Article Content Type: Video
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Noticing Interesting Words: Small-Group Vocabulary Lesson
In this five-minute video, Gail Boushey leads a short small-group lesson on vocabulary. In the debrief after the lesson, Gail talks with Joan Moser about vocabulary instruction and the importance...
Learning to Cross-Check: Conferring with Hailey
Joan Moser confers with five-year-old Hailey and helps her set a reading goal. Hailey reads a text, and Joan demonstrates how cross-checking can be a useful strategy for readers in...
Community Language Board: Building Vocabulary All Year Long
The "Community Language Board" is where the class shares interesting new words from read alouds, sight words, and alternatives to common words in writing. In this video tour, "The Sisters"...
Let’s Get Rid of “The Teacher Shrine”: Organizing Meeting Areas, Walls, and Materials
In this brief classroom tour, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser ("The Sisters") talk about problems with teacher desks, present how they separate and define different curricular learning areas.
Reorganizing the Classroom Library
In this time-lapse video, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser help Carrie, a second-year teacher, begin to organize her classroom library according to themes and traffic patterns in the classroom.
Webbing to Learn: A Writing Strategy to Chart Thinking with Young Learners
Teachers and teacher educators used to think that a web structure was too advanced for our youngest school learners, and reserved this work for more academically experienced students. A couple...
Numbering and Arranging Classroom Library Bins
In this video, "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) help experienced teacher Kelly create a numbering system for her classroom library. They talk together about strategies for teaching children...
Assessing Student Writing
The standards and testing movement almost made me lose sight of the "workshop" part of writing workshop. It's been hard to keep the energy, joy, and excitement of a thriving...
Revision Tools: Providing Options to Students
From old favorites like highlighters to new resources like kangaroo bags, this whole-class session with Franki Sibberson's grades 3-4 students highlights cool tools that will inspire learners to dive in...
Flexible Groups: Moving Beyond Levels to Assess Reading Needs
In the past, flexible groups really weren't that flexible in our classrooms, especially when we based the groups on students' reading levels. For years we said, "Yes, of course we...
Assessment and Curriculum Mapping
In this video from a new teacher study group for grades 3-5 teachers, Jennifer Allen demonstrates how teachers can use assessment data to develop instructional plans for individual students and...
Writing Workshop Share: Talking About Revision Tools
In this video of a discussion after writing workshop in Franki Sibberson's classroom, intermediate students share the tools they used in revision.
Teacher Study Group: Writing Focus
In this video of a teacher study group, Jennifer Allen leads a group of grades 3-5 teachers as they launch their monthly meeting in October. Jen follows her own guidelines...
The Literacy Coach Work Area: Arranging Materials in Cramped Spaces
Many literacy specialists and coaches find themselves in cramped work spaces when it comes to their desks, storage areas for materials, and meeting rooms for conferring with colleagues. In this...
Creating Anchor Charts with Sticky Note Responses from Young Readers
Learners who focus on comprehension strategies rely on different tools. One of the most popular is the three by three inch sticky note. High school teachers like Cris Tovani and...
Organizing Writing Groups
Many times I'll form a writing group based on what I'm noticing as I observe children in writer's workshop. They will tell me what they need in conferences, or I'll...
In the Zone: Conferring with a Young English Language Learner
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is a concept developed by the Russian language researcher Lev Vygotsky nearly a century ago. The theory simply stated is there is a learning...
Small Group Instruction: Inferring Focus
In this example of reading instruction with a small group, Gail Boushey of "The Sisters" leads a discussion of inference, using Peter Rabbit as a focus text. All of the...
Literacy Room for Teachers Tour
When Jennifer Allen became a literacy specialist ten years ago in Waterville, Maine, she inherited a dusty basement space, bare except for a large pile of ancient reading intervention materials...
Using Foam Boards in Writer’s Workshop
Foam boards are an inspiration that came from my friend Ann Marie Corgill. She shared this idea with me when she was working at the Manhattan New School in New...
Lighting Redesign from the Sisters
In this five-minute time-lapse video, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser redesign the lighting in their colleague Ahnsaly's literacy meeting area. In the process, they talk about the challenges of "black...
