Library
Choice Literacy Articles & Videos
The Choice Literacy library contains over 3,000 articles and 900 videos from 150+ contributors. Classic Classroom and Literacy Leadership subscribers have access to the entire library. Content is updated continuously, with five to six new features published each week.
Latest Content
Read Alouds for the First Day of School
Choice Literacy readers share their favorite read alouds for the start of the year.
Quick Take: Conferring with Young English Language Learners
In this short video, Ruth Shagoury gives advice to teachers conferring with young English language learners, explaining how other English language learners can be surprisingly helpful in conferences.
Linking Reading, Writing, and Getting to Know You Activities During the First Week of Middle School
Want to get your middle school students’ attention on the first day of school? Read a book about how to ruin it for them.
“To Teach is to Learn Twice”: Creating Professional Communities in Schools
What are the hallmarks of professional learning communities that work well in schools?
Pamphlets on Books (Part 2 of the Persuasive Pamphlets Series)
Erin Ocon finds pamphlets are a terrific format for teaching her middle-school students persuasive writing and summary skills. In this essay she explains how to use pamphlets for book recommendations. This is the second installment in a two-part series.
Coaching Beyond the Curriculum: Reframing Our Talk and Attitude Toward Difficult Students
What role should literacy coaches have in helping teachers manage unruly students? Melanie Quinn settles into a morning of poring over assessment data, only to have it interrupted by a child who has been disrupting his class. Her interactions with Darren and his teacher lead to strategies for helping colleagues take an inquiry stance with challenging children.
First Grade Guided Writing Group: Targeting Common Spelling Needs
In this video of a 1st grade guided writing group, Katie DiCesare works with children to address common issues with spelling and conventions. By grouping the students together, she is able to use her time well in addressing common needs among students.
What Velcro Can Do: Science, Literacy and Coaching Connections
No time for science? Don’t like messes? Heather Rader works with a teacher and helps her find a way to fit science neatly into her full teaching day.
Ways to Avoid Coaching Traps
There are many traps for new literacy coaches that are rarely discussed. Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan share the most common four they try to avoid.
Book Matchmaker: A Friendship Theme for Literature Circles
Franki Sibberson shares her top picks for literacy circles with a friendship theme. This is an excellent theme for building community any time of year.
Book Matchmaker: Short Vowel Practice with Older Students
In this installment of Book Matchmaker, Franki Sibberson tackles the tough question of how to find texts for students who need help with short vowels, but are too old to enjoy many primary texts.
Using Picture Books to Spice Up Vocabulary Instruction (BOOKLIST)
Picture books are a terrific tool for vocabulary instruction – students have so much fun reading them they are hardly aware of all the new words they are picking up. Franki Sibberson shares her top picks for spicing up vocabulary instruction in this booklist.
Helping Children Build Notetaking Skills
Whose job is it to teach notetaking skills? Heather Rader finds teachers often expect colleagues in previous or subsequent grades to teach these skills, as well as a lot of hesitancy about how best to instruct students. She presents a simple notetaking template and describes how she uses it to help students learn how to list important details with words and images.
“What Will You Do with This Mess?”: Helping Students Learn to Collaborate
Sometimes classroom disruptions are rooted in different learning and work styles among children. Andrea Smith finds her attempt to settle a dispute between students about project collaboration helps her face some truths about her own work style.
An Uncommon Place
A mulberry tree crashes during a blizzard, creating a surprisingly lovely mental space for Shirl McPhillips to craft her poem.
Preschool Book Browsing Time
This five-minute video from Kelly Petrin's preschool classroom shows the value of book browsing time. Kelly explains the skills children develop in language, book handling skills, and literacy independence during this time.
Great Little Books for Professional Book Clubs
What books are most likely to succeed in teacher study groups? Shari Frost shares her criteria for books teachers will embrace. . .and actually read with enthusiasm.
Primary Series Study
Katie DiCesare describes the primary series study unit she completes with her 1st and 2nd graders, combining reading, writing, and community building.
Drawing to Learn: Conferring with Kyle
In this conference with six-year-old Kyle, Ruth Shagoury listens to him explain the stories and meaning behind his drawings during writer's workshop. Kyle's first language is Vietnamese, though English is also spoken in the home.
Injecting Writing into Everything: Cover-up Stories
Cover-up stories involve removing illustrations to heighten awareness of other story elements. Heather Rader explains how the instructional technique works.
Reorganizing Books in the Reading Support Classroom
Katie DiCesare helps her mom, a reading support teacher, reorganize her materials to better serve students.
Family History Inquiry Project: Integrating Technology with Social Studies in First Grade
Julie Johnson explains how a family history inquiry project in her 1st grade classroom built technology, literacy, and research skills as students explored many cultures.
Now is Our Season
Shirl McPhillips so eloquently captures the spirit of the light and dark, hopeful and ambivalent, quiet and purposeful time after the holidays in this poem.
Digital Handouts: An Alternative to More Paper and Meetings
Jill Ostrow creates a flexible and practical online tool to support teachers of English language learners.
Making Connections as a Reader and a Scientist
Heather Rader finds that reading is at the heart of scientists’ work.
Seven Minutes of Listening
What can we learn by listening closely to children? Plenty — Andie Cunningham shares insights from seven minutes with a young English language learner.
A Community of Parents: Connecting via Email
Email is a terrific way to communicate with parents—Trish Prentice has practical tips for keeping it simple and saving time when using email.
Quick Take: Katie Doherty on Middle School Reading Workshop Choices
In this two-minute Quick Take video, Katie Doherty explains the choices students have in her sixth-grade reading workshop.
Preschool Morning Message
This five-minute video from Melissa Kolb's preschool classroom shows the value of morning message for teaching literacy skills. Melissa explains the skills children develop during this brief whole-class lesson and sharing time.
Calendaring a Literacy Coach
The joy and challenge of literacy coaching is creating a good structure for the day. Heather Rader has suggestions for short- and long-term planning on the coaching calendar.
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