Teaching Reading
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.
Latest Content
Appealing Book Displays for Boys
Are your book displays enticing to the boys in your classroom? Tony Keefer has suggestions for making classroom libraries more appealing.
Enhancing Read Aloud and Eliminating Notebook Clutter
Melissa Styger has some simple suggestions for streamlining and improving student-written responses to read alouds.
Interactive Read Alouds to Support Struggling Readers
Shari Frost explains how interactive read alouds are the “kickboards” of reading instruction, especially for struggling readers. She explains how one teacher used them to support a struggling reader in 3rd grade.
More Conferring and Fewer Groups in Kindergarten
Mandy Robek finds she needs fewer reading groups and more conferring with the emergent readers in her kindergarten class. She shares how she structures her brief time with students and a conferring form.
Helping Middle School Readers Set Goals
In the final installment of a two-part series, Gretchen Taylor explains how to help middle school readers set goals.
Field Experience: Craft Moves for Elementary Writers
This field experience invites us to consider a handful of craft moves to teach young writers in minilessons, conferences and share sessions.
Field Experience: Classroom Tours
Spend time noticing the details that reflect beliefs and influence instruction. Ruth Ayres set up room tours for a field experience focused on more than trendy spaces.
Field Experience: Small Group Reading Instruction
Small group reading instruction is an important part of elementary literacy. This field experience is a sampling of a variety of examples.
Field Experience: General Workshop Routines
This field experience invites us to consider the routines of opening the day, workshop norms, meeting areas and transitions to make workshop run smoothly.
Running and Middle School Reading Goals
Gretchen Taylor helps her middle school students analyze their needs as readers and set benchmarks for growth.
Engaging Boy Readers: Beginning with Teacher Behaviors
Tony Keefer considers some of those awkward early conferences with male readers in his classroom, and shares advice on how to get the year off to a comfortable start with minilesson and conferring suggestions.
Reaching Evan with Read Alouds in the Intermediate Grades
Karen Terlecky reflects on the power of read alouds in the intermediate grades for welcoming older students who struggle with reading into the “club” of kids who love books.
Never Say Never: Motivation to Read from an Unlikely Source
Knock knock. Who’s there? A boy who loves sports and has no motivation for reading. Barclay Marcell discovers an unlikely source of engaging text for a child who just doesn’t enjoy books.
Conferring for Engagement: First Steps
Aimee Buckner confers with a fourth grader who is learning how to choose books for independent reading. In this video, she gives advice in the first conference and then returns 10 minutes later for a follow-up meeting.
Conferring About Tracking Characters
In this video from a 4th grade classroom, Aimee Buckner confers with a student who is reading The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson.
One Book, One School: Building Community with Shared Text
"When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind." These words from the book Wonder set Katherine Sokolowski on the path of designing a shared reading experience at her school that will build community and empathy across the grades.
Partner Reading: Helping Peers Teach Peers
In this video from Linda Karamatic’s second-grade classroom, two girls meet with Linda to develop tips to share with their classmates on how to partner read successfully.
Summer Planning: Goals and the Finish Line
Teachers always have big plans at the start of summer for reading, reflection, and changing classroom practice. Katherine Sokolowski explains how she translates those plans into action as the summer winds down.
From Rages to Rags: Conferring with Conner
When to let a child guess, and when to give the correct answer in a reading conference? That's the struggle for 2nd grade teacher Sean Moore as he confers with Conner.
Rereading Strategy: Conferring with Emily
Sean Moore confers with 2nd grader Emily about the strategy of rereading for comprehending reading and writing.
Finding a Place for Graphic Novels in My Classroom
Katherine Sokolowski listens to her husband’s sage advice and develops a new relationship with graphic novels that disappear off her classroom shelves.
The Quest for the Perfect First Read Aloud of the Year
Franki Sibberson is on a quest to find the perfect first read aloud of the year, and the search helps her consider the goals and purpose of read alouds during the first days of school.
Focused Independent Reading in Second Grade
Sean Moore demonstrates how he helps students focus their independent reading with preparation and then with discussion after reading.
Rethinking My Nonfiction Library in Response to the Common Core
Franki Sibberson finds a new classroom, the Common Core, and tech considerations are changing the ways she organizes the nonfiction sections of her classroom library.
Lines Written at Lunchtime Above Tintern Abbey
Shirl McPhillips celebrates high summer, friendship, and handwritten notes in this poem and reflection.
Found Poetry in Second Grade
Linda Karamatic teaches a small group of her second graders about found poetry.
Making Thinking Visible
A class blog proves to be a surprisingly successful tool for building academic connections within and across classrooms of Gretchen Taylor’s middle school students.
Inferring Small Group in 5th Grade
Karen Terlecky meets with a small group in her 5th grade class to discuss the strategy of inferring.
Preschool Read Aloud
Melissa Kolb talks about the power of read alouds for preschoolers and shares an example from her classroom in this video.
Guiding Groups in Middle School: Reading Poetry
Katie Doherty works with a small group of sixth graders who need extra support as they read the poem “Aspects of Autumn.”
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