Russ on Reading

In September of 1971, I was a 24 year-old third year teacher sitting in the auditorium of  Bristol Junior-Senior High School with my teach...

We should do away with grades for reading. Reading is a skill, not a subject. I do not like grades in general because they typically don...

Recently a teacher wrote to me about her school district's plans to scrap Running Records and use a combination of DIBELS and AIMSweb ...

I am sitting at my computer this morning looking outside at an absolutely sweltering mid-July day in southeastern Pennsylvania. The weathe...

Today, July 6, 2016, is the Second Annual National Give a Kid a Book Day. Regular readers of this blog will remember that I declared this ...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,  that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable...

Probably no issue in the teaching of English can fire more debate than grammar instruction. Google, "Should grammar be taught?" ...

If you haven't yet read the New York Times article on what school choice has meant for the children of Detroit, please do. I could no...

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.  - Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride I have been thi...

Many readers will recall that last year Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey said he wanted to punch the teacher's union in the face....

To make sure your summer does not go untested, here is a multiple choice question for you boys and girls: When faced with unprecedented ...

I read of the passing of the great education researcher and theorist, Jerome Bruner, in the New York Times on Thursday. No less a luminary...

For reasons I don't quite understand myself, I have been enormously moved by the passing this weekend of Muhammad Ali. I never saw Ali...

In a post last week, I discussed what I called The College Remedial Course Hoax , which was critical of the system of remedial courses at ...