3rd
Latest Content
I’m an Everything Person!
Bitsy Parks writes about the connection between identity and engagement, offering small steps to help all students believe in themselves as learners.
Unleashing Writers
Mandy Robek chronicles the way choice and independence allowed students to have more energy and joy while writing.
Reframing Writers
Julie Johnson encourages educators to take a more in-depth view when assessing student writers. Checklists don’t necessarily grow writers, but focusing on what students are doing well and nudging them forward will.
Navigating the Election Season Booklist
Mandy Robek shares a booklist inspired to give students background about U.S. presidential elections.
Patterns of Prompting
We spend our days prompting whole groups, small groups, and individual learners. We’ve all been in situations where we may not have known what to say. Melissa Quimby offers advice on how to be educators who use language brimming with curiosity and encouragement.
Vertical Whiteboards
Tammy Mulligan shares how vertical whiteboards are a powerful tool to support collaboration and make student thinking visible.
Indoor Walks
Gigi McAlister discovered that using indoor walks is a way to help students engage in their learning and strengthen their learning community through conversations.
Reclaiming Space: Weeding to Grow a Healthy Library
Books, like gardens, need to be tended to regularly for the whole library to thrive. Gigi McAllister gives tips for anyone in the weeding process for their school or classroom library.
You Know How to Show Them
Becca Burk tackles the issues associated with distraction when it comes to helping students engage with a book rather than a device.
I Don’t Hate Graphic Organizers
Vivian Chen challenges us to replace an overly prescriptive handout that dictates the contents of a paragraph or essay with more open-ended organizers and exemplars to help students plan and write with more independence.
Bit by Bit: Lifting the Level of Storytelling
Melissa Quimby shifts the way she helps students approach narrative writing by focusing on the conflict and encouraging students to unfold it bit by bit. This small shift lifts the level of the stories students write—you can try it, too!
Morning Hike
Gwen Blumberg helps us consider and create space for a variety of personalities and learning needs. Inspired by a morning hike, she takes her observations and applies them to give space for all students to learn.
Responding to Dysregulated Behaviors: A Symptom of What?
When a new student spirals into anxiety and becomes aggressive, Becca Burk finds herself with a dislocated knee and advocating for the student to return to the classroom. This is the second installment of a four-part series chronicling the responses when a student with dysregulated behaviors joins Becca Burk’s kindergarten class mid-year.
Let’s Begin
Gwen Blumberg reflects on the community developed at a writing retreat and encourages teachers to consider the community of learners they will intentionally nourish this school year.
Do I Belong?
Tammy Mulligan considers ways to help students feel and know that they belong in the classroom community. The more we broaden our knowledge of others, and discover more about who we are and what we care about, the more our sense of belonging can grow.
Revisiting: Getting to Know My Students
Mandy Robek decided that despite the increasing pressures and time-consuming expectations, she will nourish healthy relationships with students. Here are some tried-and-true practices that she wants to maintain.
Fostering Reading Lives in the Library
Gigi McAllister fosters engaged reading lives through goal-setting in the library. She shares ways we can encourage all readers to have robust reading lives.
Story Walks
Christy Rush-Levine invites students into a story walk. While many of our school activities require students to sit still and be quiet, story walks with wordless books are a simple way to invite students to move and talk, with powerful outcomes.
Tips for Interactive Word Study
Lisa Mazinas offers tips for building fluency in elementary readers.
Eight Tips to Make Virtual Learning Equitable and Accessible for All Students
Lisa Mazinas reminds us of ways to make virtual learning equitable and accessible.
Responding to Appeals for Help
Dana Murphy outlines three options to respond to a student who is stuck when reading and looking to the teacher for the answer. By being mindful when students appeal for help, we can make intentional, on-the-spot decisions to empower students to become better readers.
An Invitation to Elevate Readers’ Thinking Through Conversation
Melissa Quimby offers structures to help elevate readers’ thinking through book club conversations. You’ll love putting these practical ideas into play in your own classroom—and be awed by the depth of your readers’ understandings.
Teaching Students to Self-Monitor
Dana Murphy explicitly teaches students how to self-monitor through modeling and using an anchor chart that clearly defines each step.
Fostering a Love of Reading in All Students
Lisa Mazinas reminds us of the importance of fostering a love of reading in all students. She offers specific ways to reconnect students with the enjoyment of reading.
Let’s Do It Again, Together
Heather Fisher revisits a whole-school vocabulary routine that she set in motion. In this update, she shares the ways she adjusted to work together as a team rather than fly solo. This might be just the school-wide vocabulary routine you’ve been craving.
Informational Poetry
Hannah Tills and Josie Stewart teach students to write informational poetry. They remind us that poetry can serve as a mentor text in many units and does not have to be siloed in its own unit.
Writing About Reading
Mandy Robek is on a quest to make writing about reading feel natural with her elementary students. She shares practical ways to help students change the way they approach writing about reading to lift the level of comprehension and conversation.
Step Into Poetry: Building a Poetry-Conscious Classroom
Joanne Emery has curated a fabulous list of resources and ideas to build a poetry-conscious classroom community.
Reclaiming Our Time
Vivian Chen gives four steps to adjusting a lesson from the teacher’s guide to reclaim your time and make the lesson more meaningful and engaging to students.
Increasing Engagement During Online Practice Opportunities
Mallory Messenger is intentional about monitoring and supporting cognitive engagement while students use online practice tools. Use her tips so your students are engaged too!
Browse Content By
Type
Category
- Assessment Tools
- Big Fresh Archives
- Booklists
- Choice Numeracy
- Classroom Design
- Common Core
- Community Building
- Conferring
- Content Literacy
- Digital Literacy
- English Language Learners
- Equity
- Family Relations
- Free Samples
- Guiding Groups
- Leadership
- Literacy Coaches
- Mentor Texts
- Minilessons
- New Teacher Mentors
- Podcasts
- Poetry
- Quote Collections
- Reading Strategies
- Self Care
- Struggling and Striving Learners
- Talking and Listening
- Teacher Study Groups
- Teaching Reading
- Teaching Writing
- Word Study and Vocabulary
Author
- Melissa Quimby
- Nawal Qarooni
- Gwen Blumberg
- Julie Cox
- The Lead Learners
- Ruth Metcalfe
- Mallory Messenger
- Becca Burk
- Jodie Bailey
- Vivian Chen
- Mary Brower
- Stephanie Affinito
- Ruth Ayres
- Leigh Anne Eck
- Heather Fisher
- Shari Frost
- Julie Johnson
- Suzy Kaback
- Gigi McAllister
- Shirl McPhillips
- Melanie Meehan
- Cathy Mere
- Debbie Miller
- Tara Barnett and Kate Mills
- Tammy Mulligan
- Dana Murphy
- Bitsy Parks
- David Pittman
- Brenda Power
- Heather Rader
- Matt Renwick
- Mandy Robek
- Christy Rush-Levine
- Gretchen Schroeder
- Jen Schwanke
- Brian Sepe
- Katherine Sokolowski
- Stella Villalba
- Jennifer Vincent
Grade Level
Choice Literacy Membership
Articles
Get full access to all Choice Literacy article content
Videos
Get full access to all Choice Literacy video content
Courses
Access Choice Literacy course curriculum and training
