3rd
Latest Content
The Power of Video Replay
Heather Fisher explains how viewing excerpts from the same video multiple times can help students in book clubs hone their conversation and reflection skills.
Book Club Tools
Tammy Mulligan shares the importance of giving students choice and agency with book club tools to improve engagement and the quality of the conversations.
Moving from Interactive Read Alouds to Book Clubs
Tammy Mulligan shares how teachers can move seamlessly from thoughtful conversations during whole-class read alouds to lively book clubs.
Grand Conversations and Read Aloud
Are your conversations during read aloud stilted or shallow? Tammy Mulligan recommends weekly “grand conversations” to spark more thoughtful talk. She provides the tools you need to get started in your classroom.
Interactive Read Aloud and the Whole-Class Notebook
Tammy Mulligan enhances the quality of the class read aloud and student discussions with the use of a whole-class response notebook.
Young Learners and Self-Talk
Do you have young readers and writers in your class who constantly talk to themselves? Stella Villalba helps a teacher decode the value of this self-talk for first grader Kayla, using it as a springboard for more learning.
Using a Strategy Notebook in Small-Group Instruction
So many needs for groups, and so little time. Dana Murphy finds that a strategy notebook is invaluable as a teaching aid in her fifth-grade small groups.
Growing Talk About Reading
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills find that struggling readers in the early grades benefit from scaffolds and repeated practice in small groups. They share some of their favorite tools, including key ring prompts and anchor charts.
Talking Through Characters
Melanie Meehan shares activities that help students talk about their characters before writing about them in a realistic fiction unit.
Alternatives to Graphic Organizers
Dana Murphy is dismayed by the ways graphic organizers can sometimes limit student creativity. She uses writing notebooks and a few other strategies to begin to wean her fourth graders from depending too much on organizers.
Forming Groups Using a Planner
Dana Murphy explains how her small-group planner is an essential tool for organizing groups in her fourth-grade classroom.
Getting Started with Strategy Lessons
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills describe how they help teachers move from guided reading to strategy groups in the upper elementary grades.
Revising Dialogue in Narrative Writing
Melanie Meehan finds that a “lift the flap” strategy works for showing students different revision options with dialogue.
Grammar Games
Melanie Meehan shares two of her favorite games for teaching grammar, including templates and web resources.
Annotating While Reading
Franki Sibberson finds teaching students to annotate while reading is one of the best ways to promote ongoing reflective response in her fifth-grade classroom. She shares how she starts teaching annotation skills early in the year.
Keeping the Classroom Library Current
Franki Sibberson explains how she watches students closely and adjusts her library based on what she sees all year long.
Invitations vs. Accountability
It’s not an invitation if students are required to accept it. Franki Sibberson explains how engagement depends upon true choice and lots of options in her fifth-grade classroom.
Independent Project Hiccups
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills conclude their series on independent projects with advice on how to handle issues that often crop up as students design and work through writing their projects.
Reimagining Reading Logs
Reading logs have fallen out of favor in many classrooms because they often become a rote activity for recording pages read. Tara Barnett and Kate Mills find authenticity with the logs comes when they move from emphasizing recording to goals and reflection.
A Community Reads “Wonder”
Katherine Sokolowski had a dream — her whole community reading and celebrating the same book. She explains how she helped coordinate, organize, and purchase hundreds of books for a community-wide reading of Wonder.
One Text, Many Lessons
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share how one book can serve as an anchor for lessons on everything from writer’s craft to test-taking skills.
Fostering More Rereading in Classrooms
Stella Villalba explains why rereading is especially useful for young English language learners, and shares some simple strategies for integrating more rereading strategies into reading and writing workshops
Flexible Seating: Mid-Year Tweaks with Book Nooks
Have you revisited your classroom design since September? Andrea Smith and her fourth graders get over the midwinter blahs by refreshing classroom seating together.
Writing Empathy
Dana Murphy explains why teachers can have true empathy with student writers only if they write themselves, and chronicles the difference between a typical and an empathetic response in a writing conference.
Using Read Alouds to Build Fluency
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills find an ingenious way in the upper elementary grades to help their struggling readers develop fluency through read alouds.
Color-Symbol-Image: A Thinking Routine for Read Alouds
Andrea Smith uses the Color-Symbol-Image thinking routine during read alouds to promote deeper reflection among students.
Gradual Release of Responsibility in Small Groups
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills develop a process of pre-assessment, careful planning, and systematic recordkeeping to up the value of their small groups.
Building a Reflective Community
Andrea Smith builds reflection into whole-class discussions in her fourth-grade classroom by beginning an anchor chart with four different illustrations from the covers of a read-aloud.
Sentence Phrase Word: Student Independence for Word Learning
Andrea Smith uses the sentence-phrase-word thinking routine with her fourth graders to show how potent one word can be in understanding complex themes.
Sharing and Celebrating Summer Reading
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share how they use the first days and weeks of school to celebrate summer reading and build a classroom community.
Browse Content By
Type
Category
- Assessment Tools
- Big Fresh Archives
- Booklists
- Choice Numeracy
- Classroom Design
- Common Core
- Community Building
- Conferring
- Content Literacy
- Digital Literacy
- English Language Learners
- Equity
- Family Relations
- Free Samples
- Guiding Groups
- Leadership
- Literacy Coaches
- Mentor Texts
- Minilessons
- New Teacher Mentors
- Podcasts
- Poetry
- Quote Collections
- Reading Strategies
- Self Care
- Struggling and Striving Learners
- Talking and Listening
- Teacher Study Groups
- Teaching Reading
- Teaching Writing
- Word Study and Vocabulary
Author
- Melissa Quimby
- Nawal Qarooni
- Gwen Blumberg
- Julie Cox
- The Lead Learners
- Hannah Tills
- Josie Stewart
- Ruth Metcalfe
- Mallory Messenger
- Becca Burk
- Jodie Bailey
- Vivian Chen
- Mary Brower
- Tiffany Abbott Fuller
- Stephanie Affinito
- Ruth Ayres
- Leigh Anne Eck
- Heather Fisher
- Shari Frost
- Julie Johnson
- Suzy Kaback
- Gigi McAllister
- Shirl McPhillips
- Melanie Meehan
- Cathy Mere
- Debbie Miller
- Tara Barnett and Kate Mills
- Tammy Mulligan
- Dana Murphy
- Bitsy Parks
- David Pittman
- Brenda Power
- Heather Rader
- Matt Renwick
- Mandy Robek
- Christy Rush-Levine
- Gretchen Schroeder
- Jen Schwanke
- Brian Sepe
- Katherine Sokolowski
- Stella Villalba
- Jennifer Vincent
Grade Level
Choice Literacy Membership
Articles
Get full access to all Choice Literacy article content
Videos
Get full access to all Choice Literacy video content
Courses
Access Choice Literacy course curriculum and training
