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Linking Morning Message, Poetry, and Word Learning
Second-grade teacher Linda Karamatic has been starting her morning with a message for years. The morning message is just one part of her daily opening that reinforces community.
Assessment Conferences: Listening to and Learning from Our Students
Research, decide, and teach – Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan use Lucy Calkins’ wise advice in assessment conferences with children.
Read Alouds for the Last Days of School
Choice Literacy readers share some of their favorite read alouds for the last days of school.
Literacy Keepsakes to Carry Home at the End of the School Year
Choice Literacy readers share their favorite gifts for students to make and take home at the end of the year.
More Literacy Keepsakes to Carry Home at the End of the School Year
Choice Literacy readers share more of their favorite end-of-year gifts for students to make and take home.
Beginning with the End in Mind: Planning Ahead for Closing Activities
Choice Literacy readers share their favorite end-of-year activities that circle back to events from the start of the school year.
Pencil Plans
The care and use of the lowly pencil in classrooms says a lot about what we value and our relationships with students.
Read Alouds for the First Day of School
Choice Literacy readers share their favorite read alouds for the start of the year.
Primary Series Study
Katie DiCesare describes the primary series study unit she completes with her 1st and 2nd graders, combining reading, writing, and community building.
Make it Personal
The connections we make with students and families are what we remember most when all is said and done. Trish Prentice has thoughts on what changes a respected teacher into a beloved teacher.
Injecting Writing into Everything: Prediction Stories
What happens between kindergarten and upper elementary grades to make students more hesitant about making predictions? Heather Rader has books and teaching suggestions for building prediction skills.
Book Matchmaker: Texts to Build Stamina
In this installment of Book Matchmaker, Franki Sibberson has suggestions for books to build reading stamina in students.
Parent Contributions Beyond Instructional Support
Parents want to contribute, but not all contributions are welcome or even helpful when it comes to teaching children how to read and write. Trish Prentice has suggestions for making the most of family skills and willingness to help.
Redesigning a Classroom: Putting Students First (and Technology in Its Place)
Mandy Robek faces the challenge of creating a warm and inviting classroom environment that still includes some cold, hard computers for student use.
Teaching Blogging to Second Graders
You’re never too young to blog, as Katie DiCesare demonstrates with her 2nd graders.
Making Connections as a Reader and a Scientist
Heather Rader finds that reading is at the heart of scientists’ work.
Quick Takes: Advice on Book Hogs
In this quick take video, Franki Sibberson gives advice for dealing with "book hogs" — those students who try to grab any new book when it appears in the classroom library.
Assessment Beyond Levels: The Reading Grid
Is there a great divide in your classroom between numerical data from assessments and your anecdotal notes? Cathy Mere bridges the gap with her class reading grid, a nifty tool for recording and analyzing a whole classroom’s worth of student assessment data on one page. A template is included.
Mentor Texts for Urban Students
What texts work best for students with urban backgrounds? Shari Frost has suggestions for teachers.
Books That Invite Thoughtful Conversation in Grades K-2
Nothing beats an engaging and fun text to spark conversations among young children. Here are some suggestions of terrific read-alouds to get the chatter started in classrooms.
Book Basket Idea: Cars and Trucks
Katie DiCesare remembers books that were fought over among the boys in her 1st grade classroom, and this leads to creating a new basket for the fall on cars and trucks. She shares a booklist of fun titles in the basket.
Challenging Advanced Young Readers: Harder Texts Aren’t Always the Answer
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan discuss the concept of “challenge” in considering what texts are the best fit for advanced young readers who might be able to decode any text but don’t yet have the experiences needed to tackle sophisticated concepts.
How Do We Talk with Parents About What It Means to Be Challenged in Reading?
Discussions with parents of precocious young readers can be tricky. Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan have some tips for these conferences.
Sarcasm Is a Useful Teaching Tool — NOT
How does sarcasm hurt students? Heather Rader counts the ways.
Getting and Giving Student Feedback
How can we help students be more reflective in our classrooms, giving us the feedback we need to make them better places for learning? Heather Rader has suggestions.
Books for Strategy Studies
Andie Cunningham has some thoughtful recommendations for books to use in strategy studies.
Countdown: Keeping Children at the Center of My Plans for the New Year
Cathy Mere reminds us that the excitement of facing new students is always tempered and enriched by the lessons from last year’s students that we carry with us.
Bilingual (English/Spanish) Books that Celebrate Language, Family and Culture
Stella Villalba shares her favorite bilingual (English/Spanish) books for helping young English language learners feel at home in new classrooms early in the year.
Accurate But Not Quite Fluent: Books for Second-Grade Readers in Transition
Many second-grade readers are in transition – they can decode almost any text and are eager to read chapter books. Yet many don't have the stamina for reading even very short chapter books on their own. Katie DiCesare presents a booklist of her top picks of new fiction and nonfiction books that might engage and challenge her second-grade students.
Understanding Students in Intervention Programs
Using data to make wise decisions about students who are struggling is one of the most important tasks in schools. In this series, Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan take you through the process of linking data to instruction plans in intervention programs.
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