A Quick Guide to Making Your Teaching Stick, K-5

by Lucy Calkins, Lucy Calkins

Recognizing that there is a vast difference between children getting it and children holding on to what they have learned, Shanna lays out the universal principles of "stickiness" and describes how they can be used to tweak your teaching for a more lasting impact on young writers. A Quick Guide to Making Your Teaching Stick is part of the Workshop Help Desk series. About the Workshop Help Desk series The Workshop Help Desk series is designed for teachers who believe in workshop teaching and who have already rolled up their sleeves enough to have encountered the predictable challenges. If you've struggled to get around quickly enough to help all your writers, if you've wondered how to tweak your teaching to make it more effective and lasting, if you've needed to adapt your teaching for English learners, if you've struggled to teach grammar or nonfiction writing or test prep...if you've faced these and other specific, pressing challenges, then this series is for you. Provided in a compact 5" x 7" format, the Workshop Help Desk series offers pocket-sized professional development. For a comprehensive overview of the Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative series, including sample minilessons, sample videos, videos, frequently asked questions and more, visit .

Genres: Professional Development

104 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2008

Reviews

[Zoē Holt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for class.

[Eugenie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shanna Schwartz, Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 2008

This book is a professional book from Lucy Calkins’ Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. It’s a Workshop Help Desk guide that focuses on an issue that many teachers struggle with: how to make their teaching “stick”. It offers many useful suggestions to try and make our teaching more effective and lasting. The author, Shanna Schwartz, understands the huge difference between students “getting” what we teach and actually holding on to it. She defines her “stickiness” in four principals:
•“Children Learn What They Are Ready to Learn
•Children Learn Best When They Are Engaged and Active Participants in
Their Own learning
•Children Benefit from Physical Representation of Their Learning
•Children Learn Through-and Love-Repetition”

I found this book to be a wonderful eye-opener of strategies and techniques. The information was presented in an easy to follow style using real teaching examples. The concepts are ones that, as an early elementary educator, I am excited to implement. I’m already familiar with much of what Schwartz presents but the practical descriptions in this book will help me to approach my practice in a more organized way, with focus on key teaching strategies. In understanding the four principals I can move forward with a better grasp in my reading instruction, especially for my emergent readers. I want to try and make sure that my reading group participants are all engaged in our lessons. In understanding these “stickiness” principals I hope to provide the amount of differentiation needed to move them All forward in their literacy acquisition

[Heather Wall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shanna writes explicitly about how 4 principles can make our teaching stick - children learn when they're ready to learn, children learn when they're actively engaged, children benefit from physical representations of their learning, and children benefit from repetition. Well-written with good examples. Focuses mainly on primary students and writing.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great quick read with good, research based teaching tips. I'll be able to immediately apply what I read about. Geared more toward K-2, but tips can be applied to all grade levels.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quick read and well done. Geared toward writing and primary, tidbits could easily be adjusted to fit other academic areas and ages.

[Ciocido23 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for teaching kids how to write! I got a lot out of it.