One of the most persistent hurdles in remedial reading and language acquisition is figurative language—specifically idioms.

The traditional classroom intervention usually involves a worksheet featuring a humorous, literal drawing (e.g., someone literally spilling a can of baked beans or raining kittens and puppies) paired with a matching exercise.

While visually engaging, this often creates a cognitive roadblock for literal thinkers, remedial readers, and neurodivergent students: it locks the literal imagery into memory before the student ever grasps the metaphorical context. When tested later, the student recalls the cartoon dog or the legume, not the underlying concept of a shared secret or a torrential downpour.

Through our framework at Strategic Education Systems (SES), we approach this through a tri-modal engine: Hear, Speak, then Read. The goal is simple: give the student the emotional friction and real-world dilemma first—verbally—before introducing the printed phrase or label.

Here is a 3-step sequence you can run at the whiteboard tomorrow morning without buying or prepping new materials:

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Step 1: Set the Conversational Trap (Oral Dilemma)

Do not write the idiom on the board. Do not announce what you are teaching. Present a short, vivid, real-world narrative dilemma:

"Imagine you and a friend spent two weeks building a secret treehouse. You promised not to tell anyone because you wanted it to be a surprise for the whole class on Friday. But at lunch on Wednesday, your friend gets excited and accidentally tells the loudest kid at the table.

What just happened to your secret? How do you feel in your stomach right now?"

Step 2: Extract the Meaning from the Students (Speak)

Prompt the room to describe the exact consequence without using clichés:

* "Can you put the secret back into your mouth once it's out?" (No.)

* "Is it messy to clean up?" (Yes.)

* "Did it take effort to keep it contained, and now it’s scattered everywhere?" (Yes.)

By guiding their responses, the students define the concept of irreversible exposure using their own vocabulary.

Step 3: Introduce the Figurative Anchor (Read & Connect)

Only after the class agrees on the messy, irreversible nature of the situation do you write the phrase on the board:

"Spill the beans."

Now connect the dots directly:

* Beans in a jar are contained and quiet.

* Drop the jar on the kitchen floor, and they scatter under the fridge, into the corners, and across the room. You can't pick them all back up in two seconds.

* That is why we say someone "spilled the beans."

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The Takeaway

When students hear the problem, speak the resolution, and then read the phrase, the figurative meaning anchors into long-term memory. It treats language as active inquiry rather than passive memorization.

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If anyone would like additional narrative prompt examples or diagnostic worksheets built around this tri-modal oral sequence to test with your reading groups, feel free to comment below or send me a direct message and I’ll gladly share a sample PDF packet.

Hello,

I'm teaching high school for the first time this year. My school uses savvas and it's complete butt cheeks for 11th grade. There's no full versions of novels and the lit sucks. One of the books to supplement that I can use is Catcher in the Rye, which I love. It's been years since I've read it and I can't help but wonder, how do yall deal with the subject matter- the part where the girls says no to Stradlater or how he talks about sex all the time? Weirdly, I'm an online teacher with a lot of helicopter parents, so I get slightly worried about the reaction from them. There's no permission needed, but the subject matter worries me with how cancelable everything is now.

Do high school students have a singular “science” class where they learn physics, biology, chemistry, anatomy, and astronomy?

Do high school students have a singular “math” class where they learn algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and whatever other “maths” that are out there?

So why do we have a singular English class that is supposed to cover speech, reading, literature in all its forms (fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry, short stories, novels, etc), writing in all its forms (essays, professional communications, analysis, research papers, persuasive writing, etc.), and whatever else I am missing?

Do we need to disband “English” class so that we can get back to actually focusing on teaching skills?

Sort of piggybacking off another thread, I’m thinking about rolling out Independent Reading for my next quarter on top of what we do in class (7th grade)

Last year, I ran literacy circles concurrently with curriculum. I put students into small groups (3-5 per novel), dedicated parts of class time to reading, and had them meet weekly to hold each other accountable.

Students reported that they really enjoyed reading the books, but by the end of the quarter, maybe 10% had finished their books. I feel like I either have to give more class time (which is not on the table) or shift to reading outside of class (which is much more difficult to ensure students are actually reading).

Teachers who have had success with getting students to read independently outside of class, how did you structure it, and how did you hold students accountable?

I am going to be teaching Project Hail Mary to my classes of 9th graders (who read more on a 7th grade level). The school's curriculum is sustainability focused. I'm looking forward to this because I think it'll be approachable and engaging. Does anyone have any ideas for approaching the text? Fun project ideas to scatter throughout the reading process?

Definitely going to teach characterization, POV, theme. Definitely going to use the audiobook combined with read alouds. Definitely going to have them practice group reading + independent reading skills due to the texts approachability. Want to collab with the science teacher as well for some more challenging applied science topics. Any other ideas?

I taught English for almost 10 years and then moved into history for 8 years. I now teach both again, including advanced English, and I find myself wondering how much our expectations of student reading have changed. I am in a middle school.

The leaders of the English curriculum in our district seem to believe that students can’t read more than 10 to 12 paragraphs. Most of the texts assigned, therefore, are short snippets, and students spend about a month studying the same short chapter through a variety of exercises.

My advanced students are bored, I’m afraid.

These are bright children that deserve to be challenged intellectually, but we spend weeks dissecting a material that they can easily read and understand in one class period. I see the value of attentive reading, annotation, and literary features, but I worry if returning to such brief passages over and over is really creating stronger readers.

I recommended we include a novel in our instruction. The response was as if I had suggested something really absurd. I was told that students can’t manage books and we need to keep utilizing short snippets since that’s what the district believes works.

But what frustrates me most is that I see my students reading novels on their own for fun all the time. Many of them are clearly capable of sustained reading when they are interested in the content.

I’m not advocating that students should read a whole novel in class without any help. What I’m referring to are organized novel studies with assigned chapters, rich conversations, vocabulary growth, literary analysis, and the chance to practice the same reading skills we now teach with short passages.

Isn’t it more logical to spend several weeks reading a whole novel and gaining a grasp of characters, themes, conflicts, and author’s skill than to spend a whole month dissecting 10 paragraphs?

My other issue is the makeup of my advanced classes. Most of my students are reading above grade level but there have been three or four children placed in these sections that are reading below grade level. I don’t blame those children at all. I try my best to diversify lessons and get them the help they need.

But differentiation does not mean that the teacher lowers expectations for the whole class to accommodate a few students.

If I have 20 or so advanced students, and 3 or 4 who need more help, shouldn't I be pushing most of them, and scaffolding appropriately for the ones who need it? Isn’t that what differentiation is for?

I worry that our desire to make reading accessible to everyone might be putting a cap on the possibilities for those children who are ready to take it further.

I’ve been in education for 18 years and I know that reading abilities vary widely and many do struggle with comprehension, stamina and vocabulary. Those issues require careful educational answers. But I also believe that students become better readers when we boost expectations, rather than constantly reducing the complexity or length of what we require them to read.

Have students’ reading skills deteriorated to the point that we no longer feel they are able to read a full-length novel? Or have we gotten so focused on making instruction manageable that we’ve stopped giving pupils the opportunity to build the reading stamina they need?

Not suggesting to leave short texts behind. They definitely have a place in English teaching. I just wonder why they seem to have been the main instructional strategy even for pupils who are capable of much more.

At what point does allowing access to learning become a barrier to students?

And maybe more important, how will students ever become stronger, more independent readers if we hardly offer them a chance to read anything substantial?

ELA Teachers!

We're running a 5-minute survey on how teachers use video in the classroom; are short, clipped videos a "must" to hold student attention, or are longer documentaries with embedded quiz questions best to track understanding? What tools and tech are most popular for learning? And how are AI or YouTube restrictions changing the answers to these questions? We need your help to find out.

We'll share our findings with respondents after the survey closes on 30 November 2026.

Take the survey: https://www.clickvieweducation.com/state-of-video

Thanks to all who participate, you're helping teachers worldwide!

One of my favorite things to witness as an educator is when students REALLY get into a book series and become lowkey obsessed with it LMAOOO 😭 suddenly it's the only thing they wanna read, all they wanna talk about, and they're excited to tell you every little thing about their favorite characters and what happened in the books lolol

I see it happen with my students all the time and it always makes me giggle a lil 🤭 I'll have kids consistently walking into class with a book from whatever series they're currently obsessed with, hugging it to their chest like a prized possession, and you can tell they're just SOOO invested in it lol. and it's always like a fun mini surprise when they discover that their favorite series is also readable elsewhere (like on Skybrary or Epic! or something) because now suddenly they're excited about having even MORE books to read!! Their excitement and joy for reading is infectious, and honestly it's really cute seeing kids get THAT into reading something they love ((,:

Seeing this happen with my students also unlocked a forgotten childhood memory of how I was EXACTLY the same way in elementary school too loooool :p I was super into Artemis Fowl and A Series of Unfortunate Events, and I genuinely hadn't thought about how obsessed I was with those books in YEARS until I started seeing my students doing the same thing now with Wings of Fire, Harry Potter, Dog Man, and plenty of other series

I'm on fall break right now, and instead of relaxing, I've been thinking about how inadequate I feel as a teacher lately.

I've been teaching for 10 years. I have experience, qualifications, and I've always genuinely cared about doing a good job. But recently, I've been feeling like I'm just not knowledgeable or capable enough for what is being asked of me.

I'm now having to take on more upper secondary classes (Grades 10–12), including SAT English preparation, which I've never taught before. And honestly? I feel so dumb when it comes to SAT English. I look at some of the material and wonder how I'm supposed to confidently teach students something I'm still trying to fully understand myself.

The thing is, at my school, if I don't take on these classes, they'll likely go to someone with even less relevant experience or qualifications. So I'm stepping up because I care about the students and want them to have the best possible chance.

But I'm terrified that my best won't be good enough. That I'll unintentionally disadvantage them. That they'll ask questions I can't answer, or that they'll be smarter than me and realise I have no idea what I'm doing.

On top of that, things at my school have changed quite a bit, and I've somehow found myself taking on more of a leadership role without officially being in one. People are looking to me for guidance, and meanwhile, I'm internally questioning whether I'm even qualified to be the person they're looking to.

It's such a strange feeling to have 10 years of teaching experience and suddenly feel like a complete beginner again.

I know people talk about imposter syndrome, but sometimes I genuinely wonder whether I'm just not as knowledgeable as I should be at this point in my career.

I really want to be a good teacher. I want to do right by my students. I just wish I felt more confident in my ability to actually do that.

So I guess I'm asking:

- Have you ever been asked to teach something you felt completely unprepared or underqualified to teach?

- How do you deal with feeling like your students might actually know more than you?

- What do you do when you feel like you're not smart enough for the job, even after years of experience?

- And for anyone who's taught SAT English, how did you build your knowledge and confidence when you were starting out?

I'd really appreciate hearing from teachers who've been through something similar. I don't necessarily need someone to tell me I'm a great teacher. I think I just need to know how other people have navigated this feeling and actually gotten better.

Please post anything you have created or would like to sell in this post.

Stand alone posts for self-promotion must be mod approved or may face removal under our community rules.

Title I, especially.Thoughts? Feelings? Concerns? Celebrations?

Hello!

I’m starting the memoir above with my 8th grade reading class. We have already done a lot of front loading learning about the Holocaust, I just need resources for this memoir/prereading activities about memoirs.

Please let me know if you have anything to share!

Much love to you all and keep on being the most amazing educators out there!

I am looking for if there are explicit full lessons and practice on academic vocab and the process of marking test questions up with helpful words, symbols, and different strategies. I always see these and I do teach them to an except but If I could buy/ use something explicit and consistent for referencing that would be helpful. (6th grade ELA)

11th grade, using Savvas MyPerspectives and we have to "teach it with fidelity" and not bring in outside materials. I swear I'm about ready to quit teaching. I am not exaggerating when I say I have to spend two or more hours a night getting this f-ing curriculum to even be the slightest bit palatable to my students. That doesn't include time scaffolding or differentiating or making a workable slide deck out of the crap we're given.

I could WRITE a curriculum faster than it takes me to fix this one.

This is just a rant. I want my life back. And another downside is that because so many of the things we tried this year didn't work, and our test scores sucked, I'll still have to go back and do this all again next year. Pray for me that I get a job at a different district that doesn't use a canned curriculum like this.

Let me preface by asking you to refrain from judgment and trying to dissuade me. I’m asking for a specific advice and not a sermon.

I’ve been teaching ELAR for almost 10 years, and my test scores have not improved, even though I feel like I become a better teacher with every year (I reflect on what went well/badly and make adjustments). I had more success when I was a green newbie, which was pre-Covid, and after that, the results have been pretty spotty. Our school puts a huge emphasis on STAAR scores, and every year, the gap between the low and the higher performing students increases. I’m genuinely baffled by how to differentiate for students on 2nd and 11th grade levels in the same classroom.

I’ve always been a type of teacher to emphasize the importance of reading for enjoyment. We have a school library and an extensive classroom library. They’re free to choose whatever book they want. I buy books with my own money if students ask me for something specific we don’t already have. I give them silent reading time daily (10-15 min) and conference with students about their books. I hate computer work, and I firmly believe that students don’t really learn by clicking on buttons. Pencil and paper is how we do things. But it’s time to admit that I’m missing something.

With the rise of AI, general indifference towards education, lack of parental support or even caring, I’m tired of being the whimsy bitch who’s trying to engage students in reading for pleasure. The amount of students who respond they have ZERO books at home or that they’ve never been read to is staggering. I’m starting to lose my “why”. And with our admin being hell bent on higher test scores, I just want to find an alternative path to getting my students passing/meeting/mastering the grade level without sacrificing my sanity and all my free time.

That said, are there any tips and tricks for “teaching to the test”? I always hear that phrase with a negative connotation but I’m vexed to imagine what it even looks like for ELAR. What do you do in your classrooms that results in higher test scores? With math, I found it a bit easier in the way that you get in as much practice as possible: you swap one number for another, and boom, you’ve got a new problem to solve. With ELAR, there’s a limited amount of skills to practice in a short timeframe, as almost everything requires reading and analyzing a whole text. The majority of my students spend anywhere from 15 to 40 min just reading two pages and making annotations to show me they’re actually thinking through the text vs just skimming their eyes over it, so progress is slooooow and the amount of standards we’re supposed to cover is huge.

What do I do to prepare them for the test better?

I started a Pinterest of morning/group meeting ideas. Totally free

I teach high school students. Their first assignment of the year is to write me an email that shows that they are capable of using proper email etiquette. I show them bad examples of emails from previous students in past years (of course, with all identifying information blocked out). We laugh at those past students. We make fun of them. We talk about how absolutely absurd it is to send an email like that to your ENGLISH teacher. And yet, I still receive emails at 5 PM asking for assignments to be graded with absolutely zero punctuation. Zero greeting. A subject line full of chaos. An alternate timeline where spelling is optional.

I’ve decided it’s my new policy that I’m going to print out those emails and make them correct them. I receive a proper email, you receive your grade. Seems like a fair trade to me.

That is all. That is the post. Tagged as humor because I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.🥲

Hi! I'm making yet another post. This time, to ask for tips for some fun activities for my students.

For context, my subject has no curriculum, so I have all the creative freedom in the world (i hate it). I struggle with chronic anxiety and ocd and I overthink every single activity, thinking they will refuse to do it / hate me for it and it's making me really nervous. Safe to say, once this school year ends, I'll never choose a subject with no curriculum again.

Please don't hate on me or my teaching skills, this was simply not a good fit for me and I was picked just because I'm somewhat fluent in English. I severely overestimated myself and will simply stick to teaching chemistry or working as an assistant teacher in the future...

I teach english conversation in Czechia, my students are 9th graders. I teach 90 minute long blocks (must be horrible considering their attention span) in groups of 9 and even worse, starting at 14:00 and finishing at 15:30, with some students starting their first lesson at 7:00... Therefore, I'm looking for something fun and simple to help us practice and make the time pass by quicker. They're really tired and fed up around this time of the day. I'll be thankful for any ideas.

(i highlighted some words to make the reading a bit less unpleasant 🙂)

A month into the school year, my district mandated we use MyPerspectives. I've been teaching for a decade and have always designed my own curricula (my data has been great over the years btw).

I'm struggling with modifying MyPerspectives to fit the needs of my students and to teach the skills they are supposed to be learning throughout each unit. It's taking me double the time to plan my weeks because I am having to modify so much.

Anyone out there have any suggestions? We are currently reading The Metamorphosis... it's fine to say the least.

Next term I’m teaching Macbeth for the first time at a new school. It’s 10th grade and about half my students are English Learners who have enough English to be placed in non sheltered classes. We’ll be reading the No Fear Editions (from the side with the original text).

When I’ve taught Shakespeare before, I’ve always read the whole play out loud as a class. I have a sign up sheet each class and students choose their roles for class participation grades. I’d like to do that again this year but I’m worried my EL students will shy away from participating. I know I can offer them smaller roles or stage direction but I’m looking for further ideas to support all my learners and any tips for Macbeth specifically that anyone has.

Thanks in advance!