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Publications
The Literacy Triangle
In this strategy-packed resource, beginning
and veteran teachers alike will find insights
and practices they can use immediately. The
authors dovetail their proven instructional
process of chunk, chew, check, change with
before-, during-, and after-reading strategies
in this must-have guide for powerful literacy
instruction. No matter what content area you
teach, this book will help you develop the
strategic reader in every student.
- The Literacy Triangle (LeAnn Nickelsen & Melissa Dickson (Solution Tree, 2022)
Teaching With the Instructional Cha-Chas
Revamp mindsets and accelerate student achievement through a four-step instructional cycle. that merges neuroscience, formative assessment, and differentiation strategies to help K-8 teachers plan and instruct any subject effectively. The four steps – (1) chunk, (2) chew, (3) check, (4) change – show teachers how to break content into brain-friendly pieces, engage students as they process their learning, evaluate where students are in mastering the content, and differentiate instruction based on formative assessment results.
- Teaching With the Instructional Cha-Chas: Four Steps to Make Learning Stick (with Melissa Dickson & Rick Wormeli Solution Tree, 2019)
Bringing the Common Core to Life in K-8 Classrooms: 30 Strategies to Build Literacy
Actively engage students in their own learning. Discover strategies to promote student mastery of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts across the curriculum. Explore techniques to lead students in close reading, activate their background knowledge to prepare them for learning, and gain insight into habit formation. You’ll develop the know-how to effectively structure teaching to empower all students.
- Bringing the Common Core to Life in K-8 Classrooms: 30 Strategies to Build Literacy Skills (with Eric Jensen, Solution Tree, 2014)
Deeper Learning: 7 Powerful Strategies for In-Depth and Longer-Lasting Learning
Actively engage students in their own learning. Discover strategies to promote student mastery of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts across the curriculum. Explore techniques to lead students in close reading, activate their background knowledge to prepare them for learning, and gain insight into habit formation. You’ll develop the know-how to effectively structure teaching to empower all students.
- Deeper Learning: 7 Powerful Strategies for In-Depth and Longer-Lasting Learning (with Eric Jensen, Corwin Press, 2008)
Addressing the Needs of All Learners in the Era of Changing Standards: Helping Our Most Vulnerable Students Succeed through Teaching Flexibility, Innovation, and Creativity.
The new standards were written to address the harsh realities for poor performance of American students across all grades levels, k-12. According to NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) data, more than 60% of our students in grades 4, 8, and 12 are not proficient readers and the United States is one of the lowest performing in mathematics. The statistics are even more staggering for our children who live in poverty, students with disabilities and English Language Learners.
- Contributing Author (wrote chapter on poverty). Addressing the Needs of All Learners in the Era of Changing Standards: Helping Our Most Vulnerable Students Succeed through Teaching Flexibility, Innovation, and Creativity. (Editor: McKnight, Katherine S.,) Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
Differentiating by Readiness: Strategies and Lesson Plans for Tired Instruction, Grades K–8 (with Joni Turville and Linda Allen, Taylor & Francis, 2010)
Teach your students based on their readiness levels with tiering strategies from Joni Turville, Linda Allen, and LeAnn Nickelsen. You’ll offer lessons designed to challenge each student appropriately, and in ways that save time and yield actual progress. In this book, the authors demonstrate how tiering, a standards-based differentiation strategy which uses readiness as a basis for instructional planning, helps teachers introduce the right degree of content complexity for each student.
- Differentiating by Readiness: Strategies and Lesson Plans for Tiered Instruction, Grades K–8 (with Joni Turville and Linda Allen, Taylor & Francis, 2010)
Making Words Their Own: Building Foundations on Powerful Vocabularies
Teach vocabulary using strategies based on cognitive research and students will remember words and really understand them. That’s what Making Words Their Own is all about. More than two dozen motivating, inviting strategies to use before, during, and after learning are presented, along with handy reproducibles, including bookmarks that help students elaborate on words to really connect with them.
(Grades 4-12)
- Making Words Their Own: Building Foundations on Powerful Vocabularies (with Linda G. Allen, Crystal Springs, 2008)
Prepping The Brain: Easy an Effective Ways to Get Students Ready for Learning
This handy, research-based step book shows how you can align your teaching with the way the brain learns best. Prepping the Brain is an easy-to-use resource that you’ll refer to often as you help your students. You’ll learn how to create a safe, non-threatening, and inviting classroom environment and even how to exercise, feed, and water the brain! (Grades 1-8)
- Prepping the Brain: Easy and Effective Ways to Get Students Ready for Learning (with Linda Allen and Yvette Zgonc, Crystal Springs, 2008)
Memorizing Strategies and Other Brain-Based Activities
Help your students review content areas with fun and easy activities. Draw cartoons to help remember vocaulary words, toss dice to review math skils, amd more. Includes the latest brain research, plus study secrets.
Learn More
- Memorizing Strategies & Other Brain-Based Activities (with Eric Jensen, Solution Tree, 2014)
Inference & Cause and Effect
Sure-fire lessons and motivating activities—from Inference Charades to Cause-and-Effect Flip Books—help every learner master the essential comprehension skills of inferring and understanding cause and effect. Each section includes a variety of lessons to reinforce skills, a test-preparation lesson and test-formatted activity page, and a fun wrap-up project with evaluation ideas. For use with Grades 4-8.
Learn More
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- Teacher resources published by Scholastic (2004):
Comprehension Mini-Lessons: Inference & Cause and Effect
(with Sarah Glasscock):
– Inference & Cause and Effect
– Sequencing & Context Clues
– Point of View & Fact and Opinion
– Main Idea & Summarizing
Comprehension Activities for Reading in Social Studies and Science (2003)
Quick Activities to Build a Very Voluminous Vocabulary (Grades 4–8) (2002)
Teaching Elaboration and Word Choice: Easy and Effective Mini-Lessons and Activities That Help Students Enrich and Enliven Their Writing (2001)