Our contributors lead reading workshops in classrooms with creative flair. Over the past 12 years, we've filled our site with loads of suggestions, tools, and tips for using engaging books throughout the curriculum to hook kids on reading. Here is where you will find many stories of successful and not-so-successful workshop days, and what we learned from them. We bring these stories to life through hundreds of video examples.
Mandy Robek thoughtfully connects a field trip to multiple literacy experiences in her second-grade classroom. If you’re looking to leverage the field trip experience for reading and writing, you’ll love Mandy’s process.
Bitsy Parks shares the joy you can expect from the classroom library.
Josie Stewart and Hannah Tills push against the adage that “early readers are focused solely on learning to decode, while later readers are making meaning.” Instead they remind us of the beautiful way all readers are meaning makers.
Gretchen Schroeder creatively leads her students in chronicling key scenes from a novel so they can evaluate which ones are important and use it as a reference throughout their discussions.
Inspired by the 17th-century popularity of literary salons, Gretchen Schroeder changed the usual book club routine for her high school students. Literary salons allow people to explore big topics and ideas together without reading the same book. They can create engaging discussions, expose students to new ideas and books, and give them the chance to learn from one another in a relaxed way.
“Pick one!” These are the words that begin to grow a community of readers. When students say, “I’m done,” Becca Burk points toward the classroom library and encourages them to pick a book and begin growing strong roots as a reader.
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.
Becca Burk tackles the issues associated with distraction when it comes to helping students engage with a book rather than a device.
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.
Lisa Mazinas offers tips for building fluency in elementary readers.
Leigh Anne Eck tackles fluency strategies with her middle school readers.
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.
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.
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.
Becca Burk reminds us of the importance of building a reading identity within all students so they can become stronger readers.
Cathy Mere reminds us of the complexities of teaching readers, especially those who are in intervention. She shares the “rules” she’s put in place for herself when a rough patch is hit and little growth is gained.
When Leigh Anne Eck noticed her students’ reading practices weren’t as robust as she expected, she realized she was the one who had drifted away from key instructional practices. Leigh Anne offers several ways to support students in their independent reading lives.
Matt Renwick defines three archetypes of personalities he has observed who have incomplete understandings about the science of reading. Matt offers approaches to each person, and notes that no one person neatly fits into a simple archetype.
Dana Murphy reminds us that having a teaching toolbox makes planning efficient and effective. In this second installment of a two-part series, Dana offers two additional approaches to delivering strong reading instruction.
Dana Murphy names two practices that made a big difference in her work as a reading specialist. You may be surprised at the simplicity and smallness that led to powerful gains in her readers.
Every now and then we make the classic teaching mistake: assign rather than teach. Dana Murphy curated her favorite teaching tools that help her stay inspired to continually teach students. This is part one of a two-part series.
Gretchen Schroeder questions whether the protagonist’s gender influences her students’ engagement with a text. Using the dystopian novel Legend, which has two protagonists of different genders, Gretchen gathered feedback from her students. What she discovered was that a reader’s engagement with a text has more to do with empathy than with gender. You’ll love Gretchen’s new way of selecting whole-class texts for her students.
Stella Villalba guides us to expand the counter-narrative texts we use in our classrooms. Counter-narrative texts challenge the stereotypes often seen about a group of people, and they celebrate the joy and resilience of a community. Stella provides a list of critical questions that allow us to deeply explore texts, as well as suggestions of books to read.
Gretchen Schroeder shares a powerful approach to reading response to help students consider their positionality in a scene. Your identity, your thoughts, and your experiences influence the way that you relate to a text. This is your positionality as a reader, and it’s important to consider your positionality within a text because it explains how and why we come to certain conclusions as we read.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills outline the steps to involve students in defining how to progress as readers and then set goals. They offer a practical plan for empowering students to take ownership of their learning.
Dana Murphy encourages us to go beyond teaching students to recognize different genres by helping them establish expectations of genres so they’ll be ready to read.
Jen Vincent outlines a twist on book talks—the Emoji Book Talks. This is a fast and fun way for students to share books and build their Books to Read lists.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share ways to establish middle school reading routines. They share two downloads to help support reading routines in all classrooms.
Are you ready to ditch small-group instruction because it seems too difficult for students to work independently? Lisa Mazinas compiled a helpful chart to problem solve common classroom issues and support student independence.
Jen Vincent scaffolds conversations to help students discuss their independent reading books in small groups…even when everyone is reading a different book! Download and print a copy of the guide to support students in their small-group conversations.
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