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Publishing Routines Podcast
This week's topic is publishing routines. Each week Choice Literacy shares the Big Fresh newsletter with a round-up of features around a key topic in literacy education. You can find...
Coaching in a Time of Crisis
The other day I got online to see a post from an educational leader in which he shared 10 learning practices to avoid in remote teaching. The list was 10...
Author Studies Podcast
The focus of this week's Big Fresh is author studies. Get the Big Fresh delivered straight to your inbox (it's free)! Click here for ALL links discussed. Each week Choice...
They Don’t Know High-Frequency Words
The team gathers around the table with their stacks of writing, and teachers sort their stacks into three piles. The middle stack is the writing that seems to be right...
A Student Book of Awesome
What do working on trucks, potatoes, and Christmas morning have in common? They are all things deemed “awesome” by my students and are forever commemorated in the official “Second Period...
Small-Group Instruction: Bookmaking
Teacher: “I was thinking for today’s reading time, we could write a book together, and then I'll make a copy of the book for each of us and we can...
Flipping Negative Stressors
One summer, in a frigid conference room in suburban Florida, I stood in front of a room full of educators to discuss how to manage the stresses of being an...
Building Writer Relationships with Author Studies
“Could you announce that it is Dav Pilkey’s birthday today?” The second graders’ earnest request in my office was met with an “Of course!” from me. Pilkey’s birthday announcement was...
Book Series Joy
Years ago I was inspired by Katie DeCesare’s article "Primary Series Study" to introduce my first graders to book series. I used her article to guide this mini-unit of study...
Word Learning Podcast
The focus of this week's Big Fresh is word learning. Get the Big Fresh delivered straight to your inbox (it's free)! Each week Choice Literacy shares the Big Fresh newsletter...
Making Something Together: Shared Writing Online
Teaching emergent readers online brings a few new challenges. In the middle of listening to a student reading a book, I hear, “Wait, I’ll be right back.” Before I can...
Humor in Literacy Workshop Podcast
The focus of this week's Big Fresh is Humor in Literacy Workshop. Get the Big Fresh delivered to your inbox! You can find links to all content here. Free “Three...
Word Study Half-Day Professional Development
Word study is one part of the balanced literacy puzzle, and it takes a long time to go deep and wide in understanding. A lot of times we assess students...
Vocabulary Development in Writing
“You guys have a picture of a bunny in the grass. It looks like he’s moving. What is he doing?” The kindergartners looked at the picture for a few more...
It’s Not Wrong. It’s Almost Right.
As I was reflecting this summer about returning to the classroom, my mind wandered to spelling. I shunned the 20-word pretest on Monday with results mirrored on Friday’s “real” test,...
Creating Savory Professional Development
Ralph Fletcher shares in Joy Write, “Play in writing is not just a nice idea—it’s essential.” Amy Krouse Rosenthal imagined that the perfect fiction writer has a “penchant for collaboration...
Using Humor to Teach Language Standards
Upon first exposure, language standards don’t seem to offer many opportunities for play and laughter. Punctuation and conventions? Not terribly funny. Parts of speech? Important but pretty serious. But maybe...
Supporting Students as They Exit Intervention with Series Books
The end of our third reading intervention cycle was approaching. Giselle—a student who had been in intervention all three cycles this year, as well as the year before—showed enough growth...
Engaging Students with Humor
“This class is the reason that I come to school in the morning.” I asked Jessica to tell me more about that statement. “This class makes me feel like I...
Supporting Teachers in Planning an Interactive Read Aloud
Fourth- and fifth-grade teachers have a change in their schedule this year that allows them an additional 30 minutes of literacy time each day, separate from their reading and writing...
Read Alouds in Content Classes
“I’m not really into reading today. Can we just watch a video or something?” “Sure, Maddie, we can develop certain skills, as well as very good content knowledge and understanding,...
