Carrol Moran - Keys to the Elementary Classroom: A New Teacher?s Guide to the First Month of School

This edition of Keys to the Classroom is dedicated in memory of our co-author, Judy Stobbe, for dedicating her life to improving education for English Learners and to enriching the art of teaching.

Copyright 2008 by Carrol Moran, Judy Stobbe, Wendy Baron, Janette Miller, and Ellen Moir

First Skyhorse Publishing edition 2014

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rose Storey

Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-707-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63220-013-6

Printed in China

W e would like to thank the loyal supporters and new teachers who have used this guide for the past twenty years. They showed us very clearly how crucial the first month is in setting the standards of interaction for the rest of the year.

We would also like to thank the new teacher mentors from the New Teacher Center who reviewed the last edition and gave us feedback on what worked and what might need to be changed or updated.

In addition, we would also like to thank our typists; our translator, Luz Mara S. Steves; and our graphic artist, Carrie Wilker, for the wonderful work they have done.

It is our hope in creating this guide that we can ease new teachers entry into classroom teaching. We want to take the mystery out of the first month, and we have tried to spell out clearly the many keys used by experienced teachers to open the school year successfully.

Carrol Moran, Judy Stobbe, Wendy Baron,
Janette Miller, & Ellen Moir

We would also like to thank the following reviewers:

Janet Crews, Instructional Coach

Clayton School District

Clayton, MO

Cathy Galland, Curriculum Director

Republic R-III School District

Republic, MO

Catherine Hernandez, Second-Grade Teacher

Detroit Public Schools

Detroit, MI

Greg Keith, Middle School Academic Coordinator

Department of Academic Affairs

Memphis, TN

Maureen Maloney, Second-Grade Teacher

Lusher Charter School

New Orleans, LA

Melanie Mares, Academic Coach

Lowndes Middle School

Valdosta, GA

David L. Sechler, Retired Middle School Principal

Dover, DE

Carrol Moran has worked in education for over thirty years. Her teaching experience encompasses preschool to graduate school, focusing on low-income students of diverse language backgrounds. She earned her BA from University of California, Santa Cruz; her Masters Degree from San Jose State University; and her PhD in Education, Language Literacy, and Culture, from Stanford University. She was a writer for Macmillan McGraw-Hill on materials for English Learners. She has published over twenty articles and books on education, including Bilingual Education: Broadening Research Perspectives, published in The Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education and A Balanced Approach to Literacy , a resource document and introduction to K3 literacy in teacher-education faculty programs. She is coauthor on Rethinking English Language Instruction an Architectural Approach in English Learners: Reaching the Highest Level of English Literacy (editor, Gilbert Garcia), and she is the editor of Success by Design: The Work of the UC Santa Cruz Educational Partnership Center . For the past twelve years, she has served as Executive Director of the Monterey Bay Educational Consortium and the UC Santa Cruz Educational Partnership Center.

Judy Stobbe was a classroom teacher and Staff Development Specialist in a Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Program specializing in emergent literacy, effective math instruction, second-language acquisition, and effective bilingual education. She initiated a staff development model based on ongoing teacher collaboration that links authentic assessment to innovative classroom practices across an entire school. In her work as Staff Development Specialist, she worked with a wide range of teachersfrom preservice to the most experienced. Outside the classroom, she has written curriculum and articles for a variety of publications, including Into English!: Kindergarten Teachers Guide, The Bilingual Classroom , for the DLM Early Childhood Program, Access to Science: Activities and Strategies for Students Acquiring English Kindergarten-Grade 2 , and, coauthored with Carrol Moran, Strategies for Working with Overage Students, published in The Power of Two Languages: Literacy and Biliteracy for Spanish-Speaking Students .

Janette Miller has taught grades K6, served as a reading specialist, evaluated new employees in Santa Cruz City Schools District, and supported new teachers through the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project. She has extensive training in classroom management, peer coaching, and evaluation. She has particularly enjoyed training novice and veteran teachers in classroom management techniques, direct teaching model, the reading/writing connection, and conceptual math strategies. Currently she is a Cotsen Family Foundation mentor working with veteran teachers to improve their practices.

Wendy Baron has taught grades K6, served as a Title I Reading Specialist, supervised and instructed prospective teachers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and for the past twenty years has worked directly with new teachers and principals, K12. As associate director with the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Wendy oversees the Santa Cruz/Silicon Valley New Teacher Project, which supports over a thousand new teachers annually. She also consults with school districts throughout California and nationally on mentoring, teacher induction, and designing professional development for beginning teachers. Wendy has extensive experience in coaching, adult learning theory, group facilitation and professional development. She is a researcher and practitioner, and seeks continually to impact educational systems to support teacher development. Wendy is the author of several articles and book chapters and has produced numerous videos related to mentoring and new teacher development.