We are expanding our Summer Institute into several institutes across the country. The first will be in Garland, TX (near Dallas) on October 23, 2009. The second will be in Richmond, VA on April 15-17, 2010. Click here for Information and Registration. Let us know if you'd be interested in coming to a Debbie Diller Institute in a major city near you.

I am now blogging and on Facebook. You can join me in either format, the blog at www.debbiediller.wordpress.com or on a Facebook group at www.facebook.com/pages/Debbie-Diller/104914043602. The same information is posted both places and is updated several times each week. This has been lots of fun. Check it out and see where I've been traveling, what I've been seeing, and what teachers are up to around the country. I'd love you to leave comments to make this a really interactive venture. Thanks for joining me on "A Journey in Learning!"

This new video, "Think Small" has finally been released! It shows how to plan, teach, and reflect upon a variety of small group reading lessons and was filmed in kindergarten and first grade in two bilingual classrooms. What a joy to see these kids in action!

The newly reprinted Literacy Work Station Task Cards are finally here and are part of my Debbie Diller Design line at Really Good Stuff! Included are task cards for 8 different work stations written for emergent and fluent readers: Big Book, Buddy Reading, Classroom Library, Drama, Listening, Poetry, Word Study, and Writing. Each work station set of cards includes 7 meaningful, developmentally appropriate tasks for that level. Full-color illustrations add visual cues to ensure success. Each task is translated into Spanish on the reverse side. Includes 8 sets of 7 task cards plus 1 title card each, written for 2 different levels, and printed on laminated cardstock; hole-punched, with O-rings included. The task card sets are sold separately (emergent OR fluent levels) as well as in a complete set for emergent and fluent.
Click here to get the complete set

My products with Really Good Stuff www.reallygoodstuff.com in the Debbie Diller Designs line are expanding. This fall look for my Task Cards for Literacy Work Stations (at last). So many of you have emailed to ask when Beyond the Names Chart is coming out. Soon!!! It is in production. Also look for kits for teaching Letter ID and Rhyming in small group to be released probably in January 2010. And a great new Flexible Groups Reading Folder is in production as well. Let me know if there's a product you'd like me to develop for Really Good Stuff to make your teaching life easier. That's the purpose of what I'm designing for them.

I'm hard at work writing this new book. Let me know what you'd like to see in this book. I'd love to hear your ideas! Hopefully, the book will be in print in Summer or Fall 2010. And perhaps a video to follow....

As school begins, I have lots of new materials for you to use in your classroom! First, my newest book, Spaces & Places, has finally been published! It’s available now from Stenhouse Publishers and has everything you’ve asked me for—a spiral binding for ease of use, colored tabs to help you find what you need quickly (after all, it is a book on organizing for the classroom), and over 300 full-color photos! I hope it will be a resource and an inspiration to you as you set up your classroom for instruction at any time of year. Check out the chapter on “Arranging Your Classoom” posted for you to read at www.stenhouse.com.

Stenhouse is also launching a new Flickr site featuring Spaces & Places ideas. We invite you to visit us at http://www.flickr.com/groups/spaceandplaces/ and post photos of your classroom spaces. We’ll be able to view photos from many classrooms and use these to discuss each other’s classrooms. The site will use photos for points of discussion. I’m very excited about this new online capability, and I’ll check in to the site periodically to view photos and post comments!

Another new venture I’ve launched is a line of classroom materials for Really Good Stuff called Debbie Diller Designs. You’ll find a Work Stations Management Kit, complete with all your need to set up a management system for work stations. There’s a double-sided pocket chart (for literacy stations on one side and math stations on the other), full-color icons already made for you (and double-laminated for durability) to place in the pocket chart to help students know which stations to go to daily. There are blank nameplates on which you can place each student’s photo and name, and “Meet with Me” cards to show which groups you’ll meet with, too. Signs to label each station are also available, and everything is available in English and Spanish! There’s a kit for PreK-K, grades 1-2, and grades 3-6. I know you’ll love it!

Other materials in this line include a Classroom Mapping Kit for figuring out where to place all the furniture in your room. I got this idea after helping hundreds of teachers set up their rooms (without moving any furniture first!). It’s a laminated dry-erase folder with a planning grid and cling-on pieces representing your furniture that you can move around while planning for where instruction will take place. When teachers see this new tool, they exlaim, “It’s like Colorforms for teachers!”

I’ve had trouble finding quality big books for young children that are just the right size and design. So I designed a set of three big books (and matching little readers) of classic nursery rhymes (another thing I was having trouble finding). Each big book includes one nursery rhyme with one line of print per page, good spacing for emergent readers, and engaging illustrations that closely match the words on each page. There are also retelling pieces to go with each nursery rhyme. Choose from Hickory Dickory Dock, Little Miss Muffet, and One Two Buckle My Shoe.

A big THANK YOU to all of you who attended our 2nd Annual Summer Institute in Houston in July! We had so much fun learning together about literacy (and math) stations and differentiating in small group instruction. This year we met new friends from all over the world, including educators from Iceland, Canada, Germany, and China!

I have a new associate who’s just joined us at Debbie Diller & Associates. Meet Christe Cantu! We worked together when she was a beginning teacher in Houston. I was her literacy coach and taught her how to work with literacy stations and small group instruction. It’s a delight to now have her helping me with training in both literacy and math.

On a sad note, my dear father, Fred Royer, passed away in Pennsylvania on July 25 at age 79, after a courageous battle with bone cancer. I was so blessed to be at home with my family (we were all there) in PA the weekend he died. Dad was my first and best teacher (a cost accountant by trade), and I miss him terribly. When I was little, he told us bedtime stories every night, and he loved to read and write. He was an avid gardener (we ate home-grown produce from our backyard all year long), as am I. And he loved to be active—walking, golfing, hunting, fishing, biking, bowling, going to the gym—until he got too ill to do so. In my last conversation with him, he was doing deep-knee bends with my brother, though he told me they’d have laughed at him at the gym! He was trying to “keep up his strength,” he told me. My dad was a wonderful inspiration and mentor and was so proud of the work I got to do all over the country. A special thanks to all of you who were so understanding this summer as I dealt with this loss.

Looking forward to a great new school year in 2008-09. We are filming a new video series this November. I’ll be working with Maria Abertini-Diaz in a bilingual first grade classroom and Estella Perez in her bilingual kindergarten at Lawhon Elementary in Pearland ISD in the Houston area. I can’t wait! We’ll be videotaping small group lessons early in the school year. Look for this new video series in 2009.