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
Preschool Centers
Centers can be an effective teaching and learning strategy in preschools. In this video, Melissa Kolb shares her rationale for using centers in her Head Start classroom with video examples of centers.
Sticky Notes to Determine Importance
In this conference from Beth Lawson’s third-grade classroom, the focus is on the skill of determining importance in texts. Beth helps Sephina integrate sticky notes into her strategic reading of the book The Blues Singers.
Inferring and Synthesis: Conferring Over Series Books
Beth Lawson shows how to get the most from a conference about series books in 3rd grade. Inferring and synthesis are discussed, as well as the use of written notes for making meaning from texts.
Beyond Harry Potter: Tapping Student Interest in Fantasy
Franki Sibberson taps into the fantasy craze among students with this booklist.
Planning for a Demonstration Lesson Part 1
In this first installment of a video series, Clare Landrigan takes a team of grades 3-5 teachers through the steps of planning for a demonstration lesson.
Guiding a Struggling Middle School Book Club
What do you do about those book clubs that just don’t jell in your middle school classroom? Katie Doherty demonstrates how she guides a struggling group of sixth graders, helping them reflect and converse together.
Planning for a Demonstration Lesson Part 2
In this second installment of a two-part video series, Clare Landrigan takes a team of grades 3-5 teachers through the steps of selecting a book for a demonstration lesson.
Main Ideas, Summaries, and Notes in a Reading Conference
In this conference with a fourth grader, Aimee Buckner tackles text choice, notes, and main ideas all in less than five minutes. You’ll notice teachers observing in the background; the conference is part of a demonstration lesson sequence.
Book Matchmaker: Teaching Theme in the Intermediate Grades
Students need strong mentor texts for understanding the concept of theme. Franki Sibberson shares many of her favorites in this Book Matchmaker.
Synthesis in Reading and the Reading Notebook
Beth Lawson helps one of her 3rd grade students write in response to a complex text he is reading, talking through how the writing might help him synthesize the plot of the story.
Conferring About Rereading Strategies
In this conference with a fourth grader, Aimee Buckner guides a child to think more deeply and critically about a book being read to the whole class, Goblins in the Castle.
Second-Grade Team Meeting: Helping Students Choose Books Independently
In this five-minute excerpt from a second-grade team meeting, Principal Karen Szymusiak sits in on a discussion about the challenges of helping young readers learn to pick appropriate books independently.
Guided Reading in Perspective
Cathy Mere puts guided reading in perspective, explaining how it works as one piece of the puzzle when it comes to fostering a lifelong love of reading in students.
Setting the Stage for Historical Fiction
In this demonstration lesson from a fifth-grade classroom, Aimee Buckner works with students to construct an anchor chart for understanding the genre of historical fiction.
Grades K-2 Fluency Lesson
In this video from a K-2 multiage classroom, Joan Moser and Gail Boushey ("The Sisters") present a fluency lesson to the whole class.
Conferring with Tweens: Nastia
Katie Doherty confers with Nastia, a 6th grade English language learner who is working on her inferring skills.
Grouping: Who? How Big? How Often?
In this first installment of a series on grouping, Heather Rader considers size, composition, and frequency.
Reading Conferences in 5th Grade
Karen Terlecky confers with her 5th graders during reading workshop.
Launching a Book Club in 4th Grade
In this video from Andrea Smith’s 4th grade classroom, students get organized for a small group author study of Andrew Clements.
Helping Young Readers Become Independent
Teachers speak often about the importance of helping students become independent, but what does that look like in practical terms? Katie DiCesare considers her interactions with Evan, an emergent reader, on the road to independence.
Book Matchmaker: Texts for an Advanced First Grader
Joan is a first-grade teacher who has one reader in mind – a student who is reading well above grade-level expectations. Franki Sibberson has many intriguing book suggestions to help her.
Frogs as Learning Ambassadors Part 2: Literary Nonfiction in 4th Grade
Andrea Smith explains how the classroom environment influences instruction in the second installment of this video series.
Book Matchmaker: Intermediate Read-Alouds
Franki Sibberson shares some of her favorite read-alouds for the intermediate grades.
Why Read? – A Question to End the School Year
“Why read?” This is the question asked every spring in Erin Ocon’s middle school classroom, and in the process of answering it, she and her students rediscover a lot of what they’ve learned together throughout the year.
The Sponge Summary Lesson Part 1
In this sequence of videos, Heather teaches a fourth-grade class, using the analogy of a sponge to explain how summaries work. In this first video excerpt, Heather reviews the work the class has already done on understanding the attributes of good summaries.
Book Matchmaker: Graphic Novels for a 6th Grader
Franki Sibberson has graphic novel suggestions for 6th grade girls.
The Sponge Summary Lesson Part 2
In this sequence of videos, Heather teaches a fourth-grade class, using the analogy of a sponge to explain how summaries work. In this second video, Heather presents the powerful analogy of a sponge for summarizing.
Book Matchmaker: 5th Grade English Language Learners
Robin Heist is an elementary teacher looking for books for her older English language learners who are reading below grade-level expectations.
How Do We Structure Small Groups? (Part 3 of the Grouping Series)
Heather Rader synthesizes recommendations and provides examples of how grouping structures work in classrooms.
The Sponge Summary Lesson Part 3
In this sequence of videos, Heather teaches a 4th grade class, using the analogy of a sponge to explain how summaries work. In this third video, Heather and students cull down a text into the important points needed for a summary.
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