Community Building
It's one of the big paradoxes of literacy instruction - students best learn how to read and write independently when they have a strong community of support in classrooms. How teachers build those thoughtful, kind, and challenging classroom communities is explained in these resources.
Latest Content
Are You Excited About Next Year?
Kelly Petrin finds a bare classroom at the end of the year leads her to improvise with stuffed animals and literacy with her preschool students. The mix of play and reading is so successful that it changes her planning for the fall.
Using Instagram to Sell Summer Reading Options
Tony Keefer taps into the Instagram craze among his students, and finds it is an ingenious tool for encouraging summer reading while kids are on vacation.
Grateful Journals
Beth Lawson began her own gratitude journal as a troubled teen, and finds that the daily routine of Grateful Journals is a powerful tool for reflection and building community in the intermediate grades.
Teacher Resume
Even if you have no plans to apply for a new job anytime soon, creating a resume can be a wonderful catalyst for defining who you are and what you value. It’s also a great document to share with parents and new students. Amanda Adrian explains its creative uses.
Conferring with Ben
Franki Sibberson confers with Ben, a fourth-grade writer trying to figure out the best audience for his writing when technology presents many options.
Staying Connected with Students All Summer Long
Cathy Mere explains how she uses technology to stay in touch with students and families over the summer.
The Cure for Senioritis? Poetry!
There may be a group of students somewhere less eager to learn than a class of high school seniors during the last weeks of school, but that group would be as tough to find as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. Gretchen Schroeder discovers a surprising cure for senioritis —modern poetry.
Conferring with Pierce
Franki Sibberson demonstrates how much ground can be covered in a three-minute conference with a student. She helps fourth grader Pierce think through the audience for his writing, how to add visuals to blog posts, and enlists him to teach others new skills as he acquires them.
Football Field Writing
Katherine Sokolowski adapts an idea from Jim Burke to get her fifth graders outdoors and envisioning their growth over the summer.
Madness, the Spring Slump, and High School Readers
Are your adolescent readers present in body but not necessarily in spirit by springtime? We've featured the "book madness" bracket activity in the past for elementary students. Gretchen Schroeder finds the ranking, competition, and passionate discussion about favorite books is just what her high school students need to get their heads back in the reading game.
The Lunch Lady and Gender in Reading
Franki Sibberson has her students read a blog post about books written for boys and girls, which begins a fascinating discussion with the class about gender in reading choices.
Slice of Life: Challenging Student Writers
Katherine Sokolowski brings the popular web “slice of life” challenge to her fifth-grade classroom.
Every Picture Tells a Story
Max Brand describes how he uses images to build reading and writing skills among his kindergartners.
Family Literacy Night
Family Literacy Nights have become popular in many schools. Principal Jennifer Schwanke describes the format for a successful event, including a sample program and tips.
Tips for Effective Family Communication from “The Mouse”
Jennifer Vincent details strategies and shares survey templates she uses in reaching out to families.
Hindsight: What I Wish I’d Known Before My School Burned Down
Melanie Quinn shares lessons from the fire that burned down her school.
March Book Madness
Basketball’s March Madness has many possibilities in schools. Tony Keefer tries a similar format with brackets and voting for March Book Madness.
Science Challenge
Franki Sibberson’s fourth-grade students share results from the weekly science challenge.
Getting More from Wonderopolis
Franki Sibberson uses Wonderopolis with her 4th grade students, helping them learn to research and dig more deeply at the site.
Supporting the Transition to Middle School: An Elementary Teacher’s Perspective
Maria Caplin shares how and why she began to collaborate with Gretchen Taylor, a sixth-grade teacher who would soon be the middle school teacher for some of her students.
What Information Is Good Information? Smooth and Effective Transitions to Middle School
Gretchen Taylor explains her role in observing Maria’s fifth-grade classroom, and then building a relationship with students and their families.
Kindergarten Moments Count: Question of the Day
Keri Archer makes the most of the time her kindergarten students spend transitioning into her classroom with her Question of the Day.
Goldilocks and the Three Bears: Reading and Community in Kindergarten
Mandy Robek leads her kindergartners in a shared reading and performance of the classic tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
The Truth About Building a Writing Community in Middle School
Building a sense of community is complicated in middle school classrooms. Katie Baydo-Reed considers her eighth graders, and is surprised at what endures most with these young teens.
Building a Reading Community with Edmodo
Katherine Sokolowski discovers Edmodo is a wonderful tech tool for helping her fifth graders become more independent and supportive of everyone’s reading choices.
Supporting Introverts in a First-Grade Classroom
Courtney Pawol looks at how being an introvert affects her role in learning communities, and then moves from insight to practical changes to help the introverts in her first-grade classroom.
Make a Note
Why is Leslie Woodhouse so forgetful? It’s all part of a not-so-devious plot to teach her preschool students the power of creating and leaving notes throughout the classroom.
Linking Movement, Minds, and Literacy in Kindergarten
Max Brand explains how movement activities in classrooms with young learners can be so much more than a brain break or “getting the wiggles out”: movement can forge potent connections between mind, body, and story. The essay includes two video examples.
Movement with First Graders
Katie DiCesare leads her first-grade students through movements and a song, and explains in the debrief why movement activities are valuable for young learners.
My Name Is Not Julie
Ellie Gilbert is deeply moved when her high school student connects to a text in a startling way. It’s one of those magic moments that keeps teachers coming back to classrooms, but is nearly impossible to share with others.
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