Have you seen the Brief Focus Lessons mentioned in this week’s Tip of the Week? Author Janice Such selects a strategy and mentor texts for each grade level, 1-6. She describes the book, how the lesson might be conducted and includes any follow-up pages that might be appropriate to go along with that lesson.

I took the one at the link below, Using Prior Knowledge, and copied all the lessons. I made a simple bulletin board with the strategy description, a copy of the Ready Reference Guide, the Bookmark and a few pointers I wrote and displayed them for all to see. The lesson original copies are placed in a folder on the board, making them easy for the teachers to copy as they please. Some are copying only the one for their particular grade level, and some are copying several (and, of course, some aren’t using them at all .

This was a quick, easy way to share ideas with teachers without taking up a lot of their valuable time. It just so happens that the board is very near the copy machine and their mail boxes, so it can be read while waiting on the machine to do its work HA HA!

Thanks to Janice for these lessons. I appreciate these as a way to discretely do a bit of coaching and sharing. Hopefully, these will spark conversations and inspire new ideas.

https://www.thedailycafe.com/articles/Use-Prior-Knowledge-to-Connect-with-Text-Grade-Level-Specific-LessonsUsing-Prior-Knowledge-to-Connect-with-Text-Grade-Level-Specific-Lessons?preview=1&version=1.