M. Colleen Cruz

Create classrooms where every reader and writer can thrive Most teachers receive minimal training on supporting neurodivergent learners—yet these students make up a significant portion of every classroom. Neurodiversity in the Literacy Classroom fills this gap with clear, practical guidance for teaching literacy to all students, including those with dyslexia, ADHD, and autism. This accessible guide delivers what literacy teachers need most: foundational knowledge paired with strategies you can use tomorrow. You'll explore Universal Design for Learning, gain clarity around IEPs, and discover strengths-based practices for common learning profiles. Inside you'll find Research-backed insights with direct access to journal articles Guest contributions from leading experts in the field Tools, checklists, and FAQs designed for busy teachers Dedicated chapters on dyslexia, ADHD, and autism Whether you're preparing for an IEP meeting or reflecting on your instructional approach, this book equips you with the knowledge to create literacy classrooms where belonging and learning go hand in hand.

Trauma and adversity are increasingly common experiences for students and educators, with growing poverty, income inequality, social injustice, institutional inequity, and the global pandemic worsening the situation. Now more children are attending school while experiencing significant chronic and acute stressors. What can educators do to support students, help them learn, and ensure they reach their full potential? Trauma-informed schools are lauded as one way to address this challenge, but trauma-informed pedagogy can be hard to define and, consequently, difficult for teachers and schools to implement. Trauma-Responsive Pedagogy explores the research and practices around trauma-informed education in an easy-to-digest, actionable text that elevates the healing and wellness of both the children and the adults in our classrooms. It describes the challenges of a classroom that does not attend to adversity and trauma, then presents the research on trauma-responsive classrooms, and finally provides an inclusive framework that supports educators in centering the whole child in their classrooms--offering a recipe for what to do next period, next week, and next school year. Pedagogy that is trauma-responsive invites us to heal alongside our students while explicitly elevating evidence-informed teaching methods and practices and facilitating the necessary inner work to bring our whole being to the profession in healthy ways. Our students' challenges are not a deterrent to their learning. Together, we can turn wounds into wisdom.

Mistakes are not the problem. The problem is the shame we attach to mistakes and inability to grow from them. You have likely heard the adage, 'Everyone makes mistakes.' But what you might not have heard is that there are some predictable reasons why we make these mistakes. Knowing why we make mistakes can help us make fewer mistakes and ensure that when we do make mistakes they'll be more of the more useful variety. In Risk. Fail. Rise. teachers will learn how to address their own teaching mistakes, model with their own mistake-making, and improve their response to others' mistakes. Colleen shares what research studies say on mistake-making as part of learning and what that means for teaching. She provides research, examples, and tools that help teachers destigmatize mistake-making so that they and their students can do the real work of growth. The more aware we are of why we make mistakes, what we can do to avoid unnecessary ones, and respond to useful ones, the more our classroom will be a place of risk-taking and growth for all students. Lay the groundwork for a mistake-welcoming school culture and embrace positive risk-taking and productive failure in your classroom. The outcomes for you and your students are worth it.

Teachers know the importance of strong relationships with their students, but sometimes connecting with them feels challenging. No More Teaching Without Positive Relationships reviews the teacher-student relationship research and provides practices for building relationships that make a difference. To learn, students need positive relationships with their teachers. So what gets in the way and how can we do better? Since there is no one way to make every relationship positive, authentic, sustainable, and trusting, the authors provide a range of strategies for building and maintaining connections with students. They also discuss critical considerations such as: Learning about students' backgrounds and interests Communicating with parents and caregivers Developing culturally responsive content Understanding the importance of race and ethnicity Building and protecting students' self-esteem Positive teacher-student relationships do not just transform student learning--they also create more stimulating and caring classrooms. A true relationship is dynamic, often requiring a change in behaviors and mindsets. It can be intense work, but it is the kind of work that can change a student's life.

When It Comes to Reading, Writers Have an Advantage We know that writing skills reinforce reading skills, but what’s the best way to capitalize on this beneficial relationship? By flipping the traditional "reading lesson first, writing lesson second" sequence, Colleen Cruz ingeniously helps you make the most of the writing-to-reading connection with carefully matched, conceptually connected lesson pairs. The result is a healthy reciprocity that effectively and efficiently develops students’ literacy skills. Backed by long-term academic and field research, Writers Read Better: Narrative presents a series of 50 tightly interconnected lesson pairs that can be implemented either as a complete curriculum or as a supplement to an existing program. Each pairing leads with a writing lesson, used as a springboard for the reading lesson that will follow. Throughout the book’s four sections, organized to help you teach tightly aligned lessons and units on reading and writing narrative, you’ll discover Kid-friendly approaches to virtually every matter of craft, including symbolism, tenses, the role of first and last words, dialogue as character fingerprint, giving weight to what's important, and much more Clear guidance on the intention of each lesson, the type of narrative genre it’s ideally suited for, and step-by-step plans Sample teacher language for introducing and coaching each lessonMentor text excerpts to use as models for personal narrative, memoir, and story writingTips on building and organizing a contemporary classroom library filled with inspiring, illustrative texts, and how you can incorporate the tools, technology and media available in your classroom to make each lesson most effectiveSample student work, online videos and other supporting resources Complete with practical suggestions on adapting the lessons to suit the particular needs of your classroom as well as individual students, Writers Reader Better: Narrative offers a solid foundation for giving your students the advantage of powerful, transferable literacy skills.

It is common to engage students in the process of science, using mostly hands-on activities, and equally common to provide students with only science knowledge through mostly text-based experiences. Neither of these approaches is authentic to how scientists make sense of the world. Both fail to connect those experiences to the larger purpose of science. In this book Jacquey and Gina show you why, and how integrating science and literacy instruction supports students' understanding of and engagement in both. Using research as their guide, Jacquey and Gina show you how to integrate science and literacy learning in a way that reflects the authentic ways scientists work. The authors have identified three key principles supporting this integration: Principle #1: Frame student investigations with a scientific purpose. Principle #2: Integrate "hands-on" science with literacy to support science learning. Principle #3: Help students engage with text in science. Throughout the book, they describe research that supports each principle and share examples of effective integration in the classroom that enhance students' science learning, reading and writing growth, and motivation. To avoid the trap of textbook-only science or inquiry-only science, we need to aim for synergy - engaging students in using firsthand experiences and text-based experiences as connected parts of investigating questions about the natural world.

"Pencils ready? On your mark...get set...begin " Remember flipping over a page full of unrelated fact problems and scrambling to answer as many as possible in a minute? Remember trying to memorize math facts by rote? Many of our children are still asked to learn this way---even though research shows this approach can harm student learning more than help. Explore an effective, research-based approach to math fact instruction. No More Math Fact Frenzy examines this research and concludes that our approaches to math fact instruction are often ineffective. We want our students to know their math facts. We know they're better mathematicians when they're comfortable with them. Yet the ways we ask students to learn them in many classrooms remain unproductive. To address this, the authors outline three phases for helping students master their math facts. Building foundational concepts and strategies Learning more efficient reasoning strategies Meaningful, ongoing practice leading to full fact fluency Then they share recommendations for all three phrases: activities and games that build number sense, strategies that lead to flexible thinking, and ways to create and sustain a classroom culture of fluency. This kind of teaching helps students learn their math facts more successfully--and with less stress and anxiety. "When we emphasize foundation concepts and reasoning strategies as the path towards building authentic fluency, students can develop their number sense, articulate their thinking, and understand the reasoning of others." --Linda Ruiz Davenport, Connie S. Henry, Douglas H. Clements, and Julie Sarama

We know that writing skills reinforce reading skills, but what's the best way to capitalize on this relationship? By flipping the traditional "reading lesson first, writing lesson second" sequence, Colleen Cruz helps teachers make the most of the writing-to-reading connection with 30 carefully matched lesson pairs centered around non-fiction texts. Lessons can be implemented either as a complete curriculum or as a supplement to an existing program. Complete with suggestions on adapting the lessons to suit the needs of the classroom and individual students, Writers Reader Better offers a solid foundation for giving students the advantage of transferable literacy skills.

Veteran teacher and author Colleen Cruz has seen it all and done it all in the writing classroom--and she's got something to admit: this is hard work. Real hard. In The Unstoppable Writing Teacher she takes on the common concerns, struggles, and roadblocks that we all face in writing instruction and helps us engage in the process of problem solving each one. From dealing with writing workshop skeptics to working with students both gifted and challenged, and of course combating that eternal barrier--lack of time--Colleen offers tried-and-true strategies to address and overcome obstacles. For the struggles unique to you, she includes a "Name Your Monster" section that helps you identify your own individual roadblocks and even offers sustainable support through her blog, colleencruz.com. "We can't solve all the problems we're faced with in writing instruction," Colleen promises, "but we can choose how to respond to them. And our responses will make all the difference." What makes you unstoppable, or what's stopping you? Connect with Colleen on her blog at www.colleencruz.com/blog.htm or on Twitter, #unstoppablewritingteacher.