You've probably seen the meme "I wish I could earn professional development points for Pinterest." Pinterest, a photo-sharing website, has become a popular site for teachers to collect images, or "pins," that help them plan, organize, and explore a variety of topics of interest from classroom decor to reading strategies.
As a reading specialist and instructional coach at an elementary school, I use research-based strategies when planning lessons with teachers. However, many times, teachers will share pins they have found on Pinterest. As an instructional coach, one challenge I have encountered is how to balance research-based instruction with attractive and eye-catching pins. I understand the visual benefits of Pinterest, but I also feel the urgency, especially when working with struggling readers, that reading instruction must meet the student's needs.
Over the past four years, I've spent hundreds of hours on Pinterest looking at pins and creating literacy boards, and I have learned that not all pins are equal when searching for effective literacy ideas to support instruction. When working with teachers, you can determine the effectiveness of a pin by asking the following questions:
- What is my learning target?
- How does this pin support the standard or learning target being taught?
- How does this pin help to differentiate instruction?
Not all pins are created equal. I look for pictures of real classrooms with ideas and research-based strategies being implemented. Because many pins are linked to classroom blogs, there are numerous pictures of resources in action. One of the teachers I work with explained to me that "Pinterest is a good way to share ideas that others may not have known about." Topic areas that yield numerous high-quality pins include the following:
- Anchor charts
- Reading comprehension strategies
- Mentor texts
Pinterest provides helpful visuals for teachers when they are creating anchor charts. Printing the pin and using it when creating anchor charts with students is very easy. Even if you are not artistic, you can find many examples of anchor charts that use graphics or brightly colored text to help students anchor their thinking.
Searching for research-based reading comprehension strategies that I'm already using in the classroom has yielded high-quality pins. For example, I use Jan Richardson's The Next Step in Guided Reading to organize lessons, and Pinterest features numerous pins with lesson plan layouts and prompts from this book. In addition, I've been able to find and download visual prompts for her method of teaching sight words.
Pinterest offers many resources when I'm trying to find children's literature that is connected to standards. From mentor texts in writing to mentor texts based on comprehension strategies, there is an abundance of ideas focused around children's literature. Standards that use mentor texts that have high-quality pins include the following:
- Making predictions
- Summarizing
- Determining cause and effect
- Theme
In addition, Pinterest has helped me find children's books for teaching phonemic awareness and phonics skills.
Pinterest is a popular forum for teachers to learn about new ideas and strategies for their classrooms. Remember, however, that although Pinterest can help enhance and support both standards being taught and research-based strategies, it does not replace good teaching.
Bridget Stegman is an instructional coach for the Topeka Public Schools in Kansas. Her teaching experience includes K–5 special education and literacy intervention.