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
When a Book Doesn’t Work
I once had a relative say to me, “Teaching must be easy for you now, since you already have your lessons and you’ve done them so many times.” At the...
#bookaday in Middle School: Nuts and Bolts
The basic concept of #bookaday at any age is to read one book per day, keep a list of titles, and share often. I decided to try #bookaday in my...
The Scarlet Level
I’ll never forgot the Friday night I tiptoed into my son’s room to give him one last kiss and could not find him. Rather than seeing him snuggled up in...
Conferring in First Grade: Reading Illustrations
Katrina Edwards helps a first grader use pictures to help her make sense of confusing text.
Stuck at Level E
Dantrell loved school. He was the first one to burst through the door of the first-grade classroom at the beginning of every school day. He was the last one to...
Leveled Text Dilemma
We looked in the library. We checked the bookroom . . . No luck. But we need more leveled texts for our readers to use. Help us! Those are the...
Environment Small Group: Habitat
Katherine Sokolowski leads a small group of fifth graders who have chosen similar topics for their environment projects.
My Five Objectives for the Start of the School Year
As a high school teacher with a short 42-minute period in which to teach all of the standards, I find it hard not to feel the pressure to get things...
Reconsidering Reading Workshop Routines
Scheduling and the game of Jenga have a lot in common . . . This is something my building principal says when launching a scheduling meeting with classroom and support...
Sketchnoting as a Response to Reading
When I first began to see sketchnotes on my Twitter feed, I was intrigued. Sketchnotes are a method of note taking that combines images and words. Some educators sketchnote at...
#bookaday in Middle School
One of the best teaching decisions I have made was having a #bookaday picture book read-aloud goal with my seventh- and eighth-grade classes this past school year. You may be...
Building a Next-Read Stack
Katherine Sokolowski helps fifth grader Abby build her next-read stack of books.
The Benefits of #bookaday
A few things came together to create one of my most favorite classroom routines. Jillian Heise took Donalyn Miller’s #bookaday idea and shared a picture book a day with her...
The Basics of Teaching Internet Search Skills to Children
One of the most amazing things about living in the digital age is the fact that information is everywhere. With a few clicks, keystrokes, or taps I can get most...
Literary Analysis: Counterclaims
We were in the thick of a writing unit of study, and my teacher heart did not want to admit that literary analysis essays are argumentative. My eighth graders were...
First-Grade Minilesson: Reading Like Writers
Bitsy Parks teaches her first graders early in the year how to read like writers, highlighting examples from favorite mentor texts.
Using If I Stay to Model Literary Analysis
It was nearing the end of the school year, and I was asking my eighth-grade students to pour all of their energy into scholarly literary analysis essays. So it's no...
Reading Ambassadors
This year I decided to try something new. I thought there was a need for students to hear their peers talk about reading. I had noticed that students would read...
Building Excitement for Book Awards
I get excited about the American Library Association announcement of book awards at the end of January. I love to read through blogs and websites to find out which books...
Hosting Reading and Writing Events
“Is it true that we get a copy of the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book next year?” an incoming fourth grader askd on step-up day. He was referring...
The Power of Picture Book Conversations
I remember reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Scoot a few years ago. I was intrigued but overwhelmed by the medical jargon. I had passages marked to...
