About debracrouch

Debra Crouch works nationally as an independent literacy consultant, collaborating with districts and schools in designing professional learning opportunities. Her work empowers teachers, principals, and coaches to envision instructional decisions that matter for children—decisions about processes for learning that unfold over time, across texts and among practices. She actively shares her thinking and practices through long-term professional learning opportunities with districts across the country serving children from diverse backgrounds, languages, and socioeconomic needs.

Extend Oral Language with Kindergartners (Video 6 of 7)

This lesson happened just before the first reading of Which Pet is Best? The book had been used in several reading sessions the previous week. In this session, several pages, not the entire book, are used as a warm-up at the beginning of shared reading time to extend oral language. Students join in the reading as they choose. The language focus is on continuing to use positional words. [...]

Extend Oral Language with Kindergartners (Video 6 of 7)2024-08-05T06:52:00-07:00

Extending Oral Language, Small Group Kindergarten (Video 7 of 7)

SMALL GROUP READING TO EXTEND ORAL LANGUAGE Watch as the teacher leads a reading lesson with a small group of kindergarten children. The teacher invites each child to look at the pictures in the book and asks the child open questions about the story. Most of all, the teacher prompts the child to use their own words. She also asks the children questions starting with "which" [...]

Extending Oral Language, Small Group Kindergarten (Video 7 of 7)2024-08-05T06:52:07-07:00

Shared Reading: First Reading of Squeaky’s Big Adventure / A Pizza for Bear for First Graders (1 of 8)

Squeaky’s Big Adventure had been used in several Shared Reading sessions the previous week and now several pages of the book, but not the entire book, were used as a warm-up at the beginning of shared reading time. The students were continuing to deepen meanings of the text, bringing additional thinking to interpreting details in the words/illustrations, continuing to notice alliteration, and to continuing to [...]

Shared Reading: First Reading of Squeaky’s Big Adventure / A Pizza for Bear for First Graders (1 of 8)2024-08-05T06:37:35-07:00

Shared Reading: Returning to the Text – A Pizza for Bear for First Graders (2 of 8)

This small group of English Learners was brought together to revisit a text they had experienced once in whole group, giving individuals an opportunity to think and talk more about the book currently beginning to be used for study in the whole group.

Shared Reading: Returning to the Text – A Pizza for Bear for First Graders (2 of 8)2024-08-05T06:37:49-07:00

Shared Reading: Returning to the Text – Small group – extending oral language for First Graders (3 of 8)

This small group of English Learners was brought together to revisit a text they had experienced once in whole group, giving individuals an opportunity to think and talk more about the book currently beginning to be used for study in the whole group.

Shared Reading: Returning to the Text – Small group – extending oral language for First Graders (3 of 8)2024-08-05T06:37:56-07:00

Shared Reading: Returning to the book: Second reading of the text for First Graders (4 of 8)

This lesson focuses is about deepening meaning of the book. The teacher uses a pointer to track the print, using a fluid motion rather than pointing word-by-word as all students have one-to-one match firmly established. Students join in reading the text aloud with the teacher as they choose. After reading the text through two times, the lesson focus was discussing the beginning, middle, and end [...]

Shared Reading: Returning to the book: Second reading of the text for First Graders (4 of 8)2024-08-05T06:38:06-07:00

Shared Reading: Returning to the text – Building vocabulary for First Graders (5 of 8)

This revisit to the text focuses on vocabulary—noticing interesting and more specific word choices. Students discuss some of the interesting words the author uses in the book and how they brought more specificity to meaning. With each word discussed, there is reading of the sentence on the page to establish meaning, discussion of the vocabulary word, partner talk about the word, and then rereading the [...]

Shared Reading: Returning to the text – Building vocabulary for First Graders (5 of 8)2024-08-05T06:38:13-07:00

Shared Reading: Returning to the text – Modeling Writing for First Graders (6 of 8)

This modeled writing experience gives children an opportunity to hear a writer decide what to write about, how to say the ideas to be written, and to notice strategies and conventions for getting an idea onto paper. The teacher writes about a topic the students would later be writing about during independent work time. After discussing the topic with students, the teacher and students discuss [...]

Shared Reading: Returning to the text – Modeling Writing for First Graders (6 of 8)2024-08-05T06:38:23-07:00

Shared Reading: Returning to the text: Part 1—Phonemic awareness for First Graders (7 of 8)

The first part of this two-part lesson is designed to support students to listen for sounds in words. (This particular sound, the long /e/ sound, was chosen for instruction because there were many examples of words in two well-known books with this sound that used varied spelling patterns to represent the sound.) The teacher revisits two known books, rereading and emphasizing the words with this [...]

Shared Reading: Returning to the text: Part 1—Phonemic awareness for First Graders (7 of 8)2024-08-05T06:38:30-07:00

Shared Reading: Returning to the text: Part 2—Phonics for First Graders (8 of 8)

In this lesson, students’ attention is drawn to the numerous ways the long /e/ sound is represented in words. The teacher and the students underline the spelling pattern that represents the long /e/ sound.The teacher and students sort some of the words into groups according to the spelling pattern used to represent the long /e/ sound. The lesson focus, asking yourself “does it look right?” [...]

Shared Reading: Returning to the text: Part 2—Phonics for First Graders (8 of 8)2024-08-05T06:38:38-07:00
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