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Coaching Out of Chaos: Helping New Teachers Establish Management Systems
One of my friends is a highly creative type with many big ideas. The other night he was talking about website design, and wondering aloud if he created a business...
Using Series Books to Model Comprehension and Anchor Thinking
During our series study, I read lots of picture books, and I am also reading many new early readers that have the feel of chapter books. In second grade, I...
Uncovering Reading Behaviors
It's "Reading Opportunity" time in Katie Doherty's sixth-grade classroom. As resident researcher, I'm still getting to know the kids, the routines, and the special culture of the school and classroom....
Daily Tidbits: Professional Development in Small Bites
With so many modes of communicating these days intended to make staying in touch easier, sometimes it becomes a burden and a challenge to keep up with them all. I...
Literacy Keepsakes to Carry Home at the End of the School Year
Last month we surveyed readers of our weekly newsletter The Big Fresh requesting suggestions for literacy activities for the final days of school. Hundreds of teachers wrote back. This week we...
Creating a Kindergarten Classroom Library
Overwhelming. This is the only word I could use for many months as I thought about the transition from my third grade to a kindergarten classroom library. The first step...
Who Rules?: Creating a Classroom Code of Conduct with Students
Each June I created a teacher report card for my students. Some of the most interesting feedback I got came from two continua that I asked students to place me...
Still Revising After 10 Years: Sorting Through Pitfalls of Study Groups
"You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. After giving many years' attention to these things, you know what to listen for. Some of...
Books and Activities from Around the World to Celebrate the Holiday Season
We're in the midst of the holiday season here in the United States. Often when I visit schools or teacher blogs, or get a peek at other classrooms this time...
Books to Celebrate Earth Day
As we think about celebrating Earth Day in our schools in April, we can expand the things that we can teach children by the books that we share. There are...
Getting Started with a Teacher Blog
My friends and colleagues Franki Sibberson and Mary Lee Hahn started a blog called A Year of Reading. I was fascinated by the idea of putting their ideas and thoughts "out...
Reflections on a Year of Read Alouds
Last summer at about this time, I started to gather books I loved and thought my fifth grade students would also enjoy. My goal was to make a list of...
Guiding Readers in Kindergarten: A Planning and Assessment Template
"Guided reading is a context in which a teacher supports each reader's development of effective strategies for processing novel texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty." In Guided Reading: Good First Teaching...
A District Film Festival: Giving Kids An Authentic Audience for Their Work
Last spring, students in the Parkway School District in Missouri attended their 2nd Annual Film Festival: "Lights. . .Camera. . .Parkway! Our World Through a Digital Lens." After receiving their...
Literacy Rights and Responsibilities
Something bad was happening. I looked around the room during reading workshop at my students who should have been eagerly gobbling up the pages of their choice books, and this...
Writing and Publishing Book Reviews with Middle School Students
If you've ever spent time with 8th graders, you'll find that they review everything. Whether it's today's lunch, their teachers' outfits, their new assignment, or the latest video game, the students...
A Congenial Parent Night
Parent Night . . . most classroom teachers schedule a meeting during the first few weeks of school. The task sounds straightforward -- welcome parents, introduce yourself, and explain all the...
Unexpected Gifts: Technology and Community in the First Days of School
The first week of school is exhilarating, exhausting, and full of surprises. My thoughts about school bounced me out of bed at 4:45 in the morning all week (not typical...
Injecting Writing into Everything: Bringing the Outside In
In her third-grade classroom, Debbie Davis-Reid and I were observing the students the first few days of writing workshop. Who starts quickly? Who adds to their authority* list? (from Ralph Fletcher's book: Writing...
Starting a Newbery Club with Students
The Newbery Award has long stood for excellence in children's literature. About five years ago we started reading potential nominees and trying to predict the winner before it was announced....
Teaching Blogging to Second Graders
Wikis, blogs, and social networking sites allow us to be creators and consumers of content -- two roles that even younger students are ready to begin understanding using the Internet....
