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Streamline Your Teaching and Unlock Success With These Proven Classroom Strategies

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This is a Guest Post by Susan Good, a 38-year veteran of the classroom! Be sure to check out her website at retiredteacher.org for inciteful blog posts about teaching and writing!

Kinney Brothers Publishing Blog

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Teaching is an intricate blend of art and science, requiring a well-organized approach to truly flourish. Whether you’re embarking on your teaching journey or seeking to refine your organizational skills, this comprehensive guide from Kinney Brother’s Publishing is designed to support educators in creating a structured, supportive, and stimulating learning environment. Dive into these strategies to transform your classroom into a well-oiled educational machine, where each element is purposefully aligned for maximum teaching effectiveness and student engagement.

Personalize Your Approach to Individual Needs

Understanding and catering to individual student needs is the cornerstone of effective teaching. Maintain detailed records of each student’s progress, preferences, and challenges. In ESL (English as a Second Language) classrooms, for instance, this individualized attention is particularly crucial, as students might require tailored support to bridge language barriers and embrace new communication skills. Personalized tracking fosters a nurturing academic environment, encouraging each student to reach their full potential.

Monitor and Adapt Your Lesson Plans

Teaching is a dynamic process, demanding continuous adaptation and improvement. Regularly assess the effectiveness of your lesson plans, gathering feedback and monitoring student engagement and comprehension. This reflective practice ensures that your teaching methods evolve in tandem with your students’ needs, keeping your classroom vibrant and your teaching strategies impactful.

Cultivate an Inspiring Learning Environment

Your classroom’s physical environment plays a pivotal role in student learning. Design a space that’s not just organized but also inviting and stimulating. Incorporate elements that spark creativity, foster comfort, and reflect the diverse needs of your students, including those in ESL classrooms. A thoughtfully designed classroom is a canvas for imagination, discovery, and growth.

Discover and Implement Your Unique Organizational Style

Effective organization isn’t one-size-fits-all. Explore various strategies and tools to find what resonates with your teaching style and classroom dynamics. Whether it’s color-coded systems, digital planners, or visual schedules, the right organizational approach can turn chaos into clarity, ensuring that every lesson flows smoothly and every resource is right at your fingertips.

Master the Art of Classroom Management

Effective classroom management is integral to a productive learning atmosphere. Establish clear expectations, consistent routines, and positive reinforcement strategies. A well-managed classroom minimizes distractions and maximizes learning opportunities, creating a space where respect, cooperation, and focus are the norm.

Embrace a Paperless Classroom

In the fast-paced world of education, staying organized is essential for educators. An effective strategy is to digitize your paper records and other important documents. Additionally, when it comes to sharing files with staff, PDFs have emerged as the preferred format due to wider compatibility and ease of use. To streamline this process, consider using an online tool that allows you to effortlessly convert these types of files to PDFs by simply dragging and dropping them into the tool – making this the best solution for educators seeking efficient file management.

Break Down Your Goals

Set yourself up for success by transforming lofty goals into smaller, actionable steps. This methodical approach makes even the most ambitious targets achievable, allowing you to track progress and celebrate milestones along the way. In breaking down your goals, you’re not just planning; you’re paving a clear path toward educational excellence.

Set and Achieve SMART Goals

Ambition drives progress, but a structured approach ensures results. Establish Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound or SMART goals for your teaching career. This clear framework guides your professional development, ensuring that every step you take is purposeful and aligned with your long-term vision as an educator.

In the world of education, organization is the silent hero, setting the stage for teaching triumphs and student successes. By embracing these essential strategies, teachers—from novices to veterans—can navigate the complexities of the classroom with confidence and finesse. From personalized student support to smart goal-setting, these practices don’t just streamline your workload; they enhance your impact, leaving a lasting imprint on the hearts and minds of your students. Embark on this journey of organizational mastery, and watch as your classroom transforms into a beacon of learning, inspiration, and growth.

Dream Bigger!

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Kinney Brothers Publishing Growth Mindset Pennants
  • Expand Your Imagination: Challenge yourself to think beyond the constraints of your current reality. Allow your mind to wander freely and explore possibilities without limitations. Immerse yourself in books, movies, and art that inspire creativity and push the boundaries of conventional thinking.
  • Set Audacious Goals: Dreaming big often involves setting ambitious goals. Instead of aiming for the achievable, set goals that initially seem almost unattainable. This can motivate you to strive for greatness and unlock hidden potential.
  • Surround Yourself with Visionaries: Engage with people who have big dreams and ambitious visions. Their enthusiasm and perspectives can be contagious, encouraging you to think on a grander scale. Attend events, join communities, or network with individuals who inspire you.
  • Embrace Failure as a Stepping Stone: Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back. Understand that setbacks are a natural part of any journey toward big dreams. Use failures as learning experiences and stepping stones toward success rather than as roadblocks.
Kinney Brothers Publishing Growth Mindset Pennants
  • Constantly Learn and Grow: Stay curious and never stop learning. The more knowledge you acquire, the broader your perspective becomes. Continuous learning opens up new possibilities and fuels your ability to dream bigger by providing a deeper understanding of the world around you.
  • Visualize Success: Create a vivid mental image of your desired future. Visualization can help clarify your goals and make them more tangible. Picture the steps you need to take and the outcomes you want to achieve, reinforcing your commitment to dreaming big.
  • Take Calculated Risks: Big dreams often involve taking risks. Evaluate the potential rewards and consequences, and be willing to step outside your comfort zone. Taking calculated risks can lead to unexpected opportunities and personal growth.
  • Break Down Big Dreams into Smaller Steps: While your dreams may be grand, breaking them down into smaller, manageable steps can make them less overwhelming. Focus on achieving one step at a time, celebrating victories along the way, and building momentum toward your larger aspirations.
  • Cultivate a Positive Mindset: Adopt a positive and optimistic mindset. Believe in your ability to overcome challenges and achieve your dreams. Cultivating positivity can create a supportive mental environment that fuels your ambition and resilience.
  • Seek Inspiration from Diverse Sources: Draw inspiration from a wide range of sources, including different cultures, industries, and disciplines. Exposure to diverse perspectives can spark innovative ideas and broaden your understanding of what’s possible, helping you dream bigger and more creatively.
Kinney Brothers Publishing Growth Mindset Pennants

The Growth Mindset pennants displayed in this post are available here!

Creative Ways to Teach Grammar to Young Students

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We are pleased to present this guest post by Sarah Perowne. Enjoy!

Early exposure to grammar and grammatical structures in the ESL classroom is important for fluency and language development. Still, a lot of the advice for young students is about drilling vocabulary and using flashcards. While these activities have their place in the ESL classroom, they are not the only ways to teach grammar and English. Here, we’ll give you some creative ways to teach grammar that can be easily adapted to your classrooms and any age, regardless of whether they’re online or off!

Drama & Theater

Drama and theater are fantastic ways to put grammar instruction into practice. Instead of abstract rules, students see how scripts and stories rely on grammar, emotion, and movement to convey information to the audience. As we all know, being confident in a language means knowing the grammar patterns and how native speakers use them, not just how a grammar book tells us.

Puppetry (Ages 2-8, Groups and Individual)

You can use puppets and storytelling to narrate a simple story that contains examples of the grammar concept you want to teach to keep children engaged. As you tell the story, emphasize and repeat phrases or sentences that illustrate the target grammar. If you’re focusing on the past simple tense, for example, most fairytales are typically told in this tense, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Hansel and Gretel.

Mantle Of The Expert (Ages 5+, Small Groups)

I love using Mantle of the Expert to teach grammar. It’s an immersive and inquiry-based teaching strategy designed by Dorothy Heathcote and is a great way to get kids actively participating. Mantle of the Expert works by assigning roles to your students, making them “experts” in a specific grammar topic. Some ideas could be a punctuation detective or an order of adjectives specialist. Once your students have a role, you introduce a problem or challenge. Students then work together to solve the problem using their “expertise” in the field. Encourage them to discuss and apply their grammar knowledge, then hold a reflection session after the activity!

Stick To The Script! (Ages 7+, Pairs and Small Groups)

You can’t have a play without a script, and you can’t have a script without grammar! This one is easy to set up and teaches children the significance of different grammar and punctuation in a written text. Simply get your hands on a script, either printed or projected for the kids to read and then give them another script with the same lines but the grammar altered! For example, a script that reads “Let’s eat Grandma” and “Let’s eat, Grandma” have completely different meanings, and their stories lead in wildly different directions!

Creative Game Ideas

Games are the bread and butter of any ESL grammar lesson for young learners. However, don’t go for something predictable like flashcards or a pop quiz. Here are some creative ways you can use games to teach grammatical structures and topics.

Grammar Review Bingo for (Ages 5+, Any Size Groups)

Create blank bingo cards with separate sentence strips containing your target grammar topic or topics. On the bingo card, get your students to write the grammar topics you want to cover in each square. For example, if you’re working on adjectives, prepositions, and nouns, they can copy the category names onto their bingo card. You will read the sentence strips aloud; each time they identify the correct category from a word in the sentence, they mark or cover the category square on their bingo card. For example, if the sentence contains the word “big,” they would cover the “Adjectives” square.

Top Teachers Tip: Laminate the bingo cards so you can use them again!

Online Digital Worksheets

You can easily gamify worksheets and flashcards and make them more engaging for students when you use them digitally; plus, it saves on printing and paper and is perfect for online teaching. WordTips has a ton of digitized grammar worksheets for ESL teachers, including noun and verb worksheets for beginners, helping verbs worksheets, or parts of speech with digital flashcards.

Mad Libs (Ages 5+, Any Size Groups)

A beloved grammar game that you might not have thought about! Mad Libs allows kids to use grammar to create hilarious stories. Played in groups, start by creating a made-up story, but invite the kids to add their own nouns, verbs, and adjectives as you go! Every story will be completely different, and the silliness continues each time. If capable, the children can lead themselves, providing fresh words for unique twists and a ton of fun!

Grandmother’s Cat (Ages 5+, Any Size Groups)

Grandmother’s Cat is an adverb practice game that requires no tools or preparation. Kids take turns completing the sentence, “My grandmother’s cat is _____,” with adjectives beginning with A, then B, and slowly working your way through the alphabet. You may have tried this yourself on a long car ride or plane journey, and it sometimes goes by the name, The Alphabet Game. It’s super simple to learn but will keep you engaged in grammar in a super fun way!

Use The World Around You

Explore The Outdoors (Any Age, Groups, and Individual)

Teaching grammar through outdoor exploration engages children in a hands-on way. For example, scavenger hunts can teach nouns and adjectives as kids search and describe the objects they find. Nature walks can inspire sentence formation and storytelling as kids try to describe the world around them. When it comes to the outside, you’re only limited by your imagination!

Music & Singing (Any Age, Groups, and Individual)

Music is an international language, and using it to teach grammar is a fantastic way to engage young kids. Song lyrics contain so many grammatical elements, such as verbs, nouns, order of adjectives, and adverbs. Analyzing lyrics or creating song parodies can reinforce these ideas and make learning more enjoyable. Singing also helps pronunciation and listening skills, exploring grammar through rhythm and melody in the most fun way!

Anywhere And Everywhere (Any Age, Group, and Individual)

Grammar is everywhere, literally. Any text, speech, recording, or sound can teach kids about language. Whether observing street signs and creating sentences using them or describing the animals you see on a trip to the store, grammar can be taught and learned anywhere. By integrating grammar into real-world scenarios, children connect language to the world they exist in, making learning engaging, practical, and more obviously valuable.

Word Games (Any Age, Group, and Individual)

Word games are a fantastic way to teach kids English grammar because they’re fun and competitive. Try using Scrabble pieces to create words and order sentences or to practice CVC fluency and word patterns. Another idea could be to use an online word finder when you’re running out of planning time to generate a targeted vocabulary list for your grammar quizzes. You could show students the tool, give them a list of letters, and have them sort the generated words into grammar categories. Once they’ve done this, they can use the categories in many ways.

  • Grammar rule presentations.
  • A whole group discussion about specific grammar patterns and rules.
  • Grammar challenges where students create original sentences or stories using the generated words and categories.
  • Grammar treasure hunt.

With careful planning and a little outside-the-box thinking, there are tons of creative ways to teach grammar. So, we hope we’ve inspired you to make English a lot more fun for your youngest students beyond traditional flashcards and teacher-talk instruction.

Halloween 2024

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Halloween is just around the corner! Whether you’re celebrating with family, friends, or a classroom full of excited ghosts and goblins, I’ve created a variety of activities that will help make 2024 a memorable Halloween celebration! From easy activities and games, freebies, and a full bundle of fun, check out all the links below!

Use these differentiated paper games as warm-up or cool-down activities. Best of all, they’re free! Download these games here, or by clicking on the image below.

Halloween Games Kinney Brothers Publishing

What’s a holiday party without decorations? These dancing skeletons (in two sizes) are perfect for a classroom board or a whole-class craft activity! Download for free by clicking here or on the image below.


Here are 13+ Halloween games you can play in class or at home! These games are especially recommended for teachers needing activities they can set up quickly and repeat for multiple classes.


Visit Donald’s English Classroom for a full lineup of Halloween activities! Browse classic games you can play in class or online. Download separately or save with the Game Bundle! Enjoy!


Here’s wishing you a happy and safe Halloween in 2024!

Donald Kinney
Kinney Brothers Publishing
Donald’s English Classroom

The Science of Reading

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The Science of Reading Kinney Brothers Publishing Blog

The Science of Reading is a dynamically-evolving field of study, encompassing a wide range of research with the focus on understanding how humans learn to read and write. Exploring the cognitive, psychological, and linguistic processes involved in reading and writing, researchers are developing more effective approaches to teaching and learning these skills. This body of scientifically-based research, conducted over the last five decades across the world, is derived from studies in multiple languages and within inter-disciplinary fields, such as linguistics, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and educational research. As a science-based approach not limited to native-language speakers, the evidence informs how proficient reading and writing skills develop and can be applied in second-language programs, such as ESL courses.

One of the main findings of this body of research is that learning to read is not a single, unified process, but rather a complex and dynamic set of skills and strategies that include phonological awareness, decoding, comprehension, and fluency. When these skills and applied  teaching strategies are understood, researchers are better able to evaluate and improve teaching methods and curricular materials.  Instead of a “one size fits all” method, the science can be highly individualized, where different readers and writers may have discrete needs and preferences, lending itself to varied approaches to learning.

Because reading is a complex process with many different components and stages, for young children, the learning process is long and gradual, requiring patience and the right support from parents and teachers. Long before a child’s first primary steps toward learning to read, the influence of reading aloud to very young children cannot be underestimated. Exploring text and images, pointing to words and pictures as they are read, begins the process of understanding language through text. For the young mind, phonemic awareness is the first step that leads toward an understanding of the association with the text, the concept of word, and comprehension.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize the individual sounds that make up words. Through picture books, games, and activities such as rhyming, sound matching, and songs, a child develops an awareness of text to sound and conceptual associations working in tandem toward a cohesive comprehension. In the case of teaching young language learners, the physical milieu is no less important. When reading to children, having them physically close allows students to hear and feel the resonance of the teacher’s voice with sounds they would otherwise not be exposed to or have the opportunity to imitate. Encouraging students to imitate these new sounds is necessary to expand their vocal repertoire in the new language. In the earliest stages of language acquisition, if children cannot hear and sense how the sounds are produced, they won’t be able to phonemically individuate, replicate, and associate the sounds to text.

The letter/sound connection is the first step in understanding how text is coded and how the teacher or parent translates text as spoken sounds associated with letters that make up words.  Activities using magnetic letters, letter tracing, and primary ABC writing practice are strategies to lead young students toward phonemic awareness.  In ESL courses, educators have the dual charge of teaching phonetic associations as well as the vocabulary associated with those sounds, e.g., CAT, DOG, and RUN.  It is vitally important that teachers plan early by introducing a phonetically-associated vocabulary base that will eventually become the foundation for future spelling practice. 

For the second-language learner, the leap from ABCs and phonetic associations to reading short CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words must be taught with deliberate and varied practice. Instructors may have students whose native-language orthographies define the concept of word very differently, e.g, syllabaries and hieroglyphics. In English, segmenting and blending are important skills that can be taught with worksheets and task cards. Once students are comfortable with sounding out letters to form words and understand their meaning, it’s time to begin putting the words into a context in sentences.

When you begin putting words in context and ask students to derive meaning, it is inevitable that you will encounter sight words. Sometimes called ‘popcorn’ words, they are commonly used words that children are encouraged to memorize as a whole by sight, such as the, is, and of. For example, teaching “A cat on a mat.” necessitates introducing children to sight words that give context and meaning. Because of the frequency of sight words in the English language, once introduced, they become an integral part of the next steps in reading fluency.

As you move from the ABCs through emergent reader activities, you’ll want to have reading goals in place.  As a teacher, it is important to be able to recognize when a student has a command of the sounds of the alphabet, achieves the concept of word, is displaying rudimentary reading ability, and finally, capable of decoding and deriving meaning from connected text.  These concepts must be developed in this order and practiced to achieve reading fluency.  The habits that you build into the children’s learning activities will help them to acquire new words more quickly, build on their knowledge base to infer meaning, and progress more confidently in their studies.

The last step is to help the child develop fluency. This is the ability to read words quickly and accurately while maintaining a collective and concurring comprehension. Children can practice fluency through their own reading time, reading aloud, choral reading, and reading to a partner. Nurturing fluency must be just as deliberate as early CVC word practice. Silent e, digraphs, diphthongs, and categories of words that change with grammar, like pronouns and verbs, must be explicitly taught. The cumulative effect is a fluency that pushes students toward increasingly complex texts and greater academic achievement.

If you are interested in a more detailed discussion on teaching children to read, check out Teaching Sight Words in the ESL Classroom and Teaching CVC Words – How, When, and What.  Looking for classroom materials aligned to the science of reading? See the full lineup of phonics-based learning materials from Kinney Brothers Publishing.

In the video below, Prof. Stanislas Dehaene, a French cognitive neuroscientist, discusses how the brain learns to read at the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE).  The main body of his presentation occurs in the first 18 minutes of the video with a discussion towards the end.  I recommend jumping 2:55 where he begins discussing how the brain processes reading as a function.

In summary, and to quote The Reading League website, “this research has been conducted over the last five decades across the world, and it is derived from thousands of studies conducted in multiple languages.  The science of reading has culminated in a preponderance of evidence to inform how proficient reading and writing develop; why some have difficulty; and how we can most effectively assess and teach and, therefore, improve student outcomes through prevention of and intervention for reading difficulties.”  I highly recommend downloading their free ebook to learn more about the science of reading.

Beginning Adult English – A Closer Look

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The Beginning Adult English series, by Kinney Brothers Publishing, is designed to extend students’ skills and interest in communicating in English. The two-book series provides students with exercises in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Each textbook is detailed below with links for downloadable previews and purchase.

Kinney Brothers Publishing offers a wide range of ESL textbooks including Stories For Young Readers for junior high through high school learners, a Phonics Series that begins with your youngest students, and an Easy Sight Words Series. Be sure to check out Trends, a topical set of intermediate and advanced worksheets for secondary and adult English language learners. If you’re looking for more support materials, you might be interested in Q&A, Cursive Writing!, and a treasure trove of games, charts, and flashcards in Donald’s English Classroom!