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Revisiting Routines with Students

January 13, 2020 Categories: Classroom Management & Discipline
Does this sound familiar? You teach your students classroom routines at the beginning of the year and watch as they integrate these new routines into their learning, but for some reason – either because they’ve forgotten it or never quite understood it in the first place — a certain routine doesn’t quite stick. If you Read More »
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DEC
16
2019

Use Envisioning Language and Goal Setting to Promote Student Reflection

Showing Students What Is Possible The language we use with students every day influences how they see themselves. Our words can shape students’ views of themselves years after our direct influence. Envisioning…
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SEP
05
2019

Preparing Students to Become Independent Learners using Routines & Procedures

It’s the start of a new year! Day one is either right around the corner or has just recently taken place. The beginning of the year is filled with so many fresh…
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FEB
08
2018

Teaching Students to Speak Confidently

“As their teachers, we hold in our hearts our own hopes and dreams for [our students]. We want them to engage in academic rigor and to be ideamongers who contribute to classroom…
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MAY
09
2016

Reinforcing Language: Giving Middle Schoolers Supportive Feedback

Teacher language—the words, tone, and pace we use when we talk to students—may be the most powerful of all our teaching tools. After all, language permeates nearly every interaction we have with…
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OCT
01
2015

Taking Positive Language Schoolwide

Positive language is a powerful tool for building a calm, safe school climate. The words we use when we talk to students, the intention behind these words, and how we deliver them…
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JUN
04
2015

How’s Your Reinforcing Language?

Once June arrives, it’s tempting to focus on the more leisurely days ahead. That’s important to do—we all need rest and rejuvenation. But before you begin that well-earned downtime, pause for a…
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APR
17
2015

Teaching Without Using Rewards

Children build on their strengths, and to do that building—to grow academically and socially—they need us to recognize and encourage their positive efforts. But what’s the best way to offer that recognition…
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SEP
25
2014

What’s in a Name?

How do you refer to the students in your class when addressing them? At first glance, this may seem like a trivial issue; but consider how many times throughout the day we…
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JAN
03
2014

Reinforcing, Reminding, and Redirecting

Adapted from the new 2nd edition of The Power of Our Words 
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JAN
03
2014

Asking Strategic Questions

Adapted from the new book The Language of Learning: Teaching Students Core Thinking, Listening, & Speaking Skills 
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DEC
04
2013

Sometimes Less Is More

The other day Ben returned to our classroom after a session with the occupational therapist, yelling "I'm here, guys!," which interrupted the lesson and caused a few students to giggle. I looked…
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NOV
26
2013

Noticing Positives

What’s going well in your classroom these days? At this time of year, especially, it’s common for teachers to focus more energy on challenges such as reteaching procedures that aren’t going smoothly,…
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APR
16
2013

Naming What Children Can Do

Mr. Park's fourth grade class was the most impulsive and squirmy group of children he'd ever taught. Children speaking out of turn, talking to neighbors, playing with small objects, or making odd…
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NOV
19
2012

The Value of Struggle

"When did your courage surprise you?" I was profoundly moved by this question when it was posed at a conference I attended years ago, and it came back to me recently when…
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DEC
01
2010

The Method of Grandmother

Chip Wood recently shared a link on the Yardsticks blog to TED talk by Sugata Mitra, an educational researcher who’s done some compelling research on child-driven education and technology. Midway through the…
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NOV
29
2010

Keeping Routines Crisp

(This is one of a series of posts about  reteaching everyday classroom routines, such as lining up or responding to the quiet signal.)Once you and your students have gotten classroom routines back…
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NOV
12
2010

Letting Go of “But”

Have you ever had a friend (or relative) who couldn't seem to give a full compliment? I have one (she shall go unnamed) who can't help but qualify every kind thing she…
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JAN
08
2010

Reflecting on Classroom Routines

What routines do you use in your classroom? Which are going well? Which still need some work?
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NOV
30
2009

Use Reinforcing Language to Keep the Learning Going

Often, when I talk with teachers who have started trying out Responsive Classroom practices such as interactive modeling, they reflect, “Interactive modeling worked great for a while. My students did really well…
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NOV
06
2009

What Students Hear

We all have funny stories about things children say as they try to make sense of what they're learning in school, such as this one a teacher shared with me recently:The teacher…
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NOV
01
2009

The Power of Teacher Language

As the children come back from lunch, they are slow to quiet down. Calmly, the teacher rings a chime, a well-rehearsed signal for attention. She waits a moment until the last child…
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OCT
02
2009

How I got over my “I notice . . .” blues

Years ago, as a beginning Responsive Classroom practitioner, I became determined to stop using the phrase, "I like the way . . ." to control children's behavior. For example, I'd been saying,…
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AUG
01
2008

Watching and Learning

Question: In The Power of Our Words and The First Six Weeks of School, you write about how important it is for teachers to get to know their students at the beginning…
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NOV
01
2003

The Power of Language

A teacher's language is a powerful teaching tool. Our language can build children up or tear them down. It can model respectful and caring social interactions or just the opposite. Effective language…
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