Stellar Teacher Podcast with Sara Marye

Time management for teachers can feel almost impossible when there is always more to do than there are hours in the school day. More time to plan. More time to teach. More time to make copies, respond to emails, grade assignments, meet with students—and maybe even have a little more fun with your class. If you regularly leave school wondering where the day went or find yourself saying, I wish I had more time, this Listen Again episode is worth revisiting. We're bringing it back because teachers' plates aren't getting any less full, and the strategies in this conversation can help you rethink how you're using the limited time you have.

Supporting struggling readers can feel especially challenging when you have a classroom full of students with completely different needs. You might have a handful of students who need intensive phonics intervention, a few students reading well above grade level, and everyone else somewhere in the middle. So how are you supposed to meet all of those needs without spending your entire literacy block running from one small group to the next? The good news is that meeting every student's needs doesn't mean giving every student the exact same support.

Phonics in upper elementary wasn't something we always knew how to approach when we were classroom teachers. We knew we had struggling readers. We knew some of our students had significant gaps in their foundational reading skills. But knowing exactly what to teach—and how to fit that instruction into an already packed literacy block—was another story. That's why we're bringing back this Dear Stellar Teacher episode. As we continue talking about supporting struggling readers, this conversation feels just as important today.

Differentiation vs intervention —what's the difference, and how do you know which one your struggling readers actually need? These two terms are used all the time in education, and sometimes they're even used interchangeably. But differentiation and intervention serve two very different purposes. Understanding the difference can help you move beyond simply giving a struggling reader more support and start giving them the right type of support.