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.
Gretchen Schroeder confesses her fast-paced approach to sharing Macbeth with her high school students. Starting with the big picture of the story and then drilling down into specific scenes for skill practice not only accomplished the goals for the unit, but also freed up more time and space for other curriculum needs.
Dana Murphy shares ways to make reading intervention a high-interest time for students.
Tammy Mulligan guides teachers in a progression to help students identify tricky words, move deeper into word analysis, and develop inferential thinking. Included is a helpful progression chart to guide teachers in helping all students understand that readers encounter problems and can solve the tricky words.
Tammy Mulligan leads us through the process of giving primary students the reins for building and organizing the classroom library . . . and offers tips for navigating the tricky parts.
Bitsy Parks wanted to create an intentional read aloud routine that responded to student interests and needs as readers. She shares the way her responsive selection of books led to spontaneous (and powerful) text sets.
Mandy Robek reflects on the importance of knowing genres and empowering students to be part of the organization process of the classroom library.
Lisa Mazinas reminds us of the importance of independent reading and how to set it in motion.
Christy Rush-Levine guides us to make reading recommendations based on what students enjoy most about a book they recently read. Christy used to make recommendations based on the genre or topic, but she has learned to listen to students to discover the reason they loved a recent read and use this information for recommendations.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills remind us of the important opportunities offered during book shopping. Giving yourself permission to slow down and see the opportunities that the routines invite for collaboration and reflection will likely make it feel like you’re maximizing your minutes even more.
Cathy Mere shares ways reading specialists can help teachers get excited about striving readers’ growth by intentionally sharing progress and celebrations.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share three ways using The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad empowers and strengthens readers in all grades.
Dana Murphy leads us in a step-by-step process to take tried-and-true reading strategies to a more sophisticated level to support students as they grow in interpretation.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills step us through an intentional process to help students understand and interpret figurative language. Using Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds as a mentor text, Tara and Kate give students the skills and confidence to find deep meaning in texts. Download an Interpreting Figurative Language chart to support your students in learning to interpret figurative language.
Stephanie Affinito guides us to carefully curate text sets so that not only are they suited to students’ interests, but students are guided through the sequence of reading them. There’s no better way to launch students’ curiosity and reading motivation!
Tammy Mulligan leads us through a mini-unit of study designed to help young readers notice, explore, and understand literary language.
Ruth Metcalfe leverages pandemic adjustments into making the read aloud experience bigger and better for her students. The simple act of projecting the read aloud book leads to significant adjustments to meet the needs of young readers.
Stephanie Affinito curated a wise and useful guide to plan virtual literacy intervention. Useful resources are included for those who are teaching remotely or in person.
Melissa Quimby leads her students in rich thinking about life lessons and encourages them to treasure the wisdom from books.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share how to create and use learning progressions to support students in deepening their understanding of theme. Download a copy of a theme progression.
Dana Murphy guides us in listening and responding to students during strategy-building lessons to grow readers. In this example, she shows the complexity and nuances of direct instruction to build comprehension strategies.
Tammy Mulligan organizes her second graders to teach reading seminars to their peers. She outlines the steps to make this engaging practice a reality in any classroom.
Leigh Anne Eck encourages students to create their own reading challenges to stretch their reading identities. Download the challenge to share with your students.
Katherine Sokolowski shares the genre invitations she issues to students to help them grow as readers.
Bitsy Parks shares a Picture of the Week routine that builds real-life literacy skills, and documents and celebrates important moments throughout the school year.
Tara Barnett outlines ways to offer choices for students to show their understandings of a book’s theme. Download a choice board and rubric.
Melissa Quimby offers a creative and practical idea to get to know students’ reading identities.
Mandy Robek shares ways to reorganize and revamp your classroom library to energize students as readers.
Matt Renwick reflects on the importance of building students’ identities as readers and writers and the power of a daily status of the class. Download a template to put this routine in place in your own classroom.
Tara Barnett offers practical and engaging choices to students when reading a teacher-selected whole-class text. Download the reading choices survey and a sample pacing calendar to offer your students more choice during a whole-class read.
Christy Rush-Levine reminds us that text selection affects students. By shaping a unit of study to contain texts of varying formats and representing a wide variety of characters, students are empowered to develop their own ideas even while reading a whole-class text. Download a diverse text list to deepen a discussion of how family shapes identity.
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