Choice Lit Topic: Teaching Reading
Our contributors lead reading workshops in classrooms with creative flair. Over the past 12 years, we’ve filled our site with loads of suggestions, tools, and tips for using engaging books throughout the curriculum to hook kids on reading. Here is where you will find many stories of successful and not-so-successful workshop days, and what we learned from them. We bring these stories to life through hundreds of video examples.
Results
Student Notes: Slow Down and Think
Fifth grader Orion uses sticky notes to make questions and predictions at the end of each chapter.
Student Notes: Reading for Writing
Reagan, a fifth grader in Franki Sibberson's class, explains how she uses sticky notes to flag examples of writer's craft she could use in her own writing.
Student Notes: Reminders for Later
In this installment of our note-taking series from Franki Sibberson's fifth-grade classroom, Sarah marks important elements early in the mystery she is reading, so she can easily refer to them...
From Title to Theme: Conferring with Jadev
Christy Rush-Levine confers with eighth grader Jadev about how the title of a book often gives clues to its theme.
Splashing Around to Find Themes
I discovered by accident a new approach to teaching students how to determine the theme of a text. After the study of any story or poem, I was accustomed to...
Getting to the Heart of Theme
When I was in junior high way back in the day, the biggest and most important papers we had to write about the books we read all focused on one...
Comics and Graphic Novels for Tweens
My 10-year-old grandtwins, Molly and Jacob, are officially tweens, and I see it in their reading tastes. They devour chapter books and picture books, still love read-alouds, appreciate good joke...
Student Notes: Keeping Track of Many Characters
Tre uses lots of sticky notes to sort through and keep track of characters in The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, a book with a whole classroom full of...
Student Notes: Experimenting with Two Strategies
Ally explains how she tested two different ways to take notes during independent reading.
Conferring: Establishing a Setting in a Novel
Aimee Buckner confers with Chad, a fourth grader who has a dilemma: how to figure out the setting in a historical fiction novel when there are no pictures.
Content and Context
For years, my tennis partner tried to get me to change the grip on my forehand volley. She’d rotate my hand, we’d hit a few, and then we’d move into...
Launching a Historical Fiction Genre Study
History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity. ...
Using a Storyboard for Reflection and Comprehension
Christy Rush-Levine shows a group of three students how they can use a storyboard to help track thinking while reading.
Improving Turn-and-Talks
The turn-and-talk strategy is often used during minilessons. During a turn-and-talk, the teacher poses a question or concept and then asks students to turn to another learner and talk about...
Talk Guide
Gigi McAllister presents a guide to her fourth-grade students to improve talk in reading trios.
Compass Points and Empathy
“Today we are going to discuss our thinking about one of our story’s main characters—Viola,” I announced at the start of my fourth-grade reading workshop. I was met with a...
Authentic Reading in Kindergarten
Reading is a staple in our household. I am an avid reader, my eight-year-old daughter always has her nose in a book, and you can catch my six-year-old daughter on...
Summer Reading
“Kids! Let’s get to the library today and turn in your summer reading list!” I yelled through the house last August. “Oh, okay, great! I’m ready,” answered one of my...
Reimagining Reading Logs
“Henry, are you enjoying Mr. Popper’s Penguins?” Kate asked. She was in a third-grade classroom leading some small groups during a fiction reading unit of study. As she was coaching...
Weeding a First-Grade Library
The stack of books on my counter sat for weeks, slowly getting taller and more disheveled despite my attempts to straighten it out every few days. These books were new...
Book Talk: “The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary”
Katherine Sokolowski demonstrates her book talk skills when she presents The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary to her students late in the school year.
