Margin Notes

New York Times best-selling author of The Reading Strategies Book, Jennifer Serravallo, has just released a new book called, “Connecting with Students Online” (Grades K-8), based on her own and other educators experiences’ during the COVID-19 pandemic.   Jennifer’s book offers “more than 55 step-by-step teaching strategies and videos showing conferring, small groups, messages for caregivers, student conversation and collaboration.  In addition, her book addresses deeper topics on assessment and progress monitoring, student engagement and accountability, supporting students’ social and emotional needs, getting books into students’ hands and avoiding teacher burnout.” (Heinemann, 2020) 

Jennifer’s book gives educators a “how-to” not only in building relationships with students but also building relationships with caregivers during remote teaching environments.  Additonally, she offers a “how-to” in adapting to the new online setting, focusing on the social and emotional learning needs of students.   

This rescource also guides educators to consider priorities that matter most during online instruction and how to schedule the day to maximize the teaching and learning.  Also included are suggestions for highly engaging short lessons and tips for conferring with small groups of students.  

Whether you are in a home learning situation now or have the potential to move to a home learning situation, any teacher would benefit from the section, Connecting Goals Across Reading and Writing in Chapter #3, where she offers a side-by-side chart to give you a visual of how simple it is to connect goals across subject areas.