What is Mt. Teachermore?

What is Mt. Teachermore? Well it is not my phrase as much as I would love to claim it for my own ;it is the thought of the cool intelligent Kathy Collins. Yes, Kathy Collins,  a la
Reading for Real and Growing Readers

                                                                           These are two amazing books, written by Kathy Collins, that helped me several years ago during my Reading Fellowship when I was attempting to craft a Reading Workshop in my classroom. Key word attempt: I look back on those days with bittersweetness. It was an incredibly exciting time I felt like a new teacher again energized and ready to dive in. However, it is like eating a bag of sugar you go go go go and then the sugar coma sets in and you   can not move. These books and others were my sugar bag and Christmas break was my sugar coma. I read Growing Readers before going to Teacher's College University of Columbia Reading Institute in hopes that I would not be totally lost but those Teacher's College TCWRP consultants are insanely thoughtful and smart: I was still lost.

Lucky, for me and my teacher friend when we went to TCWRP, Kathy Collins was our session leader at the Summer Institute. She combined comedy and very thoughtful teaching practices which was so refreshing because the other consultants were so intense and amazing that I thought well this is not the right group for me. I cannot be this serious and intense this long. To quote Jay Z" work is not always hard" yeah! I enjoy my work sometimes it does not seem like work but these TCWRP folks speak English with such thought and precision it is just too intense for me. Kathy made me feel, even goofy me can put my own twist on this powerful learning and work and do this level of teaching in my rowdy classroom. Thank you Kathy Collins.  So, during her amazing session I went to this Saturday I gained a ton of insight and ideas into how I can improve my conferring and how I can better my shared reading and close reading. I often find one powerful way to improve shared reading  is to have literature and poetry that is amazing because then it is easy to sit back and let the words swirl around the classroom and turn in to magical teaching moments. I have already ordered one of here recommended texts in hopes it will arrive before Constitution day.

Thomas Jefferson: Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman
I want to use this as a Shared and Close reading lesson that to give the students a taste Jefferson and hopefully inspire some wonderings. I will post later on the results of our Shared reading. I wanted to at least share the title so you too can find this gem at your library, bookstore or amazon prime it, in time for Constitution day.

 Conferring is the most amazing teaching tool that often leaves me saying Um Um Um well how do I push this little guy what question do I ask? So here is one big A- HAAAAA ( this sounds like the yahoo sound because it was more than just the regular a ha it was a A-HAAAAA) any way it is simple. Skill vs Strategy, What the Hello Kitty. Yes, Kathy this is a great topic so basically she says it is: skill: I can  Strategy: how.

Go ahead drop an anvil on my head that was so simple but so true. Ex: I can read tricky words and my teacher taught me the strategy of chunking the word into parts. Wow! this helps me I don't know about you. Anyway, during her session Kathy Collins said she had asked this question to all of Mt. Teachermore, Lucy Calkins, Kylene Beers, and so on. I thought wow very cool I felt like this conference was a chance for me to be around my Mt. TeacherMore.
Here are a few of the faces I was fortunate enough to learn from this week end:

And here is me taking that crazy photo every family takes when they visit National Monuments. Let's all line up and smile in front of this thing so we remember we are came here and were happy for a at least one minute.

My Teacher Friend, Kathy Collins and Me!
Check out the load of books we bought! Can you say teacher NERDS!

Happy Learning! ( FYI my hair looks so bad because the water went out in the hotel the morning of the conference in the middle of my shower)