Choice Lit Topic: Community Building
It’s one of the big paradoxes of literacy instruction – students best learn how to read and write independently when they have a strong community of support in classrooms. How teachers build those thoughtful, kind, and challenging classroom communities is explained in these resources.
Results
Weekend Headlines: Whole Class Share
In this final installment of a three-part video series, Katie Doherty and her sixth-grade students continue the Weekend Headlines activity. Each Monday, students listen to Katie share some of the...
Many Languages, Many Texts: Book Time in Preschool
In this brief video, Melissa Kolb explains "Book Time" in her preschool class. It's a time when many volunteers read books informally to small groups of children in their home...
January New Teacher Group Update: When Life Happens
It was noontime when I received a call from my daycare provider, Sandy. She told me that my daughter, Samantha was coughing a lot. I had an important meeting scheduled...
Tiger Teams: Mixed Age Student Groups
In this video, Karen Szymusiak (the principal at Glacier Ridge Elementary School in Dublin, Ohio) explains how "Tiger Teams" work. Tiger Teams are mixed age groups of K-5 students who...
We Are All Shamu: What Literacy Leaders Can Learn from Exotic Animal Trainers
In the education crowd I run with, training is a dirty word. We're literacy educators, and "training" brings to mind all the crazy operant conditioning programs from the 70s and...
The Other Buddy: How Partnership Programs Help Older Readers
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" shouted a well-groomed, confident-looking boy. "Sorry," muttered his assailant. The third graders were entering the classroom to read with their first-grade reading buddies. The "assailant"...
Opinion Exchange: A Workshop Activity for Study Groups
What do new teachers need to keep them going that difficult first year? In our first session with new teachers in October, our room was filled with the stories of...
Helping Young Readers Understand the Middle East: A Booklist of the Best Fiction Picture Books
I still remember the first time I read Day of Ahmed's Secret. I showed the book to colleagues and friends, telling them, "He looks just like my uncle Girgi! " or...
The “All About Us” Board: Linking Literacy and Community Building All Year Long
One activity that supports our community building and literacy development all year is the "All About Us" bulletin board. In preparation I divide my largest bulletin board into as many...
Opinion Exchange (E-GUIDE)
An "Opinion Exchange" is a wonderful activity for a study group session or faculty meeting to explore beliefs and build community around an area of interest. The activity also fosters...
The Read-Around: Raising Writers
The read-around is the classroom equivalent to quilt making or barn raising. It is the public space -- the zocolo or town square -- of my room. During our read-arounds,...
Mix It Up: Helping Young Writers Learn to Confer with Peers and Teachers
When writers put words to paper, they are writing to an imagined audience. The audience might be themselves at another point in time; it might be a specific friend; it...
Poetry Friday! Poetry Books That Are Fun to Read Aloud
Early in my career, I taught at a school that had doughnuts and coffee for teachers each Friday in the teachers' lounge. It was a great way to start our...
Family Dichos: Bringing the Language of Home into the Classroom
A friend and colleague, Espie dela Vega, mentioned a dicho that guided her and her family as she was growing up: En cada cabeza, el mundo. When someone acted differently, or in...
Creative Literacy Events for Families
If your program for families has been centered on a few tried-and-true events you rarely vary over the years, you might want to mix it up with a new event...
Inviting Students to Organize Books and Materials
Are you always looking for something in your classroom? Maybe it's that special pair of scissors, your attendance/grade book, or the long overdue library copy of Cynthia Rylant's The Journey: Stories...
Room for Beliefs: Linking Classroom Design and What We Value
Step outside your classroom door and look back in, as if for the first time. What do you see? Do you want to come back inside? Or do you want...
Letters from Home: Letting Families and Friends Teach Us
To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart. Phyllis Theroux We've found one of the most enjoyable ways to...
On Kidney Tables: Small Changes for Big Effects
Our staff is opening a new elementary school this fall, and we have been buried beneath the many decisions required to establish a new place for learning. When you start...
Honor Books: Helping Children and Families Build Bridges Between Home and School
The students I teach come from home environments of limited resources, but their years of family and life experiences are rich. Many of these families only recently immigrated to America,...
What’s Valued? Exploring Different Values in Evaluation (E-GUIDE)
This series of four activities is designed for use in workshops or mentoring sessions, with a goal of helping everyone ferret out their school community's history, beliefs, and goals in...
