Choice Lit Topic: Guiding Groups
How many? How often? How to assess? What’s the teacher’s role? We share flexible and creating strategies for leading groups, and teaching students how to partner and work well with classmates independently. Resources include everything from planning and assessment forms to scores of video examples of groups in action at many grade levels.
Results
The Importance of Book Clubs for Learners of Any Age
Two years ago, I had the idea to start an adult book club at my school. I pitched the idea out there, and lo and behold, there were a handful...
Overcoming Tears and Fears: Developing Criteria for Flexible Groups
It was a rainy Friday morning and time to clean up and share after what I thought felt like a productive writing workshop. My students slowly began to tuck away...
Ready for Guided Reading?
Last spring I walked into Kate's office, which doubles as the book storage room. Kate is a literacy coach in a K-5 building. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded...
Knitting, Independence, and Small Group Routines for Intermediate Readers
A few years ago, my teenage daughter mentioned that she would like to learn to knit. I told her that I could teach her and that we should start with...
Rethinking Writing Centers – Winter Follow-Up
[Editor's Note: This is a follow-up to an article from August. If you would like to view the original article, you can access it by clicking here.] During the past school...
Assessing Spelling in Writing Workshop Part 3: Embedding Instruction
The only way we can teach efficiently and have enough time to teach what's necessary -- curriculum, standards, all discrete objectives -- so all students achieve at higher levels, is...
Running and Reading Logs
In this first video in a two-part series, Clare Landrigan meets with a group of fourth graders to talk about reading logs and goals. In this excerpt, Clare uses the...
Running and Reading Logs Part II
In this second video in a two-part series, Clare Landrigan meets with a group of 4th graders to talk about reading logs and goals. In this excerpt, Clare confers with...
Staying Focused in Literacy Workshops
Clare Landrigan meets with a group of fifth graders to talk about what's going well in literacy workshops, and to set individual goals. Stamina is an issue many of the...
Making Predictions and Finding Evidence in Text
In this video from a fifth-grade small group, Clare Landrigan talks with students about making predictions and finding evidence in text. The text used is Jean Little's Hey World, Here...
“If You Like Matt Christopher” Student Book Share
In this video from Franki Sibberson's grades 3-4 classroom, boys share books that are similar to ones written by Matt Christopher. Franki explains how the group came about, as well...
Open Book Clubs
Monroe School was very pleased with their literacy instructional program. The students were encouraged to read independently and kept track of the books that they were reading in reading logs....
What Are Reading Centers?
The term "reading centers" is challenging because it may very well suggest many different things to teachers. For this reason, I'll begin by describing what reading centers are NOT. Reading...
Rethinking Writing Centers
Every classroom has one. The children absolutely love them. The teachers invest considerable thought, effort, and resources into outfitting and organizing them. There was only one problem. No one was...
First Grade Small Group: Chunking
In this small group from Courtney Tomfohr's first-grade classroom, students work on their chunking skills. Courtney begins the lesson with a whiteboard, moves to authentic text, and gives children a...
Small Group After Demonstration Lesson
In this small group after a demonstration lesson in a 5th grade classroom, Clare Landrigan talks through strategies for inferring the meaning of new words while reading.
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...
Teaching Inferring with Picture Books Part II: Partner Shares
When my sixth-grade students are given the opportunity to share their thinking after a read aloud, it does several things for their learning. First and foremost, kids listen to each...
First Grade Guided Writing Group: Goldilocks and the 3 Writers
In this video of a first-grade guided writing group, Katie DiCesare works with three girls on spelling issues that have emerged in their writing. By grouping the students together,...
4th Grade Small Group: Writing Paragraphs
In this video, Aimee Buckner uses a mentor text to demonstrate how writers construct lively nonfiction paragraphs. The small group has been pulled together because the students need more practice...
4th Grade Small-Group Lesson: Dialogue
One of the challenges of working with intermediate writers is helping them understand how and when to use dialogue in their writing. In this video of a small-group lesson, Aimee...
