Choice Lit Topic: Content Literacy
Reading and writing across the curriculum is sparking more interest than ever among teachers and school leaders. Here are the resources you need to build more writing into your math curriculum, more reading and talk into your science program, and especially, how to infuse more nonfiction texts into your teaching throughout the school day.
Results
Great Books to Share When Studying the Ecosystem (BOOKLIST)
This year, the district I work for purchased new science textbooks. A committee looked at the state standards, matched those with our district's target statements, and tried to make a...
A Sponge is a Summary
When I'm working with a concept that I know may be difficult to grasp, I like to hook kids' attention with a metaphor or an analogy. While doing the dishes,...
Great Nonfiction for Elementary Students
When I scan the nonfiction shelves of our school library, I notice the quality of nonfiction books for children is so much better than it was years ago. Looking at...
Our Living Minute: Integrating Nonfiction Study into Morning Meetings
Last summer, Samantha Bennett's text That Workshop Book: New Systems and Structures for Classrooms That Read, Write, and Think helped me reconsider my work as a classroom teacher striving each day...
Expedition Mondays: Launching the Week with Nonfiction
If you were to visit my classroom on any Monday morning, students would beg you to join us for Expedition Monday. What would this opportunity mean for you? ex·pe·di·tion NOUN: A...
Rethinking a Study of Nonfiction Writing
I have always done a study of nonfiction as part of our year in writing workshop. This study of nonfiction writing seems critical for students in the upper elementary grades,...
Teaching Economics with Children’s Literature
When I began teaching, I taught my first seven years at an alternative public school. A focus for our school was to use children's literature across the curriculum to help...
Making Time for Nonfiction Read Alouds
As an elementary teacher, it is so easy to find great fiction texts to read aloud to students. There are many books to choose from, and I can readily envision...
Step by Step: Integrating Nonfiction into Primary Classroom Instruction
Young readers are often fascinated by nonfiction. Have you ever watched a child browse a book filled with vivid photographs? I love how the images often invite conversation among children...
Nonfiction Books for Independent Reading: Moving Beyond Content Connections (BOOKLIST)
What we often forget when considering the importance of nonfiction reading is the pleasure, the art, the wonder of it. We do not want to develop students who read nonfiction...
Literary Nonfiction: Models for Writing
I have never felt as comfortable with nonfiction writing in my elementary classroom as other genres. The products never have much variety. Somehow, students' nonfiction writing always ends up sounding...
Linking Math and Writing Through Word Problems
In this six-minute video, Franki Sibberson demonstrates how she helps her 3rd and 4th grade students make connections between writing workshop and math problem solving.
Grade Level Team Meeting: Test Preparation
In this video of a 3rd grade team meeting, literacy coaches Janet Scott and Gail Boushey help third-grade teachers think through what is going well with test preparation, and what...
Sports Writing Group Discussion
As part of our nonfiction writing study, many of the students in the class began to write about sports. Every year that I've taught in any grade, this is a...
Nonfiction Word Hunt Part I
Nonfiction word hunts are a routine that I recently discovered. It immediately had an impact with my students' interest in words and their meanings. Knowing the meanings of words is...
Nonfiction Word Hunt Part II
Finding new words to follow is always a fun part of our word wall routine. Students love to go back into texts to find words that they are curious about....
Test-Taking Skills: Reading Strategies for Word Problems Part I
If I've learned anything from the past 22 years of teaching, I know how valuable children's playground philosophies are for dealing with the confusing world created by adults. As a...
Test-Taking Strategies Part III: Whole Class Debrief
I am captivated by teachers' abilities to maximize time with students. Only an elementary teacher can check students' understanding of multiplication facts, conduct a class survey based on a student-created...
Main Ideas in Nonfiction
In this whole-class lesson, 5th grade teacher Karen Terlecky and her students consider how main ideas work in nonfiction texts. The lesson includes reading and discussion of a short text...
