"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles

As usual, I’m kicking-off my mid-year “Best” lists with my choices for the best posts from this blog so far from the past several months..

There are many more “Best” lists to come over the next two months.

You can see my picks for the best over the past nineteen years here, and you can see all my previous annual “Best” lists here.

I’ll start off by sharing the ones I’m adding to MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE POSTS:

ONES BEING ADDED TO THE ALL-TIME BEST LIST:

No Sh_T Sherlock, Another Study Finds That Just Because Your Students Do Well At Advantaged School Doesn’t Mean You’ll Have The Same Success At A Low-Income One

An Epidemic Of Uncurious People Who Think They’re Curious

Here’s Advice I Gave To My Student Teacher Grandson This Week About Student Engagement

NON-BEST LIST POSTS:

Yes, A Big Study Came Out Today Highlighting Plummeting Test Scores But, No, I Don’t Think It Tells The Whole Story

What Do You Think Of These Two Questions For Helping Guide School AI Use?

Every ELL Teacher In The U.S. Will Want To Read These Results From An Ed Week Survey On Teaching English Learners

Infographic On ELLs In California – Here’s The Prompt I Used If You Want To Create One For Your Own State

This Idea Of Beginning Lessons With A “Micro-Inquiry” Is A Good One, & I Like This Free AI Tool Designed To Create Them

Big New Analysis Of What Works In Reading Instruction For Older Readers – Here’s What It Says

If You’ve Wondered How Many New Words To Teach In One Lesson (& What ELL Teacher Hasn’t?), Then You Want To Read This!

This Is A VERY Interesting & Useful Study On The Use Of Collaborative Writing In An ELL Classroom AND I Think It’s Findings Can Be Applicable With English-Proficient Students, Too

Here’s The Table Of Contents For Our New Book

I’ve Created Five Free Chatbots For Teachers & Others, And Some Have Become Quite Popular – Here Links To All Of Them

Here Are My Google Slides Sharing Each Day’s Plan For My ELL Newcomer Class

In Many Ways, I Think “ESLvideo” May Now Be One Of The Best Examples For AI Education Use On The Web

Online Game Leaderboards & Zero Sum Thinking

Shocking (NOT) Research Result – SEL Can’t Mitigate The Affects Of Poverty On Academic Achievement

Great Free Curriculum For ELL Newcomers

New Study Suggests The Main Reason Students May Find Math – Or Any Other Subject – Challenging Is Because They Don’t Know How To Handle Mistakes

Google Just Created A New AI Tool That Is Perfect For Teachers Of ELL Newcomers

Recommendations For Teachers From A Study On How To Enhance Student Motivation

I Just Don’t Understand How Some Major Education Organizations Cannot Speak Out Against Trump Administration Actions

Here’s My One Idea For How To Be An “Education Governor” Or Even An “Education Leader” In 2026

How Many Teachers Leave The Profession Within Their First Five Years?

I Really Like This Strategy For Talking With People You Disagree With

What Should Schools Do As The Numbers Of ELL Newcomers Decrease?

“Eat Poop You Cat” Could Be A Great Game For English Language Learners

What Is The “Constraints-Led Approach,” The Hottest Thing In Sports Training, & Can It Be Applied To The Classroom?

“BEST” LISTS:

The Best Analyses About The Role Of Ed Tech In Today’s Classrooms

The Best Free Sites For YOUNG ELL Beginners

The Best Resources Highlighting What English Language Learner Students Want From Their Teachers

The Best Resources For Using “Reactance” With Students To Help Them Learn About How Corporations Try To Manipulate Them

The “Best” Lesson Ideas For Teaching About The Protests & Killings In Minneapolis

The Best Ways For Modifying Assessments & Supporting ELLs

The Most Useful Free Or VERY Low Cost AI Tools For Supporting English Language Learners

The Best Resources For Learning Different Perspectives About “Gifted & Talented” Programs

     

Mohamed_hassan / Pixabay

I often write about research studies from various fields and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature.

You can see all my “Best” lists related to education research here.

Here are some new useful studies (and related resources):

Did you know timed gaps of 3 days, 12 days or 27 days can change how much students remember? 🔍 Read more ↘️ https://t.co/f8iW4Hgt2w pic.twitter.com/z7rDeO5T04

— InnerDrive (@Inner_Drive) November 13, 2025

Much of the past 15 years of US college enrollment declines is due to strengthening labor markets inducing students not to enroll in community colleges, from Joshua Goodman and Joseph Winkelmann www.nber.org/papers/w34498

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— NBER (@nber.org) December 1, 2025 at 8:01 AM

Math anxiety: meta analysis of longitudinal studies suggests a bi-directional relationship. Being bad at math makes you anxious when doing it AND being anxious about it impairs performance. https://t.co/cUheLRD4CU pic.twitter.com/unaZIDGKk3

— Daniel Willingham (@DTWillingham) December 2, 2025

I often note that the choice of instructional approach should be dependent upon the desired academic outcomes & that those outcomes aren’t always the same.

Direct instruction before problem solving isn’t always the best instructional sequence.https://t.co/y01mIfgFnh @C_Hendrick pic.twitter.com/ywskJyG5YU

— Drew Perkins (@dperkinsed) December 5, 2025

From a quick look, it looks like most of this is self-report and subject to confirmation bias. We already know teacher report is unreliable in this sphere. The effect sizes for academic outcomes (percentage change is misleading) appear to be about r = .17 for math (small,… pic.twitter.com/0yMvsylqvX

— Chris Ferguson 🎄🇨🇽🎅✝️⛄️❄️🎁🦌🍖🍬🎀 (@CJFerguson1111) December 5, 2025

     

Free-Photos / Pixabay

June 14th is celebrated as Flag Day in the United States.

You might be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About Flag Day.

     

geralt / Pixabay

The Gradual Release of Responsibility Framework is known by just about every classroom teacher.

And there are also several variations.

Here are my choices for most useful resources for learning about it and its modifications:

A Fourth Step: “I Do, We Do, You Do” and then “You Teach” is one of my posts.

Deciding: I Do, We Do, You Do or You Do, We Do, I Do? is from Doug Fisher.

Gradual Release of Responsibility Instructional Framework is from Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey.

Here’s another post by Doug Fisher.

A Guide to Meaningful Instruction: Rethinking the Gradual Release of Responsibility is from AJ Juliani.

Cognitive Apprenticeships: The importance of “I/we/you do” guided practice is from Class Teaching.

Revisiting the Rules of Gradual Release of Responsibility is by Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey.

Adapting Gradual Release of Responsibility for English Language Learners is by Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton.

Rethinking the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model comes from NCTM.

Gradual Release of Responsibility and Complex Text is by Timothy Shanahan.

The Role of Cognition in the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model appeared in Edutopia.

How to Teach Skills With the Gradual Release Model is from The Art of Education.

– Instead of assigning writing, co-write w/ MLs (we do)
– Then put them in pairs to co-write (you & a partner)
– Then have them write independently (you do alone) pic.twitter.com/0TL7zgOzXv

— Tan K Huynh (he/his) 🇱🇦🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈 (@TanKHuynh) August 26, 2024

This is not “how the brain learns”. If we want students to not just “get it”- to “own it” teachers must set up activities where students notice, observe, inquire, experiment, practice, reflect, and ask more questions. #iTeachMath https://t.co/h7zBQIIuLk

— Ralph Pantozzi (@mathillustrated) November 20, 2025

Be a Shade of Gray in the Either/Or Math War appeared in Middleweb.

What is ‘Presentation, Practice, Production’ (PPP)? is from The Barefoot TEFL Teacher.

A Guide to Planning a Present-Practice-Produce (PPP) Lesson is from TESOLPOP.

 

     

Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here.

You can also see all my “Best” lists on instructional strategies here.

Here are this week’s picks:

Harnessing scaffolding to support every student is from StepLab.  I’m adding it to The Best Resources On Providing Scaffolds To Students.

Growth Discourse: A Framework for Discussing Hard Topics with Students is from Cult of Pedagogy. I’m adding it to The Best Resources Sharing The Best Practices For Fruitful Classroom Discussions.

How Student-Led IEP Meetings Promote Self-Advocacy is from Edutopia. I’m adding it to THE BEST RESOURCES ABOUT IEPS.

Or, walking through the halls after fixing the jammed copier in the teacher workroom https://t.co/KlHj6O1OqG

— Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) December 8, 2025

I’m adding this post to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT PROJECT ZERO’S THINKING ROUTINES:

Think-Pair-Share is from DistillED.

The Robertson Program for Inquiry-based Teaching in Mathematics and Science “is a small, donor-funded organization committed to advancing equitable access to high-quality math and science education. We aim to make research-based, classroom-ready content freely available to all teachers and students.”