Teacher's Corner

Zoom Hot Topics

April 2012

Come join Rourke Publishing at the Texas Library Association (TLA) Annual Conference 2012. The conference will be held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas from April 17, 20, 2012.

The R4L theme for the TLA Conference represents the commitment of Texas Libraries to be Responsive to community needs, Relevant to patron and stakeholder interests, Revolutionary in methods and technology, and Right Now in delivering timely services while promoting Reading For Life.

Rourke Publishing will be exhibiting and showing off our amazing collection of engaging new books. Come check us out!

March 2012

Rourke will be at the Public Library Association Conference in Philadelphia from March 13 – 17. Come check out what is new at the Rourke booth and see some amazing speakers at this powerful conference: Robert Kennedy Jr, Betty White and authors – David Baldacci, Joyce Carol Oates, Jerry Pinkney, Carl Hiaasen and many others. This is a great opportunity to connect with colleagues from around the world and check out the exciting new books that Rourke has to offer!

February 2012

Rourke Around the United States!

Join us at the 32nd TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) Annual Convention & Exposition with a week full of astounding professional development, hands-on and peer-to-peer learning opportunities, exploration of new trends through interactive learning environments, in-depth presentations from educational technology experts, and inspiring keynotes. TCEA’s five-day convention is one of the largest educational technology conventions in the nation and the largest in Texas.This years conference will be held in Austin, Texas from February 6th through the 10th.

Rourke will also be at the NABE (National Association for Bilingual Education) Conference in Dallas, Texas from February 15th through the 17th. Come join us in celebration of NABE’s over 40 years of education excellence in reforming, renewing, and achieving equity through bilingual education and biliteracy for all.

January 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Come celebrate the new year with Rourke Classroom at the National Title 1 Conference.
The National Title 1 Conference will be held in Seattle, Washington from January 21 – 24. Rourke Classroom can be found in the exhibit hall at Booth #714. Stop by and check out everything Rourke has to offer: Reading Web, Interactive eBooks, new fiction and nonfiction book collections. When you stop by don’t forget to enter to win a new Kindle Fire.
See you in Seattle!!!

November 2011

My Science Library Collection

Rourke is happy to announce that My Science Library collections are now available in English and Spanish. These engaging science books have lots of added features. Each book contains:

Teaching Focus
Tips for Reading With Children
Guided Reading Level
100th Word for Running Records
After Reading Extension Activities
Sight Word Activities

Teacher Notes

Rourke Teacher Notes are now available for all Reading Web titles. Check out this useful tool on www.rourkeclassroom.com.

Teacher Notes include:
Guided Reading Level
Standards
Lesson Focus for Guided Reading
In-depth Lesson
Reproducible Activity

Teacher Guides

New and updated Teacher Guides are now available in the Teacher’s Corner of www.Rourkeclassroom.com. These resources are full of information about the programs, lesson suggestions, program implementation, activity reproducibles, and assessments.

Come check out Teacher Guides for the following Rourke programs:

Reading Web
Reading Bins
Writing Bins
Happy Reading Happy Learning

September 2011

Meeting the needs of early phoneme awareness learning with:

Happy Reading/Happy Learning – ¡Leer y Aprender con Alegria!

• Sing along books with bright photos to engage young children
• Integrated literacy, math, and science supplemental curriculum
• The program builds essential foundational skills young children need for school success!
• 30 Sing Along Lapbooks
• Plus 30 Student books
• in 6-packs (180 books)
• 10 Literacy Books
• Supports the development of critical literacy skills such as:
• listening comprehension
• oral language skills
• letter and sound knowledge
• rapid meaning
• phonemic awareness
• vocabulary development
• print concepts
• 10 Math Books
• 10 Science Books

For more information please visit www.rourkeclassroom.com under the Early Childhood tab or click on the Contact tab to request more information.

July 2011

Happy Reading Happy Learning’s 10 interactive e-books also provides a model of fluent reading at an appropriate rate. It allows ELL, struggling and reluctant readers to build fluency while reading self-selected books that interest them while building Tier II & Tier III vocabulary words. For more information visit www.rourkeclassroom.com and click on any of the tabs on the left where Happy Reading Happy Learning and e-books are mentioned or call 1-800-394-7055.

June 2011

Understanding What You Read

The following link will provide you with what most researchers and practitioners agree to refer to as a core set of seven strategies to proficient readers need to process in order to become proficient readers:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/144print.cfm

May 2011

Phonics during Small Group Reading Instruction (Guided Reading/Flexible Groups)

Word Sorting – Engages students in the active process of searching, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing words. It helps students to organize what they know about words and to form generalizations they can then apply to new words they encounter in their reading. (Gillet & Kita, 1978)

When working with students in small groups follow make sure that:

Before Reading – Introduce words that are not decodable.

During Reading – Listen to individual students read and guide them by encouraging them to use strategies learned to read unfamiliar words.

After Reading – Based on observation, review skills/strategies not yet mastered by the majority of the students in the guided reading/flexible group.

Below are some teaching resources you can use to ensure students are successfully with phonics instruction at their level and move them beyond.

Types of Word Sorts (Words Their Way – Third Edition)
Sound Sorts – Helps students pay attention to speech sound by having sort by rhyme,
by the number of syllables, and even by syllable stress when they are comparing, etc.
You may use pictures and/or printed words depending on the level of the student(s).
Pattern Sorts – Using printed words students can sort by the visual pattern formed by
groups of letters or letter sequences.
Letter Name-Alphabetic Spellers Stage – Students sort words by identifying word
families and/or Rime (e.g., hat, rat, pat; ran, fan, tan)
Word Pattern Stage – Students at this stage sort words by vowel patterns (e.g.,
wait, train, mail, pain, versus plate, take, blame)
Syllable and Affixes Spellers – Pattern of consonants and vowels at the syllable
Juncture (e.g., button, pillow, ribbon versus window, public, basket)
Spellers learning Derivational Relations – Sort word pairs by patterns of
constancy and change across derivationally related words (e.g., divine-divinity,
mental-mentality)
Meaning Sorts – Students learn that meaning also influences spelling of words. They
can complete a meaning sort activity using either pictures, words, or phrases that are
grouped by their similarity in meaning or use.
Concept Sorts – Sorting words by concepts or meaning helps link vocabulary
instruction to what students already know and expand their conceptual
understanding of essential reading vocabulary.
Meaning Sorts Related to Spelling – Help students see that meaning influences
the spelling of words when they first come across sound-alike word pairs like
“by” and “buy”, or “to” and “too”. Homographs is another example for sorting
words for meaning related to spelling. According to their level of knowledge
students may also sort words by similarities in roots and stem such as the spect
in spectator, spectacle, inspect, and spectacular versus the port in transport,
import, portable, and port-o-john.

April 2011
Oral Language and English Language Learners

As Hatch (1978) famously put it, “One learns how
to do conversation, one learns how to interact verbally, and out of the interaction syntactic structures are developed” (p. 404).

Oral Language Development provides all learners, especially English Language Learners an opportunity to hear the proper pronunciation, tone and grammatical usage of the English Language. It also offers them the essential literacy skills needed to perform in all subject areas.

Here are a few strategies to increase Oral Language Development for English Language Learners (ELL) in your classroom.

 Explicit Instruction – Use the Reading Web to explicitly teach science terms with an interactive white board.
 Teacher/Student Think Aloud – Use the pictures cards from the Language Proficiency Kits to model how to make connections from prior knowledge to new knowledge.
 Choral Reading – Students can sing along with the Happy Reading Happy Learning songs chorally while practicing intonation, pronunciation, word recognition, etc.

March 2011

Comprehension cannot occur without knowledge of the words in a text. It is essential that vocabulary instruction occur in the classroom to ensure that students improve comprehension. We increase our vocabulary by listening, reading, and direct vocabulary instruction. There are 3 tiers of words that should be taught in all classrooms:

Tier 1: basic words
Example: food, work, city

Tier 2: high frequency but challenging
Example: industrial, saturation, photosynthesis

Tier 3: used infrequently
Example: isotope, armonica

Rourke provides FREE downloadable Teacher’s Notes for many of our books on our website.

Please note: Some files are large and may take a while to download.

Hot Topics

April 2012

Come join Rourke Publishing at the Texas Library Association (TLA) Annual Conference 2012. The conference will be held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas from April 17, 20, 2012.

The R4L theme for the TLA Conference represents the commitment of Texas Libraries to be Responsive to community needs, Relevant to patron and stakeholder interests, Revolutionary in methods and technology, and Right Now in delivering timely services while promoting Reading For Life.

Rourke Publishing will be exhibiting and showing off our amazing collection of engaging new books. Come check us out!

March 2012

Rourke will be at the Public Library Association Conference in Philadelphia from March 13 – 17. Come check out what is new at the Rourke booth and see some amazing speakers at this powerful conference: Robert Kennedy Jr, Betty White and authors – David Baldacci, Joyce Carol Oates, Jerry Pinkney, Carl Hiaasen and many others. This is a great opportunity to connect with colleagues from around the world and check out the exciting new books that Rourke has to offer!

February 2012

Rourke Around the United States!

Join us at the 32nd TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) Annual Convention & Exposition with a week full of astounding professional development, hands-on and peer-to-peer learning opportunities, exploration of new trends through interactive learning environments, in-depth presentations from educational technology experts, and inspiring keynotes. TCEA’s five-day convention is one of the largest educational technology conventions in the nation and the largest in Texas.This years conference will be held in Austin, Texas from February 6th through the 10th.

Rourke will also be at the NABE (National Association for Bilingual Education) Conference in Dallas, Texas from February 15th through the 17th. Come join us in celebration of NABE’s over 40 years of education excellence in reforming, renewing, and achieving equity through bilingual education and biliteracy for all.

January 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Come celebrate the new year with Rourke Classroom at the National Title 1 Conference.
The National Title 1 Conference will be held in Seattle, Washington from January 21 – 24. Rourke Classroom can be found in the exhibit hall at Booth #714. Stop by and check out everything Rourke has to offer: Reading Web, Interactive eBooks, new fiction and nonfiction book collections. When you stop by don’t forget to enter to win a new Kindle Fire.
See you in Seattle!!!

November 2011

My Science Library Collection

Rourke is happy to announce that My Science Library collections are now available in English and Spanish. These engaging science books have lots of added features. Each book contains:

Teaching Focus
Tips for Reading With Children
Guided Reading Level
100th Word for Running Records
After Reading Extension Activities
Sight Word Activities

Teacher Notes

Rourke Teacher Notes are now available for all Reading Web titles. Check out this useful tool on www.rourkeclassroom.com.

Teacher Notes include:
Guided Reading Level
Standards
Lesson Focus for Guided Reading
In-depth Lesson
Reproducible Activity

Teacher Guides

New and updated Teacher Guides are now available in the Teacher’s Corner of www.Rourkeclassroom.com. These resources are full of information about the programs, lesson suggestions, program implementation, activity reproducibles, and assessments.

Come check out Teacher Guides for the following Rourke programs:

Reading Web
Reading Bins
Writing Bins
Happy Reading Happy Learning

September 2011

Meeting the needs of early phoneme awareness learning with:

Happy Reading/Happy Learning – ¡Leer y Aprender con Alegria!

• Sing along books with bright photos to engage young children
• Integrated literacy, math, and science supplemental curriculum
• The program builds essential foundational skills young children need for school success!
• 30 Sing Along Lapbooks
• Plus 30 Student books
• in 6-packs (180 books)
• 10 Literacy Books
• Supports the development of critical literacy skills such as:
• listening comprehension
• oral language skills
• letter and sound knowledge
• rapid meaning
• phonemic awareness
• vocabulary development
• print concepts
• 10 Math Books
• 10 Science Books

For more information please visit www.rourkeclassroom.com under the Early Childhood tab or click on the Contact tab to request more information.

July 2011

Happy Reading Happy Learning’s 10 interactive e-books also provides a model of fluent reading at an appropriate rate. It allows ELL, struggling and reluctant readers to build fluency while reading self-selected books that interest them while building Tier II & Tier III vocabulary words. For more information visit www.rourkeclassroom.com and click on any of the tabs on the left where Happy Reading Happy Learning and e-books are mentioned or call 1-800-394-7055.

June 2011

Understanding What You Read

The following link will provide you with what most researchers and practitioners agree to refer to as a core set of seven strategies to proficient readers need to process in order to become proficient readers:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/144print.cfm

May 2011

Phonics during Small Group Reading Instruction (Guided Reading/Flexible Groups)

Word Sorting – Engages students in the active process of searching, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing words. It helps students to organize what they know about words and to form generalizations they can then apply to new words they encounter in their reading. (Gillet & Kita, 1978)

When working with students in small groups follow make sure that:

Before Reading – Introduce words that are not decodable.

During Reading – Listen to individual students read and guide them by encouraging them to use strategies learned to read unfamiliar words.

After Reading – Based on observation, review skills/strategies not yet mastered by the majority of the students in the guided reading/flexible group.

Below are some teaching resources you can use to ensure students are successfully with phonics instruction at their level and move them beyond.

Types of Word Sorts (Words Their Way – Third Edition)
Sound Sorts – Helps students pay attention to speech sound by having sort by rhyme,
by the number of syllables, and even by syllable stress when they are comparing, etc.
You may use pictures and/or printed words depending on the level of the student(s).
Pattern Sorts – Using printed words students can sort by the visual pattern formed by
groups of letters or letter sequences.
Letter Name-Alphabetic Spellers Stage – Students sort words by identifying word
families and/or Rime (e.g., hat, rat, pat; ran, fan, tan)
Word Pattern Stage – Students at this stage sort words by vowel patterns (e.g.,
wait, train, mail, pain, versus plate, take, blame)
Syllable and Affixes Spellers – Pattern of consonants and vowels at the syllable
Juncture (e.g., button, pillow, ribbon versus window, public, basket)
Spellers learning Derivational Relations – Sort word pairs by patterns of
constancy and change across derivationally related words (e.g., divine-divinity,
mental-mentality)
Meaning Sorts – Students learn that meaning also influences spelling of words. They
can complete a meaning sort activity using either pictures, words, or phrases that are
grouped by their similarity in meaning or use.
Concept Sorts – Sorting words by concepts or meaning helps link vocabulary
instruction to what students already know and expand their conceptual
understanding of essential reading vocabulary.
Meaning Sorts Related to Spelling – Help students see that meaning influences
the spelling of words when they first come across sound-alike word pairs like
“by” and “buy”, or “to” and “too”. Homographs is another example for sorting
words for meaning related to spelling. According to their level of knowledge
students may also sort words by similarities in roots and stem such as the spect
in spectator, spectacle, inspect, and spectacular versus the port in transport,
import, portable, and port-o-john.

April 2011
Oral Language and English Language Learners

As Hatch (1978) famously put it, “One learns how
to do conversation, one learns how to interact verbally, and out of the interaction syntactic structures are developed” (p. 404).

Oral Language Development provides all learners, especially English Language Learners an opportunity to hear the proper pronunciation, tone and grammatical usage of the English Language. It also offers them the essential literacy skills needed to perform in all subject areas.

Here are a few strategies to increase Oral Language Development for English Language Learners (ELL) in your classroom.

 Explicit Instruction – Use the Reading Web to explicitly teach science terms with an interactive white board.
 Teacher/Student Think Aloud – Use the pictures cards from the Language Proficiency Kits to model how to make connections from prior knowledge to new knowledge.
 Choral Reading – Students can sing along with the Happy Reading Happy Learning songs chorally while practicing intonation, pronunciation, word recognition, etc.

March 2011

Comprehension cannot occur without knowledge of the words in a text. It is essential that vocabulary instruction occur in the classroom to ensure that students improve comprehension. We increase our vocabulary by listening, reading, and direct vocabulary instruction. There are 3 tiers of words that should be taught in all classrooms:

Tier 1: basic words
Example: food, work, city

Tier 2: high frequency but challenging
Example: industrial, saturation, photosynthesis

Tier 3: used infrequently
Example: isotope, armonica

Rourke provides FREE downloadable Teacher’s Notes for many of our books on our website.

Please note: Some files are large and may take a while to download.

Zoom Breaking News

April 2012

April is National Garden Month!

Every April communities, organizations, and schools celebrate gardening during National Garden Month. Gardeners know, and research confirms, that nurturing plants is good for us: attitudes toward health and nutrition improve and kids perform better at school. Join the celebration and help make the world a greener, healthier, more livable place!

Check out Rourke Publishing’s amazing collection of books about plants and gardening. Here are just a few of the titles that Rourke has to offer:

Dig, Plant, Feast!
How Do Plants Grow?
Plants Make Their Own Food
Plant Adaptation
Plant Life Cycles
Trees: Earth’s Lungs
Our Organic Garden

There are many more books about plants, trees and going green at www.rourkepublishing.com.

March 2012

March is National Nutrition Month!

National Nutrition Month is a nutrition education and information campaign created annually in March by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The campaign focuses on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits.

Check out Rourke’s catalog for some great titles that fit right into this theme:

My Green Lunch
Our Muscles
I Taste, Sing and Read
Eat Green

Looking to put some energy in your science curriculum. Check out Rourke’s collection of science books. The My Science Library collections are leveled K-1, 1-2, and 2-3. With a total of 36 titles in all strands of the NSTA’s National Science Standards. These titles also support Common Core State Standards in Literacy in Science. These books are vibrant and engaging and provide a plethora of activities to engage the science mind. Each book contains tips for reading with children, comprehension and extension activities, high frequency word lists, and a set of differentiated instruction lessons. Come check them out at www.rourkeclassroom.com.

January 2012
Want the latest news on what’s happening in Rourke Publishing’s world? Come check us out on Facebook at “Rourke Publishing,” and follow us on Twitter. Rourke is also in the blogosphere at:
http://blog.rourkepublishing.com – read exciting posts by Rourke’s incredible team of authors, illustrators, graphic designers, and editorial team!

November 2011

Join the call to support libraries. A new online petition is seeking support asking that all school libraries are properly staffed, open, and available for children every school day. This petition will make it directly to President Obama’s desk if 25,000 signatures are received by November 27, 2011. So please take a moment to sign the online petition to help support our school libraries.

Click the link below to sign the online petition!

Petition: Ensure all school libraries are properly staffed, open, and available for children every day

Picture Book Month

November is the International Picture Book Month. Celebrate the amazing work in picture books in their printed format. Check out www.picturebookmonth.com for information on picture book activities, lessons, events and many other resources.

Release October 2011

Come see Dr. Jean and Dr. Holly in action at the NAEYC Annual Conference. They will be presenting on 11-2-11 from 1pm to 4pm "Rhymes, Songs, and Stories – Tooty Ta to Read, and on 11-3 from 8 to 9:30am “Fitter, Fatter, What’s The Matter?” Also see Rourke’s own Sam Williams present on 11-3-11 from 1pm to 2pm “The Male Teacher Debate:Why it is critical to have male teachers in Early Childhood Education!”

Also come meet Dr. Jean and Dr. Holly at the Rourke Classroom Booth on 11-3-11 from 10am to Noon. Have your books and CD’s signed and register for a drawing for a free collection of Early Childhood eBooks.

Release September 2011

Come visit the Rourke Classroom Booth at the NAEYC Annual Conference, November 2 – 5, 2011. Visit with Dr. Jean and enter a daily drawing for a free collection of Early Childhood eBooks.

Release June 2011

Comprehension activities available online. Check out www.free-reading.net, for some engaging and useful comprehension activities for all grade levels.

The FreeReading Comprehension activities are organized into three categories: Introduce, Reintroduce and Build Mastery. The following is a description of the types of activities you will find within each category:

Introduce – students are introduced to comprehension skills through a read aloud.
Reintroduce – students will complete a graphic organizer to practice the application of a comprehension skill.
Build Mastery – students will expand their knowledge of a comprehension skill by engaging in a variety of activities.

Release May 2011


Phonics.com


Looking for some insight into phonics instruction. Visit www.phonics.com for helpful information about phonics instruction. This site provides the following information:


• Definitions and explanations of phonics terms


• Parent resources


• Phonics and bilingual instruction activities


• Spelling and writing


• Activities for struggling readers


• Free e-books


Release April 2011


TeacherTube


Looking for inspiration on a lesson, need help with classroom management, looking for a place to see excellent teaching in action…Check out www.teachertube.com. TeacherTube’s goal is to provide an online community for sharing instructional teaching videos. Maybe you have a video to share!


Release March 2011


Donors Choose


Online charity offers financial support to classrooms around the country. DonorsChoose.org allows teachers to post a project request on its website. Donors are able to view the projects and donate to the project of their choosing. DonorsChoose.org has already assisted over 1500 teachers with classroom projects. Check out www.donorschoose.org today!


Release September 2010


Counties in Florida choose the Rourke Reading Web.


Last month, two Florida counties chose the Rourke Reading Web to provide immediate reading assistance to their ELL programs.


Starting this month, the counties will begin using a literacy software program to provide help for English Language Learners. Rourke’s Reading Web program provides students with research based reading practice activities. Using nonfiction texts, students progress through leveled text passages while their progress is monitored by the instructor.


“We are thrilled to be working with these counties in Florida.” Says Jim Colandrea, President of Rourke Classroom Resources. “Our goal is to see improvements in all areas where students may struggle with reading comprehension.”


Other Florida counties are currently reviewing this program.


For more information contact Luana Mitten at luana@rourkepublishing.com.



Release October 2010


New York schools buy Rourke Reading Web.


Several New York schools recently purchased the Rourke Reading Web to improve student’s reading, comprehension, and vocabulary. Looking at new technologies for their students. Several New York schools have chosen the Rourke Reading Web program to assist students reading at or below level.

Breaking News

April 2012

April is National Garden Month!

Every April communities, organizations, and schools celebrate gardening during National Garden Month. Gardeners know, and research confirms, that nurturing plants is good for us: attitudes toward health and nutrition improve and kids perform better at school. Join the celebration and help make the world a greener, healthier, more livable place!

Check out Rourke Publishing’s amazing collection of books about plants and gardening. Here are just a few of the titles that Rourke has to offer:

Dig, Plant, Feast!
How Do Plants Grow?
Plants Make Their Own Food
Plant Adaptation
Plant Life Cycles
Trees: Earth’s Lungs
Our Organic Garden

There are many more books about plants, trees and going green at www.rourkepublishing.com.

March 2012

March is National Nutrition Month!

National Nutrition Month is a nutrition education and information campaign created annually in March by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The campaign focuses on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits.

Check out Rourke’s catalog for some great titles that fit right into this theme:

My Green Lunch
Our Muscles
I Taste, Sing and Read
Eat Green

Looking to put some energy in your science curriculum. Check out Rourke’s collection of science books. The My Science Library collections are leveled K-1, 1-2, and 2-3. With a total of 36 titles in all strands of the NSTA’s National Science Standards. These titles also support Common Core State Standards in Literacy in Science. These books are vibrant and engaging and provide a plethora of activities to engage the science mind. Each book contains tips for reading with children, comprehension and extension activities, high frequency word lists, and a set of differentiated instruction lessons. Come check them out at www.rourkeclassroom.com.

January 2012
Want the latest news on what’s happening in Rourke Publishing’s world? Come check us out on Facebook at “Rourke Publishing,” and follow us on Twitter. Rourke is also in the blogosphere at:
http://blog.rourkepublishing.com – read exciting posts by Rourke’s incredible team of authors, illustrators, graphic designers, and editorial team!

November 2011

Join the call to support libraries. A new online petition is seeking support asking that all school libraries are properly staffed, open, and available for children every school day. This petition will make it directly to President Obama’s desk if 25,000 signatures are received by November 27, 2011. So please take a moment to sign the online petition to help support our school libraries.

Click the link below to sign the online petition!

Petition: Ensure all school libraries are properly staffed, open, and available for children every day

Picture Book Month

November is the International Picture Book Month. Celebrate the amazing work in picture books in their printed format. Check out www.picturebookmonth.com for information on picture book activities, lessons, events and many other resources.

Release October 2011

Come see Dr. Jean and Dr. Holly in action at the NAEYC Annual Conference. They will be presenting on 11-2-11 from 1pm to 4pm "Rhymes, Songs, and Stories – Tooty Ta to Read, and on 11-3 from 8 to 9:30am “Fitter, Fatter, What’s The Matter?” Also see Rourke’s own Sam Williams present on 11-3-11 from 1pm to 2pm “The Male Teacher Debate:Why it is critical to have male teachers in Early Childhood Education!”

Also come meet Dr. Jean and Dr. Holly at the Rourke Classroom Booth on 11-3-11 from 10am to Noon. Have your books and CD’s signed and register for a drawing for a free collection of Early Childhood eBooks.

Release September 2011

Come visit the Rourke Classroom Booth at the NAEYC Annual Conference, November 2 – 5, 2011. Visit with Dr. Jean and enter a daily drawing for a free collection of Early Childhood eBooks.

Release June 2011

Comprehension activities available online. Check out www.free-reading.net, for some engaging and useful comprehension activities for all grade levels.

The FreeReading Comprehension activities are organized into three categories: Introduce, Reintroduce and Build Mastery. The following is a description of the types of activities you will find within each category:

Introduce – students are introduced to comprehension skills through a read aloud.
Reintroduce – students will complete a graphic organizer to practice the application of a comprehension skill.
Build Mastery – students will expand their knowledge of a comprehension skill by engaging in a variety of activities.

Release May 2011


Phonics.com


Looking for some insight into phonics instruction. Visit www.phonics.com for helpful information about phonics instruction. This site provides the following information:


• Definitions and explanations of phonics terms


• Parent resources


• Phonics and bilingual instruction activities


• Spelling and writing


• Activities for struggling readers


• Free e-books


Release April 2011


TeacherTube


Looking for inspiration on a lesson, need help with classroom management, looking for a place to see excellent teaching in action…Check out www.teachertube.com. TeacherTube’s goal is to provide an online community for sharing instructional teaching videos. Maybe you have a video to share!


Release March 2011


Donors Choose


Online charity offers financial support to classrooms around the country. DonorsChoose.org allows teachers to post a project request on its website. Donors are able to view the projects and donate to the project of their choosing. DonorsChoose.org has already assisted over 1500 teachers with classroom projects. Check out www.donorschoose.org today!


Release September 2010


Counties in Florida choose the Rourke Reading Web.


Last month, two Florida counties chose the Rourke Reading Web to provide immediate reading assistance to their ELL programs.


Starting this month, the counties will begin using a literacy software program to provide help for English Language Learners. Rourke’s Reading Web program provides students with research based reading practice activities. Using nonfiction texts, students progress through leveled text passages while their progress is monitored by the instructor.


“We are thrilled to be working with these counties in Florida.” Says Jim Colandrea, President of Rourke Classroom Resources. “Our goal is to see improvements in all areas where students may struggle with reading comprehension.”


Other Florida counties are currently reviewing this program.


For more information contact Luana Mitten at luana@rourkepublishing.com.



Release October 2010


New York schools buy Rourke Reading Web.


Several New York schools recently purchased the Rourke Reading Web to improve student’s reading, comprehension, and vocabulary. Looking at new technologies for their students. Several New York schools have chosen the Rourke Reading Web program to assist students reading at or below level.