Sunday Oct 26 in Tucker, GA. You will have the opportunity to spend the day studying with Dr. Petrich and her colleague Sara Lee. Both have incredible expertise in this field and deep experience teaching. 

The price of $145 is incredible for this kind of opportunity. Registration closes on Sept 30, so if you can manage the time and the travel, I would definitely recommend it. 

I can't believe I only just discovered this resource (thank  you Kathleen Love at Rain City Reading!).

Fiona Hamilton has created an amazing interactive board for building bases and helping kids build and strengthen their GPCs. She's even got some of the basic affixes so you can start working with morphemes. 

You won't find a blending board like this anywhere else. 

I came across a very interesting new site this week. It's called Kids Discover Online and it's bursting with useful resources. It's all based on non-fiction topics such as: history, geography, life sciences, technology, etc. 

I found it because Paola Tayvah (who is an endless source of amazing resources) recommended some written texts by Kids Discover. You can still order theses short books from the site, and I'm tempted by a number of them, but you can also access lots of great online resources as well as printables. 

You can get a free 30-day trial to see if it will be of use to you. After that, it is a subscription site.

Another great site, and this one is free, is Ochre Education. Some of you may remember The Syntax Project and The Grammar Project that were developed in Australia. Those free resources migrated over to Ochre and have become part of the complete, free, curriculum that Ochre has put online.

It is designed for classrooms but could be adapted for use by any teacher. It incorporates a lot of morphology and has some great ideas for teaching wonderful texts such The One and Only Ivan, The Lorax or Kensuke's Kingdom.