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
The Compliment Conference
Camilla sorts her book bag, and a frown stretches across her face as she slides books out and tosses them to the side. Her shoulders slump, and she looks out...
Time for What Matters
As a high school teacher, I see my students for 42 minutes each day. That’s 3½ hours in a good week (without pep rallies, blood drives, and so on) to...
Kindergarten Reading Conference: Building Confidence
Mikey was my second reading conference, and before I had settled in, he had an urgent need. He needed to tell me he couldn’t read the book he had self-selected....
Extended Inquiry with Article of the Week
I have been using Kelly Gallagher’s “Article of the Week” strategy in my classroom for some time now. On Mondays, I introduce an interesting or pertinent article to my students...
The Intersection of Social Studies and Language Arts
Our state has revised its framework for social studies significantly over the past four years. As I worked as part of a state-level team on the new frameworks for Connecticut,...
Owl Research Brainstorming: Partner Work
Andrea Smith meets with two girls planning their owl research.
Understanding Character Traits: Part 3
Jason DiCarlo leads a lesson in a third-grade classroom about understanding character traits. He concludes the lesson with partner work exploring Henry's Freedom Box and a whole-class discussion. This is...
Understanding Character Traits: Part 2
Jason DiCarlo leads a lesson in a third-grade classroom about understanding character traits. He continues the lesson with a read-aloud of the book Henry's Freedom Box. This is the second...
Getting Mentor Texts in Students’ Hands
Ever since I learned about the value of mentor texts to help students’ writing, I have tried to use them as often as possible. I thought I was doing a...
Alternatives to Home/School Reading Logs
When I announced to my fourth graders that we would not be having reading logs this year, they breathed a collective sigh of relief, and a whispered chorus of thanks...
Stamina Bubbles
I sat down next to Sarah to listen in on her reading when she whispered, “Why do you always say 'Happy reading!' to us when we begin?” Her question caught...
Conferring with Jeri in Kindergarten
Independent reading provides the indispensable practice that literacy learners require to become successful, self-regulating, self-monitoring readers. Regie Routman Jeri was my third reading conference for the day. I learned...
Back to Basics: Choice
Choice 1: Do you want your milk in the red glass or the blue glass? Choice 2: Do you want to read the book about trains or the book about...
Visual Reading for Writing
Just recently, I was babysitting my five-year-old nephew Ellis. He is a bright kid who loves playing outside, anything related to Star Wars, and books. One of my favorite things...
Reading Pictures in High School
A picture is worth a thousand words—we’ve all heard the old adage. As a language arts teacher, I am apt to believe that this isn’t always the case, but it’s...
Using Webcomics in Classrooms
I’ve always been a supporter of graphic novels in the classroom for a variety of reasons. Graphic novels can support your struggling readers, but they are more than that. They...
Close Reading for Comparison in Fifth Grade
I am always on the lookout for a great picture book to use in a minilesson. One skill my fifth graders struggle with is comparison, in texts, across texts, which...
Beginning a Novel with Close Reading
Aimee Buckner helps a fourth-grade boy tease out emerging themes in the first pages of the novel Morning Girl.
Mid-Workshop Conversations
Okay, readers, go ahead: find a friend to share your thinking about the book you’re reading. The classroom teacher says these words without much fuss and noise, and students quickly...
“Are We Gonna Watch the Movie?”
“Are we gonna watch the movie?” What English teacher hasn’t heard this question at least a thousand times? Whenever I begin a whole-class study of a novel, I am invariably...
Embracing Standards in Creative Ways
I am learning to let go of my frustration over new standards that leave a gaping hole between where we were in the past and where we need to be...
