You know how you get into your classroom at the beginning of the year, and all of your students are right at the level they need to be? Everyone’s on grade-level, student engagement is a breeze, and of course everyone loves to read, right?! 

Right…

That’s in a perfect world, and we are far from a perfect world. In actually, when we get into the classroom we find that our students and their specific abilities vary greatly, to say the least! 

We go to college, study hard for 4 years or more, and walk into the classroom with this fire in our eyes ready to change the world because we believe the children are our future, and we have to teach them well.  But we get into the classroom and find that we have to face challenges around classroom management and student engagement that are far more difficult than we realized. Especially when it comes to topics such as reading; some are at grade-level, some are ahead, and some just need Jesus. 

This is a tough situation to deal with because beyond getting your students to achieve at certain levels, you have to find a way to ignite the desire for them to want to be engaged in order to be successful in the first place. What can be done to get you most challenging students excited to read? 

Today’s Guest: 

New York City Schools English/Language Arts Educator, Ms. Erica Buddington walks us through how she consistently gets her students excited to read and participate in all things ELA-related! 

Through cultural relevancy and equitable curriculum, she shares how her student engagement levels are through the roof and what she does to accomplish this. Erica even discusses her triumph in getting a student who was several grade-levels behind, ecstatic about reading when no one else could!