Choice Lit Topic: Talking and Listening
Listening and speaking—it’s the art at the heart of literacy workshops. But there is also a science to how these skills are taught and learned. These resources will show you how to build communication skills in your classroom and school communities.
Results
The Conversations Inspired by the Questions We Ask
The most effective way to develop a common understanding of classroom practice may be the questions we choose to ask. As literacy leaders it is often difficult to express clear...
More Than Listening Centers: Using Audio Books in Literacy Instruction
A lanky boy in a hooded sweatshirt was sprawled across a beanbag chair in the back of the classroom. He was staring intently at the book in his hands. "Uh-oh,"...
Talking About Synthesis: Metaphors from 2nd Graders
In this six-minute video, Lauren Scott's second graders brainstorm different metaphors for the synthesis process in reading while their principal, Karen Szymusiak, listens and responds. After the students leave, Lauren...
Three Little Phrases No Literacy Coach Can Live Without
If there are three skills any literacy coach needs, they are the ability to engage with colleagues, diffuse hostile situations, and connect with people who have a different world view....
The Dark Side of Girl Talk: How Female Conversation Patterns Can Inhibit School Change
In Margaret Atwood's novel Cat's Eye, eleven-year-old Elaine is alternately taunted and cajoled within her group of female friends in the classroom, on the playground, and in their homes. As an...
Under, Over and Beyond Words: Strategies for Observing Talk in Classrooms
In the book Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning, Peter Johnston writes about the importance of the ways teachers talk with students. He notes, "Teachers have very different...
Minilessons to Start Conversations with Students About Books
In my work as a curricular support teacher, I find myself thinking about people who have been important to me in my role as classroom teacher. When I think about...
Over, Under, and Beyond Words: Alternative Strategies for Observing Talk in Classrooms (E-GUIDE)
In the book Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning Peter Johnston writes about the importance of teacher talk with students. He notes, "Teachers have very different ways of...
“I Am the Book”: Helping Emergent Bilingual Learners Connect with Books
Too often in school, emergent bilingual students have trouble connecting with the book. This fall, I planned to change that. I wanted to help my English language learners read with...
Whole Class Interviews: Building Community in Writing Workshop (TEMPLATE)
As I begin to set up my classroom, I can't help but think back to Jonathan's comment on our last day of school a few years ago in June. We...
Giving Kids Time and Space to Show Their Brilliance
We were at a local playground in the Buckeye State last summer, and someone had left a piece of chalk lying on the blacktop. My newly turned three-year-old son took...
Gratitude Week
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. —William Arthur Ward “I’m going to write to Mrs. Fox. I had her in kindergarten.”...
Using Me Boxes to Promote Identity, Academics, and Play
The importance of including more play has been on Kate’s mind in her first-grade classroom for the past few years. It's a newer concept to her. It just wasn’t a...
Trusting the Letting-Go Moments
Last year we started school with lots of joy and inquiry. My students arrived and were greeted with monarch eggs and milkweed on the windowsill. Sticky notes were available to...
Lifting the Quality of Peer Response
Helping children learn to listen to each other well and give feedback takes a great deal of time. For many years, I just assumed that kids intuitively knew how to...
Discussion and Summary As a Prelude to Fiction Writing
With the spotlight on the teaching of writing being directed toward expository, opinion, and persuasive writing, fiction writing has been reduced in many classrooms. As the time for the fiction...
Shake It Up: Active Learning Strategies That Engage Students
I once had a class that nearly broke my spirit. It seemed that no matter what lessons I planned or how enthusiastic I was about them, I was met with...
Prompting and Support: Understanding the Language of the Common Core in Kindergarten
Gradually releasing responsibility to children as they gain expertise, teaching a few strategies of great consequence in-depth over time, and giving children the gifts of time, choice, response, community, and...
