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
Letters from Home: Letting Families and Friends Teach Us
Brenda Power and Ruth Shagoury use letters from home to learn about students and build community.
On Kidney Tables: Small Changes for Big Effects
When our environment aligns with our values, Karen Szymusiak considers what helps learners take charge of their experience in a successful learning community.
Honor Books: Helping Children and Families Build Bridges Between Home and School
What does Andie Cunningham gets when she mixes pictures from the classroom, messages from families and poetry from teachers? A wonderful recipe for an Honor Book you’ll want to try with your own students.
What’s Valued? Exploring Different Values in Evaluation (E-GUIDE)
Brenda Power shares a workshop series designed to help educators bring their values into closer alignment for a more cohesive experience for students.
We Are All Shamu: What Literacy Leaders Can Learn from Exotic Animal Trainers
If you've ever compared your classroom to a zoo, this article by Brenda Power is for you. You'll take animal trainer advice like "We change behavior in others by breaking routines in delightful ways" and follow it into the classroom.
Every Language Counts: Adding Multilingual Counting Activities to Morning Meeting
Every year kindergarten teacher Andie Cunningham has children who come from homes with many different first languages. She helps welcome these different languages and cultures into the classroom community by counting in different languages during the morning meeting.
Let’s Get Some Attitude
Shirl McPhillips recalls a junior high experience that promoted serious "attitude" and an uproar among her peers.
Boys’ Book Club in Second Grade
In this video from Linda Karamatic’s second-grade classroom, boys discuss the book Fudge using the protocol provided by Linda.
The Difference Between Conferring and “Touching Base”
Debbie Miller goes against the grain, advocating for “the luscious feeling of endless time” as we slow down to confer with children.
Whole Class Interviews: Building Community in Writing Workshop (TEMPLATE)
Interviews early in the year are a potent tool for building a class community.
Book Matchmaker: Read Alouds That Invite Young Readers to Participate
Franki Sibberson shares her latest suggestions for read alouds that invite participation from young readers.
Lifting the Quality of Peer Response
Tony Keefer discovers that his fourth-grade students need focused instruction and support to strengthen their peer conferring skills. Tony shares tips and two video examples from his classroom.
Connecting with Students at Home
Julie Johnson learns some important lessons about connecting with students remotely, and few of them are about technology.
Word Study Literacy Team Meeting
An elementary literacy team discusses word learning in the context of student assessment results as part of a yearlong inquiry into word study.
Teaching Summary
Christy Rush-Levine faces the challenge of helping her students see summary writing not as drudgery, but as a way to build more sophisticated thinking around texts.
Classroom Tours: Learning from Colleagues
Barbara Coleman finds classroom tours are a terrific professional development activity early in the year, fostering unexpected collaboration among colleagues.
In Praise of Handwritten Notes
Handwritten notes have timeless appeal, and great value for teachers and literacy leaders.
A Hand to Hold: Crying and Community in Preschool
Sometimes it takes a village to help a preschooler feel a part of the group, especially one who cries almost all the time. Kelly Petrin finds her young students have more empathy and resiliency than she imagined when she enlists their support.
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