Three Cheers for the National Center for Learning Disabilities

The National Center for Learning Disabilities recently launched a new website for the RTI Action Network. RTI—Response to Intervention—is a way of identifying and helping struggling students. It closely monitors student progress from preschool through high school, providing necessary special instruction. The RTI Action Network's mission is to support parents and teachers so that all struggling students are identified early and receive the necessary support to be successful.

Differentiated, tiered instructional materials are crucial to making RTI work. Learning A–Z's differentiated learning products align closely with the models described on the website. The Learning A–Z family of websites provides unique instructional solutions that encourage and engage students at all achievement levels. You might like to check the free samples available on all the Learning A–Z websites.

Teacher Salaries a Continuing Embarrassment

It's common knowledge that in many regions of our country, the teaching professionals shaping our future often don't earn a decent living wage. A recent seven-state survey on teacher compensation puts cold, hard numbers to that sad reality. The U.S. Department of Education compiled 2005–2006 data for teachers who work full time in public schools in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

Median salaries ranged from $34,631 in Oklahoma to $44,777 in Colorado, according to the survey. Median experience ranged from eight to 15 years, with teacher age between 43 and 45. A bachelor's degree was the highest educational level achieved by 58 percent of teachers surveyed.

These survey results should be a wake-up call to our nation. Teachers work long, hard hours and need some incentive to add to that already cramped schedule to further develop their skills. Higher pay would encourage teachers to expand their education either before their careers take off or as their careers progress. With more tangible rewards and more teachers eager to continue their education, increasing numbers of new teachers would enter the field, and teacher retention rate would increase.

At the end of the day, most of all, low teacher pay hurts our children and the future of our country.

Teacher Appreciation Week: "If You Can Read This, Thank a Teacher"

The first time I saw the bumper sticker “If You Can Read This, Thank a Teacher,” I grinned. Seemed so obvious. As time passed, and after  seeing that bumper sticker a hundred times or so, I’m still struck by the simplicity of the message.

Whether you went to public school, private school, or home-school, you know literacy opened doors to learning like nothing else. The famous abolitionist, author, statesman, reformer, and former slave Frederick Douglass said, “Once you learn to read, you will forever be free.”

In honor of Teacher Appreciation week, I asked a few people to tell me about teachers who spurred their love of reading. Here are the reminiscings of a few:

Boxing News
“It must have been 1950, and there was a huge boxing event coming up: Joe Louis vs. Ezzard Charles. All the boys at school were talking about the match and choosing sides. Mrs. Herbert, my fifth-grade teacher, brought in the newspaper, and we scoured the sports section. There was a column called “Tale of the Tape” that gave all kinds of measurements: biceps, chest, height, neck, and so forth. It was exciting to get details on the boxers. Mrs. Herbert turned me on to reading the newspaper and to the possibilities of what can be learned through various media.”

Book Rewards
“At the end of the day on Fridays, if we had been good and done all our work, our fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Lyons would read a chapter of a fun book, like “Pippi Longstocking” or ‘The Saturdays.’”

Family Reading
“My school teacher was also my aunt. It was very confusing to me as a little girl. I knew I shouldn’t call her Aunt Millie in school, but I couldn’t make myself call her Mrs. Waite. She read to us in school, which I loved. But even better was going to her house after school, where  she would read books like “Dr. Doolittle” to my cousins and me.”

In recognition of this important week, we at Learning A–Z are opening up one of our six websites each day of Teacher Appreciation Week, May 5–9, plus May 12. Be sure to tell your teacher friends to enjoy the free materials. The Open House is scheduled from midnight to midnight EDT as follows:

May 5: ReadingA-Z.com
May 6: Raz-Kids.com
May 7: WritingA-Z.com
May 8: VocabularyA-Z.com
May 9: Reading-Tutors.com
May 12: ScienceA-Z.com

A New Case for Single-Sex Education

Should girls and boys at the primary school level be separated into different classrooms? For many decades, as far as public schools are concerned, the answer has been no.

The New York Times Magazine recently ran an extensive article on the single-sex education debate.

Boys and girls are fundamentally different and learn better if taught separately, according to proponents of single-sex education. Former physician Leonard Sax studies the neurological differences between boys and girls and is a supporter of the emerging science of sex differences. Other proponents of single-sex education argue that it is critical because boys and girls simply have different social needs.

Jay Giedd, Chief of Brain Imaging at the Child Psychiatry Branch at the NIMH, has a different point of view. He argues that gender is a "crude tool for sorting minds" and points out that the differences between boys and girls (both in terms of brain images and psychological testing) are less significant than the height differences. Giedd's point—and I tend to lean in this direction—is that there might be some merit to dividing classrooms according to learning style, but that dividing along gender lines would still leave too many people in the wrong place. Others weighing in on the issue, such as the ACLU, are concerned that dividing education by gender would automatically create unequal education.

At this point, according to the article, there is not adequate research to prove the benefit or harm of educating boys and girls in separate classrooms. Certainly this issue deserves more study. And maybe that research will finally "prove" what good teachers and schools have always known—that there is no one single answer, no one classroom or school model for everyone; but that there are many learning paths by which each student finds his or her own success.

San Diego Students Jog Before School

They exercise their minds all day and their bodies every morning.

Elementary students in San Diego have taken to jogging before school to get their days started off on the right foot. The program encourages students who get dropped off early at school because of their parents' long commutes to jog with a group of fellow early birds.

Schools have not yet performed a methodical study of the impact of the before-school runs, but teachers report that scores on fitness tests and productivity during classes have improved significantly. Teachers' endorsement is enough for me. Besides, I know exercise certainly makes a difference in my mornings!

I salute San Diego. Kids need not only playtime and unstructured time, but also regular exercise. (See previous blog.)

Don't Let Tech Fear Get the Best of You

Technology marches forward. Many aspects of technology improve our lives (the Internet makes it possible for us to deliver Learning A-Z's rich resources in an affordable way), but it can be daunting to keep up with the pace of all the technological advances. Nevertheless, we cannot afford to fall behind.

Last year, Karl Fisch, director of technology for Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, posted a blog titled "Is It Okay to Be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?" That post caused quite a stir in blogland (Teacher Magazine article, registration required) and won the Most Influential Blog Post award in the 2007 EduBlog awards. Fisch concluded by saying, "If a teacher today is not technologically literate—and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more—it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write."

If you are reading my blog online, chances are you already agree with Fisch, at least to some degree. We don't have to be on the cutting edge of technology—knowledgeable in the use of every brand-new gadget—but we do need to understand how to use technology as a teaching tool and to enhance the classroom experience. Many of your students likely learned how to play online games before they learned how to add. And older students do much of their research online, looking things up on websites like Wikipedia, the pros and cons with which we need to be familiar. To effectively guide students and help them make the most of their education, tech savvy is indeed a requirement.

Helping Students Graduate from High School, Even in Kindergarten

The steps we take as early as kindergarten can keep a student in class clear through high school, reported a recent study at Arizona State University led by Gregory Hickman. The study, published in the Journal of Education Research, tracked students from kindergarten through high school to identify the behaviors that lead to dropping out. "We discovered that as early as kindergarten, differences exist between graduates and dropouts; namely, dropouts miss more school than graduates... Dropouts miss an average of 124 days by eighth grade," the study reported.

The findings suggests that a student dropping out of school is part of a long-term process rather than a single, impulsive act. More importantly, the study argues that drop-out intervention programs that target high-school students may be intervening far too late.

Clearly, we need to be watching students from the very beginning, looking for problem signs (like regular absenteeism), and intervening to help those students achieve a complete education. As Hickman says, "Kids can succeed despite their early history... There are too many windows of opportunity for change."

CODiE Awards Honor Learning A-Z; Reading A-Z, Raz-Kids

I'm proud to say that our Learning A-Z sites have been nominated for the 23rd Annual CODiE Awards. Since 1986, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has given CODiE awards to the products and sites that provide outstanding services, content and vision, and we are pleased to be recognized.

Learning A–Z and RAZ-Kids are finalists in the "Best Online Instructional Solution" category, and Reading A-Z is a finalist in the "Best K-12 Instructional Solution" category.

At Learning A–Z, we strive to create the highest-quality differentiated educational materials and offer them in an affordable downloadable format. We're grateful for the recognition offered by the CODiEs. Being named a finalist confirms that we are achieving our goal of making quality materials for teachers and students.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the educators and staff at Learning A–Z for their hard work and tremendous dedication to education. Even more importantly, thanks to our customers for your support and feedback, which help us constantly improve our products.

The Road to RtI

Response to Intervention (RtI): Some call it a paradigm shift; others call it educational reform. I call it what many of us have been calling it for years — differentiated instruction. RtI is about using assessment data to inform instruction rather than placing students in special-education classes after perhaps years of failure. It is well-known that nearly 80 percent of children labeled as learning disabled, simply have a lack of success with reading.

Differentiating instruction to address the needs of these mislabeled students is what RtI is all about. It is also what Reading A–Z and all the Learning A–Z websites are all about. We recognize that teachers need lots of tools to address the needs of all the students in a typical classroom, yet teachers do not have the financial resources to acquire all the tools they need. As the International Reading Association (IRA) states in one of its position statements, "making a difference is about making it different." I like to think that we at Learning A–Z help teachers make a difference by offering thousands of affordable, downloadable resources for differentiated instruction. And, it is important that teachers know they can differentiate instruction with quality, research-based resources, even on a small budget.

Teachers Just Keep Getting Better

Every era has its great teachers. Teachers are great just by the sheer nature of what they do. And, there is reason to believe that, as a whole, teachers entering the profession are even more qualified now than 10 years ago.

Prospective teachers taking the state Praxis exams in 2002 through 2005 had higher SAT scores and better GPAs in college on average than teachers taking the exams in 1994 through 1997, according to a recent report by the Educational Testing Service.

Both the ETS and Sharon Robinson, the CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, attribute the impressive teacher pool to increased requirements for entry into teacher education programs, improved teacher quality requirements for accreditation, and the increased need for teacher education programs to report candidates' test scores (among other factors).