Franki Sibberson
Franki Sibberson has worked for over 30 years as a teacher at different grade levels, school librarian, and literacy coach. Her writing and video work as a lead contributor for Choice Literacy keeps us updated on the latest and greatest books as well as practical “how-tos” on assessment, comprehension, word work, technology and more. Franki is the co-author of many books and videos on teaching reading in the intermediate grades, including Beyond Leveled Books, Still Learning to Read, Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop, and Digital Reading: What’s Essential in Grades 3-8. You can keep up with Franki on the popular blog she writes with Mary Lee Hahn, A Year of Reading. Franki is currently the president of NCTE.
Latest Content
Digital and Disney: Conferring with Ben
It would be easy to zip quickly through a writing conference about a vacation story, especially one about a trip to Disney. In this video, Franki Sibberson slows down with Ben to explore how he is meeting his goal of adding descriptive language to writing, using digital tools to assist.
A Minilesson on Minilessons
Franki Sibberson leads a minilesson in her fifth-grade classroom to help students design their own lessons. Students also assess what goes into a high-quality minilesson.
Small Group: Creativity
Franki Sibberson pulls together a group of fifth graders to explore writing mentors together.
Student-Led Minilesson: Annotating Reading with Sticky Notes
Students can claim who they are as readers and writers by designing and presenting minilessons to their peers. In this week’s video, fifth grader Reagan from Franki Sibberson’s classroom presents a lesson on annotating reading with sticky notes.
Thoughtful Read Aloud Structures
Franki Sibberson shares how she integrates student choice and collaboration into reading response during daily read alouds.
Writing Partner Feedback in Fifth Grade
Fifth-grade writers in Franki Sibberson’s classroom encourage each other and suggest revisions to their opinion writing drafts in partner teams.
Student-Led Minilessons in Fifth Grade
Franki Sibberson initiates student-led minilessons, and finds the process takes her literacy workshops to a new level of independence and energy.
Planning a Student-Led Minilesson
Franki Sibberson helps Lucas plan his minilesson for his fifth-grade classmates on how to connect words and facts from two different sources.
Student-Led Minilesson: Connecting Facts from Different Sources
Lucas leads a minilesson in Franki Sibberson’s fifth-grade class on connecting facts from different sources.
Annotating While Reading
Franki Sibberson finds teaching students to annotate while reading is one of the best ways to promote ongoing reflective response in her fifth-grade classroom. She shares how she starts teaching annotation skills early in the year.
Keeping the Classroom Library Current
Franki Sibberson explains how she watches students closely and adjusts her library based on what she sees all year long.
Invitations vs. Accountability
It’s not an invitation if students are required to accept it. Franki Sibberson explains how engagement depends upon true choice and lots of options in her fifth-grade classroom.
Student Notes: Slow Down and Think
Fifth-grader Orion uses sticky notes to make questions and predictions at the end of each chapter.
Student Notes: Reading for Writing
Reagan, a fifth grader in Franki Sibberson's class, explains how she uses sticky notes to flag examples of writer's craft she could use in her own writing.
Student Notes: Reminders for Later
We continue our video series from Franki Sibberson's class of fifth graders explaining how they take notes while reading. Sarah marks important elements early in the mystery she is reading, so she can easily refer to them later.
Student Notes: Keeping Track of Many Characters
Tre uses lots of sticky notes to sort through and keep track of characters in a book with a whole classroom full of personalities.
Student Notes: Experimenting with Two Strategies
What do student notes from independent reading look like when students have free choice? In this video series, fifth graders from Franki Sibberson's class explain their notetaking strategies. We start with Ally, who tries out two different strategies to figure out which one will help her the most.
Leads Minilesson
This fifth-grade minilesson from Franki Sibberson is a lovely mix of mentor texts, Franki's own writing, and honesty about the writing process.
More Nonfiction Read Alouds
Franki Sibberson shares strategies for incorporating more nonfiction into read-aloud times throughout the day.
Planning for a Narrative Writing Unit of Study
Franki Sibberson believes planning a unit of study should be just as much fun as planning a trip to Disney World. She explains her planning process for one of her first units of study, on narrative writing.
The Benefits of #bookaday
Franki Sibberson finds the investment of five to seven minutes a day for #bookaday with her third graders is truly time well spent.
Teaching Students How to Give Revision Suggestions
Franki Sibberson shares a lesson progression to help students learn how to give helpful revision feedback. She uses online videos and resources to support her work.
The Craft of Blogging
Franki Sibberson uses a micro-progression of her own draft of a blog post to help her third graders improve their blogging skills.
Student-Led Conferences from Many Perspectives
Jennifer Schwanke and Franki Sibberson share four perspectives on student-led conferences — teacher, principal, student, and parent.
Bad Days in Workshops
Franki Sibberson realizes there are some bad days in literacy workshops that hold no great life lessons for teachers and students, and that is okay.
Embracing the Books My Students Love
Franki Sibberson explains why we need to move beyond our cherished definitions of quality when working with third graders in transition and embrace the books students love.
Nonfiction Books with More Than One Entry Point
Franki Sibberson shares some of her favorite nonfiction books with more than one entry point.
Beyond Explicit Instruction: What Do Struggling Readers Need?
Franki Sibberson explores the varied needs of young readers and writers.
More Than Dr. Seuss Hats: Why Events Matter
Franki Sibberson explains how scheduling big events can do important work in building the reading community.
Making Time for Individual Conferences
Franki Sibberson explains how longer conferences early in the year pay dividends all year long.
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