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
Weekend Headlines: Whole Class Share
In this final installment of a three-part video series, Katie Doherty and her sixth-grade students continue the Weekend Headlines activity. In this installment, students share their writing with the whole class and respond.
Making Predictions and Finding Evidence in Text
In this video from a fifth-grade small group, Clare Landrigan talks with students about making predictions and finding evidence in text.
Many Languages, Many Texts: Book Time in Preschool
In this brief video, Melissa Kolb explains "Book Time" in her preschool class. It's a time when many volunteers read books informally to small groups of children in their home languages.
The Books We Can’t Live Without in Our Teaching: Resource Round-Up
Literacy experts share their well-loved and well-worn children's and professional books.
Old Elm Speaks Conclusion: Connecting Poetry, Observation, and Reading
In this second installment of a three-part video series, Aimee Buckner shows how observation skills, poetry, and reading instruction come together with the mentor text Old Elm Speaks by Kristin O'Connell George. In this final excerpt, students share what they wrote after browsing the book and completing some observations.
“If You Like Matt Christopher” Student Book Share
In this video from Franki Sibberson’s grades 3-4 classroom, boys share books that are similar to ones written by Matt Christopher.
Envisioning Writing: Wow Words and Mental Images in 1st Grade
In this minilesson, Katie DiCesare uses the book My Cat Copies Me to help her first-grade students “envision” their writing drafts. The lesson focuses on creating mental images to conjure stronger verbs and adjectives while writing.
First Grade Small Group: Chunking
In this small group from Courtney Tomfohr's first-grade classroom, students work on their "chunking" skills.
Conferring with Colin
In this reading conference with Colin, Joan Moser (of “The Sisters”) helps him set a goal of working on accuracy.
Open Book Clubs
Shari Frost shares the nuts and bolts of setting up open book clubs in your school. These clubs are a great way to expand the reading community, as well as connect school libraries and classrooms.
Demonstration Lesson: Inferring Character Traits
In this demonstration lesson from a 5th grade classroom, Clare Landrigan leads students through a reading and discussion of inference and character development.
What Are Reading Centers?
Kathy Collins gives a detailed definition of how reading centers are connected to the goals of different reading units of study.
Conferring About Character Traits
In this conference from a fifth-grade classroom, Clare Landrigan meets with a student to reinforce learning from a whole-class lesson on inferring and character traits.
Multicultural Picture Books for Young Children
These books do double duty – building community and understanding of the sounds of language.
Small Group After Demonstration Lesson
In this small group after a demonstration lesson in a 5th grade classroom, Clare Landrigan talks through strategies for inferring the meaning of new words while reading.
Giving New Readers a Diet of More Than Leveled Books
Franki Sibberson contemplates which diet plan she’ll try this month, and that leads her to think about what a steady “diet” of leveled books does for young readers.
Picking a Partner: Demonstration Lesson and Debrief
In this demonstration lesson from a K-2 classroom, Joan Moser leads students through guided practice in picking a partner.
Student Reading Interview: Assessing Ana Part 2
This is the second video in a two-part series. Principal Karen Szymusiak interviewed Ana, a second grader, to learn more about her strengths and needs as a reader. In this week’s installment, Karen will share her findings with Ana’s teacher.
Worth a Thousand Words: Teaching with Wordless Picture Books
Shari Frost and her literacy coaching colleagues explore together how wordless picture books can change the landscape of literacy teaching in K-6 classrooms throughout a school.
Where Have All the Picture Books Gone?
Franki Sibberson shares ways to foster continued enjoyment of picture books with intermediate readers, and highlights some texts with special appeal for older readers in this article which includes a booklist.
Preparing Students for Summer Reading
Franki Sibberson has some great suggestions for jumpstarting students’ summer reading. These ideas work if you are in the last week or two of school, or if you are just beginning a summer enrichment reading program with kids.
More Than Listening Centers: Using Audio Books in Literacy Instruction
Shari Frost sorts through the changing world of audio books, and their resurgence in popularity with smaller, cheaper, and trendier MP3 players. She shares some of the innovative ways literacy coaches and teachers in her network are using audio books.
Quick Take: Advice from Katie Doherty on Starting a Middle School Reading Workshop
In this one-minute quick take video, Katie Doherty has advice for middle school teachers who are thinking of launching a reading workshop in their classrooms.
Running and Reading Logs
In this first video in a two-part series, Clare Landrigan meets with a group of fourth graders to talk about reading logs and goals. In this excerpt, Clare uses the analogy of how runners use logs to chart progress and set goals.
Organizing Book Bins: Letting Kids Help and Plan
Katie DiCesare writes about how children can be enlisted to help in creating and organizing book bins in libraries. But in Katie's classroom, the process of matching books to children begins with "My Stack" – her pile of books that changes daily, linking individual children and texts of interest.
Running and Reading Logs Part II
In this second video in a two-part series, Clare Landrigan meets with a group of 4th graders to talk about reading logs and goals. In this excerpt, Clare confers with students over their logs and debriefs with their teacher.
Teacher/Principal Conferring: Reflecting on Readers’ Notebooks
In this conference, Principal Karen Szymusiak and 5th grade teacher Liz Cramer discuss the ways Liz uses readers’ notebooks in her classroom.
Staying Focused in Literacy Workshops
Clare Landrigan meets with a group of fifth graders to talk about what’s going well in literacy workshops, and to set individual goals.
Talking About Synthesis: Metaphors from 2nd Graders
In this remarkable discussion, Lauren Scott's second-grade students chat with their teacher and Principal Karen Szymusiak about metaphors for synthesis.
Writing Comics: Introducing the Activity
In this lesson from a fourth-grade classroom, Sarah Thibault introduces students to a writing activity. Students will be creating their own comic books, after extensive preparation and experience with mentor texts.
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