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Come visit our new blog at www.imaginelearning.com/blog for more language and literacy tips you can use to help your English learners, students with disabilities, struggling readers, and early childhood education students.

NSBA is this week!

The 2010 NSBA Conference begins this week in Chicago, Illinois. We'll be at booth #750, so be sure to stop by for a special offer. We'd also love to hear your feedback and discuss how we can better serve you and your students. Hope to see you there!

This 70th annual conference is sponsored by the National School Board Association.

Tips for Overcoming Test Anxiety

Sweaty palms? Check. Racing heart? Check. A bad case of butterflies in the stomach? Check. It must be test time.

Many students struggle with test anxiety, but those feelings of panic and dread can be even worse for your English learners, students with disabilities, and struggling readers who struggle in the classroom. So what can you do to help your students relax and do their best on tests?

TESOL is this week!

The 2010 TESOL Conference begins this week in Boston, Massachusetts. We'll be at booth #922, so be sure to stop by for a special offer. We'd also love to hear your feedback and discuss how we can better serve you and your students. Hope to see you there!

The 44th annual convention boasts the world's largest gathering of TESOL professionals. This year's theme is Re-imagining TESOL.

Students with Disabilities Find Independence with ILE

Students with disabilities at Bryce Valley High School are now using Imagine Learning English with great success. Behavior problems are decreasing, scores are soaring, and confidence is on the rise. Special education teacher Phoebe Wiseman believes Imagine Learning English has helped her students gain greater confidence.

“They’ve found a place,” says Wiseman. “They’ve got something where they can put on earphones, and they can have this independent time where they’re learning at their own level--and they’re succeeding at their own level. They don’t have to be like the child next to them; they don’t have to be like the students in the other classes. They can just spend that time gaining for themselves. And because of that, they’re doing overall better in school."

Click here to see what high school special education teachers and coordinators are saying about Imagine Learning English.

April Fool's Day!

What other day of the year do major websites, newspapers, and corporations have the excuse to spread laughable hoaxes? (One of my favorites was a few years ago when Google announced a new service: Gmail Paper, because, as they said, “Whatever happened to stamps, filing cabinets, and the mailman?”) What other day can coworkers, kids, students, and parents get away with playing harmless pranks on each other? Though no one’s exactly sure how April Fool’s Day started, now it’s a holiday celebrated in many parts of the world with the aim to trick, fool, and get a few good laughs.

Are you looking for a good way to celebrate April Fool’s day in your classroom? We've got some ideas.

Adapting Instruction for Cognitive Disabilities

How can you help meet the needs of your students with disabilities without neglecting their peers in the same class? We referred to the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) for some answers.

Teachers often make adaptations to their instruction when the content or the method of delivery proves a barrier to learning. But ideally, as Keith Lenz and Jean Schumaker in a 2003 edition of CEC Today say, these adaptations would be “designed into curricular materials by the developers” to relieve teachers of this complex and time-consuming task. Imagine Learning English was developed with an adaptive curriculum that automatically assesses and provides appropriate instruction and feedback. This is great for one-on-one instruction, but what about when you meet as a group? Adaptation strategies make it easier to include students with varying abilities.

Thank You, Mrs. Pritchard

I’ve always had an active imagination. I used to make up games and friends and stories to keep myself occupied as a little girl. But when I was in third grade, my teacher Mrs. Pritchard taught me that a good imagination and creativity could be used for so much more than playing (though playing is good, too).

Mrs. Pritchard gave everyone in my class a spiral notebook. As a regular class exercise, we would each bring our notebook up to Mrs. Pritchard, who would open it to a clean page and draw random squiggles and designs with her marker. Our assignment was to turn the squiggles into a picture and write a story about it.

CABE is this week!

The 2010 CABE Conference is this week in San Jose, California. We'll be at booth #820, so be sure to stop by for a special offer. We'd also love to hear your feedback and discuss how we can better serve you and your students. Hope to see you there!

This statewide conference is sponsored by the California Association for Bilingual Education. 

ASCD is this weekend!

This weekend marks the beginning of the 2010 ASCD Conference and Exhibition Show in San Antonio, Texas. We'll be at booth #854, so be sure to stop by for a special offer. We'd also love to hear your feedback and discuss how we can better serve you and your students. Hope to see you there!

The 2010 Annual Conference and Exhibition Show is sponsored by ASCD and is titled Critical Transformations. 

Utah Students Love ILE

On February 27, the Daily Herald published an article about how Utah teachers are using Imagine Learning English (ILE) to help their English learner population. Click the picture below for the full article and to see what students are saying about their experiences on Imagine Learning English.

Three Hot Keys to Help You Pause, Stop, or Get Loud

Hot keys are quick commands you access on your keyboard to make everything go faster. With the press of a button, you can switch from one browser to another, copy all the text on a page, or tell your printer to start printing. 

There’s a hot key for just about anything, and Imagine Learning English has its fair share of hot keys to help you function faster. Read on to find the secret steps of how to pause the program, stop a session, and bring up the volume.

ELs and the Common Core State Standards

With Kentucky’s official acceptance of the forthcoming Common Core State Standards just last week, national curiosity about the standards is rising. Governors and education leaders from every state save the two largest landmasses, Texas and Alaska, have committed to develop common standards for grades K-12.

The committee tasked with creating these standards is made up of education experts from organizations like ACT, the College Board, and the National Association of State Boards of Education. Their goal is to develop standards that will align with current research, international benchmarks, and expectations from universities and the work field.

Though the finals standards are still in revision, we’ve taken a look at the drafts to see what these new standards have in store for English learners. Here's a brief look at some of the resources English learners will need access to under the current draft of the Common Core State Standards:

A New Home for Imagine Learning, Inc.

January 2010 was more than just the beginning of a new decade for all of us here at Imagine Learning.  It was the beginning of a new chapter in our company history.  After five years of incredible growth, we packed our boxes and moved out of our original headquarters location and into a new building. And what a building it is, too-- more than twice the size of our original location!

Language and Literacy Conferences to Attend

This week, we've been at the 39th Annual Conference of the National Association for Bilingual Education in Denver, Colorado. If you couldn't attend this year, stay tuned for our report on the latest news in bilingual education. And if you are attending, be sure to stop by our booth to say hi!

Look for us at the following conferences across the US:

February
NCLB, Chicago, Illinois, Feb 9-11
The No Child Left Behind Statewide Conference is held annually in Chicago.

AASA, Phoenix, Arizona, Feb 10-12
This National Conference on Education is sponsored by the American Association of School Administrators. The theme is Build a Stronger Future.

ETC, Modesto, California, Feb 27
The Education Technology Conference theme for 2010 is Content Standards + Effective Technology Integration = Student Achievement!

March
ASCD, San Antonio, Texas, Mar 6-8
The 2010 Annual Conference and Exhibition Show is sponsored by ASCD and is titled Critical Transformations.

CABE, San Jose, California, Mar 10-13
This statewide conference is sponsored by the California Association for Bilingual Education.

TESOL, Boston, Massachusetts, Mar 24-27
The 44th annual convention boasts the world's largest gathering of TESOL professionals. This year's theme is Re-imagining TESOL.

April
NSBA, Chicago, Illinois, Apr 10-12
This 70th annual conference is sponsored by the National School Board Association.

IRA, Chicago, Illinois, Apr 25-28
This 55th annual convention is sponsored by the International Reading Association. The theme is Reading in Many Languages. 

NETC, La Vista, Nebraska, Apr 29-30
This conference is sponsored by the Nebraska Educational Technology Association. The theme is Creative Journeys to Learning.

AERA, Denver, Colorado, Apr 30-May 4
This conference is sponsored by the American Educational Research Association. The theme is Understanding Complex Ecologies in a Changing World.

Hope to see you there!

The iPad and Education: How Tablet Computers Might Change the Classroom

When I was in seventh grade, one of my teachers assigned my class to write about what school might be like in the future. Calling upon my creativity, I dove into the assignment with gusto (open-ended writing assignments were my favorite). In my day-in-the-life narrative of a future middle school, students teleported to class, ate hot lunches served from a giant machine, and instead of textbooks, had their own personal, lightweight computers.

I didn’t know then that one of my ideas about the future might come sooner than I had realized. Today, Apple just announced their new iPad—a tablet computer they call their “most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device.” With the interface of an iPod Touch but the size of a laptop screen, it’s interesting to think what technology like the iPad might mean for schools and education.

Five Best Practices You Need to Know

If your students used Imagine Learning English in 2009, you already know the difference thirty minutes a day can make. Now we've got a few extra tips to help them excel even more. Start off the new year by trying these five best practices that are sure to help meet your best expectations.

Reassessing EL Assessments

Federal education leaders gathered with educators and assessment experts from around the country last month in Denver, Colorado, to reassess the way English learners are tested. In addition to mentioning Denver Public Schools' partnership with Imagine Learning, speakers gave recommendations for improving the assessment process. To read the entire 216-page transcript, click here. For a quick, more digestible overview, read on.

National Handwriting Day

Happy National Handwriting Day! It might not be an “official” national holiday, but people have been celebrating National Handwriting Day since 1977, when the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association established the holiday to “re-explore the purity and power of handwriting.”

National Handwriting Day is celebrated on January 23 in conjunction with the birthday of John Hancock, whose large, famous signature was the first to adorn the Declaration of Independence. It’s a wonderful day to celebrate and practice handwriting in your class—or to ponder the controversies regarding handwriting in schools today.