Jenna Hucka

Wife, Mom of 2, Christian, Norwex Leader, Literacy, Ovarian Cancer Advocate, Criminal Justice Reform

[Iowa Reading Research Center @IAReading]

Learning the alphabet is not just about learning the names and shapes of letters. It’s also important for children to learn letter-sounds! To access free resources to support children’s early literacy skills, visit the Spark Early Literacy Hub: https://t.co/TQhI6jdFxQ

[Jenna Hucka @JennaHucka]

@Hassel_Chris Devastating

[SportsCenter @SportsCenter]

THE HAWKEYES ARE ELITE EIGHT BOUND‼️

Iowa is the lowest-seeded Big Ten team to reach the Elite Eight since seeding began in 1979.

[ESPN @espn]

THE HAWKEYES KEEP DANCIN' 🔥

Iowa knocks off a familiar foe to advance to its first Elite Eight since 1987 😮

[beanie0597_2.0 @0Beanie05923291]

“Teachers are the best people to design and decide curriculum.”

While that may sometimes be true, the vast majority of teachers in America were trained in colleges of education like mine that never once broached the topic of cognitive overload. Most trained us in teaching methods that “felt good“ but lacked serious research to support their effectiveness. These programs all but dismissed the importance of phonics, spelling, and explicit vocabulary instruction. They never mention the words retrieval or long-term memory, while encouraging us to be “guides on the side”, facilitating learning rather than content experts providing clear instruction.

So, while some teachers have taken it upon themselves to delve into the research and discover what cognitive science says about how students learn and apply that when teaching in their classrooms, the majority of teachers are still unaware.

Yes, classroom teachers spend the most time with their students, but that alone does not qualify them to design or decide the curriculum their students are taught. That’s an uncomfortable truth that needs to be said.

[ESPN @espn]

IOWA ELIMINATES THE DEFENDING CHAMPION GATORS 😱

The Hawkeyes are heading to their first Sweet 16 since 1999‼️

[NCAA March Madness @MarchMadnessMBB]

ARE. YOU. JOKING.

IOWA LEADS. THIS IS MARCH. #MarchMadness

[Jan Jensen @goiowa]

Let's Goooooooooooo, @IowaHoops!! That win was certainly "Sweet"😎 Congrats, fellas!! Keep it rollin'👊🏻

[Emily Paschall @EmilyAPaschall]

Too many times, I’ve come across the misconception that when a student receives Tier 3 intervention, they no longer need Tier 1 and/or Tier 2.

That it replaces instruction.

It doesn’t.

Tier 3 is layered on top of strong instruction, not a replacement for it.

Because the goal isn’t to pull students out of learning…
it’s to give them more access to it.

And when we get that wrong,
we don’t just miss the mark,
we limit the very growth we’re trying to create.

[Jan Jensen @goiowa]

Ya know, I’m not sure how much sway I have, but please let your bosses, teachers, & professors know that I need ya in Carver on Monday at 1 p.m. Sound good?!!!😎See ya there!!!👊🏻

[Knowledge Matters @KnowledgeMatrs]

“Before CKLA, we were just looking at the standards and trying to piece things together.”

Kindergarten teacher Kelsey Dill describing the difference a coherent, knowledge-building curriculum makes for teachers and students.

#KnowledgeMatters #HistoryMatters #SchoolTour

[Jenna Hucka @JennaHucka]

@JoelOsborn_BC @aosborn_NW How awesome!!

[The Principal’s Office @educator4ever36]

Parents - send this to your school board members and Superintendent and ask them the timeline of officially considering this data. This is free to do and takes 15 minutes too to email. Let’s inundate our districts with demands for responses.

[Joe Finch, M.S. Ed. @MrJFinch]

The first read is for decoding.

The second read is for fluency.

The third read is where comprehension really starts to emerge.

Repeated reading isn’t busy work.

It’s how readers build automaticity.

[Justin Browning @SorforMore]

This is something we must examine. Are our systems sustainable?

This is why I guide schools AWAY from creating their own curriculum. It’s not sustainable.

“For a time, this can look like institutional excellence, but often it masks institutional strain: schools that depend on brilliance or burnout eventually run out of both.”

[Karen Vaites @karenvaites]

.@mattyglesias shouts out the importance of curriculum to the Southern Surge. AMEN.

And @CurriculumIP + @oliviajune82 get a shout out, too. ❤️🙏

“For example, one factor that has gotten a lot of attention recently, and that I believe is a dominant factor in explaining why Mississippi and Louisiana in particular have started doing so well, is curriculum.

A restaurant can buy quality ingredients and hire decent cooks and have everyone work hard, and the food is still going to be bad if the chef’s recipes are no good.

But even when you get high-level agreement on something like curriculum, you can run into implementation problems. When I spoke recently with two people who worked in state government in Louisiana on setting up the current curriculum framework (which has had good results), they told me that a lot of their teachers had been taught in education school that the concept of centralized curriculum was bad. So, even with a strong curriculum in place at the state level, it still took work to get to a broad agreement to actually teach the curriculum.”

[Carl Hendrick @C_Hendrick]

When students can’t find the "main idea", the problem is almost never a missing strategy.

[Samantha Lippert @SamanthaBrauns2]

If I can get two students to 112 words per minute in eight weeks, my class reaches 100% on ORF grade-level benchmark. Professional learning should change what happens in the classroom.
Data → action → growth.

https://t.co/mxpbxOF903

@thismomloves @sstollar6

[Camus @newstart_2024]

Dr. Becky Kennedy shares a powerful parenting win: Her son storms in pre-school: "You promised you'd wash my sweatshirt—it's still dirty!" (Spoiler: He never asked.)

The old urge? Defend: "You never asked! Stop lying!" But she chose the sophisticated move: Do nothing on the outside. Deep breath, empathetic look, sigh, then: "You really wanted it clean... Oh man, that's the worst."

He vented, felt seen, grabbed another sweatshirt, moved on. No argument, no proof needed, no ruined morning.

Her insight: "Doing nothing" in heated moments isn't passive—it's adult-level regulation inside while staying steady outside. Kids often blame us because their big feelings are overwhelming; validation de-escalates without fixing or fighting.

"I don't have to prove my parenting in one moment." Trust yourself—freedom to be effective.

Gold for any parent dealing with blame/upsets. This clip is pure wisdom.

[Parody Chandler Bing @ChandlerBing_12]

In honor of it being New Year's eve,

Here's a video of The Routine