Cathryn's Confession: Dear Colleagues,I am struggling. I love my students. I love my classroom. I love what we accomplish every day. I love that every day is different, too. But there’s one struggle I can’t avoid and it is the bane of my existence and sometimes...
Are you a member of the Facebook community Fluency Matters Comprehension-Based Readers? I love seeing what teachers are doing with our readers in the classroom and am always inspired by the ideas they share. This idea is no different! A couple of weeks ago, Todd Hanlon-Alle...
Are you a member of the Facebook community Fluency Matters Comprehension-Based Readers? I love seeing what teachers are doing with our readers in the classroom and am always inspired by the ideas they share. This idea is no different! A couple of weeks ago, Todd Hanlon-Alle...
Are you a member of the Facebook community Fluency Matters Comprehension-Based Readers? I love seeing what teachers are doing with our readers in the classroom and am always inspired by the ideas they share. This idea is no different! A couple of weeks ago, Todd Hanlon-Alle...
Are you a member of the Facebook community Fluency Matters Comprehension-Based Readers? I love seeing what teachers are doing with our readers in the classroom and am always inspired by the ideas they share. This idea is no different! A couple of weeks ago, Todd Hanlon-Alle...
Are you a member of the Facebook community Fluency Matters Comprehension-Based Readers? I love seeing what teachers are doing with our readers in the classroom and am always inspired by the ideas they share. This idea is no different! A couple of weeks ago, Todd Hanlon-Alle...
Are you a member of the Facebook community Fluency Matters Comprehension-Based Readers? I love seeing what teachers are doing with our readers in the classroom and am always inspired by the ideas they share. This idea is no different! A couple of weeks ago, Todd Hanlon-Alle...
Are you a member of the Facebook community Fluency Matters Comprehension-Based Readers? I love seeing what teachers are doing with our readers in the classroom and am always inspired by the ideas they share. This idea is no different! A couple of weeks ago, Todd Hanlon-Alle...
A few years into my TCI (teaching with comprehensible input) journey, I read Stephen Krashen’s book, The Power of Reading, and was sold. The insights from this book made me realize how important it was to get my students to read. I knew that they needed longer...
Are you a member of the Facebook community Fluency Matters Comprehension-Based Readers? I love seeing what teachers are doing with our readers in the classroom and am always inspired by the ideas they share. This idea is no different! A couple of weeks ago, Todd Hanlon-Alle...
“I love that! Can we do more activities like that?” Those are expressions every teacher loves to hear. Yet, the struggle can be real. Being the sole Spanish educator in my district, students see my face and hear my voice year after year. While Spanish...
It’s hard to believe that Makenna Parker first debuted a decade ago! Since then, Robo en la noche has become a classroom favorite, and has even “hatched” a sequel, Noche de oro....
One of the reasons that I choose readers in my classes is because they really help to anchor a unit of study. By giving a story, students feel connected to this abstract topic that they might never experience for themselves. My first year of teaching...
When choosing a reader, I always have my English-teaching mind on overdrive. I originally wanted to teach English Language Arts, but through some twists and turns teaching Spanish is where my path landed! However, I never let that keep me from using some of the...
I hung up the phone and exhaled. The interview had gone really well, and it seemed as though I was set to change career fields away from teaching Spanish to using my skill set in the business world. I stared at the high school where...
In addition to continuing our mission to publish the highest quality, most engaging, and students-and-teacher-friendliest materials available to world language teachers, we have a new resolution this year! Our resolution is to be a 24-7 teacher support and professional growth system for all of you!...
Every time a new reader that I love comes out, I have to try to figure out where to place it in my curriculum. I am already doing 4 whole class reads per year and there are great readers sitting on my shelf, unused, because...
When I first started whole class readers, I would dive right into the vocabulary and start reading from the first day. I couldn’t understand why students didn’t care about these characters as much as I did! I mean, after all, their lives were so fascinating...
Training just got a whole lot easier at Fluency Matters! We have been brainstorming the best way to provide great training at affordable prices, and we have come up two very powerful options. We revealed the first option yesterday: COHORT TRAINING alongside the Fluency Matters...
Reading builds language proficiency, there's no doubt about it! Research shows that readers have stronger vocabularies, higher test scores, and deeper interest in the subject matter they are studying. We have shared numerous blog posts about how to use reading to help students gain higher...
We had an amazing time at ACTFL! New Orleans was beautiful, and we had our fill of po' boys, muffuletta, gumbo, beignets, OH MY! The conference was one of the highest-attended ACTFL conferences ever, and we were thrilled to be able to see so many...
Maybe you’re feeling blue because the American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages conference starts Thursday and you just couldn’t make it happen this year. Or maybe you’ve done it… maybe you’ve signed up to attend the national conference for the first, second, or 30th...
I’ve been using comprehension-based readers in my classroom for a long time now. I’ve even written some! Each time we do a whole class novel study, I get the opportunity to dig deep into a topic I’m passionate about with my students. I love that...
In Dave Burgess' book Teach Like a Pirate, Dave recommends using "hooks" to engage students more deeply in the lessons you teach. I want to share my top ten favorite hooks and invite our readers to comment and share their own favorite hook that they have...
Have you ever read a book and laughed out loud? Has a book or other text ever made you cry, get angry or scared? If you are reading this blog post, the odds are high that your answer is “YES!” While strong readers feel a...
At Fluency Matters, we've been BUSY! Busy creating new comprehension-based readers and teacher's guides, plus lots of new surprises which we will be ready to tell you about later this fall! Stay tuned! Here's a little peek at some of the many new projects we've...
Hello dear CI Peek readers! We’ve been seeing a lot of discussion in our Facebook group lately on topic of selecting readers, and picking the "just right" fit for a given class or level, so we have decided to re-publish this blog post from last...
Hello dear CI Peek readers! We've been seeing a lot of discussion in our Facebook group lately on this very topic, so we have decided to re-publish this blog post from last spring. We hope it will answer a few questions for you! We'd love...
Of all the different kinds of things that you do with your students—games, conversation, grammar or vocabulary drills, cultural exploration, etc.—what do you do the MOST?...
Dear colleagues, One thing that I have learned over the years (this is my 22nd year of teaching Spanish) is that without reflecting on my own practice, I cannot move forward. Additionally, I have continually experienced the power of reflecting and sharing in a collaborative...