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This post features a fun activity to do with students to strengthen their use of Modifiers in their writing and composition.

This blog post was first written for a collaborative group for writing teachers led by Sara Lee and Renée Pinchero of Literacy Dr. If you like the content, join our Facebook Group, Writing in the Trenches.

Clients, students, colleagues, and friends, Thank you for sharing the journey of 2025 with us. This year offered many opportunities to learn, reflect, and grow—both individually and as a community—and we are grateful to continue this work alongside you and your children. Below are a few highlights from the past year. 📘 Book Launch Jen Petrich and Brad Johnson published a long-anticipated book! Investigating English Spelling: An Interactive Guide to Understanding How English

Renée Pinchero guest blogs for us this month, sharing something she wrote in the group Writing in the Trenches (WITT). WITT is a...

"Helping students achieve their literacy potential." That's our tag line… our motto, if you will. It's on our website and is at the top...

In the world of grammar, there are two aspects of structure: form and function. (Okay, there are more than that, but these are the ones that I want to discuss here.) I know I've written about form and function before . Well, here I am again. I have so many students struggling with grammatical form the way it's being presented in schools. I've had elementary school students who are given a sentence and have to label each part of speech in the sentence. And honestly, I'm not su

Last year was quite a journey, and we are deeply thankful to keep serving fellow educators, parents, and their amazing children. Outreach...

A Thanksgiving lesson with my mom… My mother is dyslexic and loves history and language. At first she wasn’t in the room when a...

A few years ago, I had a student, who I'll call Autumn, and she was probably the most joyful student, maybe even child, that I've ever...

Maybe. I understand that is a wholly unfulfilling answer (even though it's likely the truth), but I think we can expand on it a bit to...

It's not every day you meet a child whose grandfather is a geologist by hobby, nor is it every child who actually cares that his...

Revelation Revolve Repay Repel Refer Recall What do all of these words have in common? You may be tempted to say they all have a "re"...

Red panda bears don't really look like red panda bears. They look like red raccoons, maybe. They kind of look like red skunks in a way,...

This year we dived deeper into some of the waters we explored last year. We've grown as educators, business owners, and human beings.

(All identifying information about the student mentioned below has been removed to protect the student.) I knew it was a different kind...

I’ve always loved architecture. Whether it’s the haunting shapes made from decades of waves washing against rocks or man-made buildings...

It’s my anniversary. Not that anniversary. Not the kind for sharing pics of myself in a white dress and veil waiting for my beloved with...

In schools across the country, practice is dying. Or it’s already dead. That seems like hyperbole, but hear me out. I work with a...

So, my son comes home from his second day in 6th grade excited about his reading class. This is great news, as reading has been a...

The fourth question. I find this last question to be the most troubling for people. Teachers aren't always confident with how to tackle...