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
Explore: Time for Nonfiction
My desire for intentional time set aside to read nonfiction led to the development of a routine in my class called Explore. I set aside time within our weekly schedule...
Twitter in the Classroom
When I tell people—parents, students, and colleagues—that I have a class Twitter account set up for my students to use, I always see puzzled expressions. How can 10-year-olds possibly be...
Choosing the Right Tool for Your Message
As I become more and more proficient in the kitchen, I find that I need different tools to help me get the best results. It didn’t take me long to...
Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover: Teaching Book Choice Strategies to Middle Schoolers
At the beginning of the year, the air in my classroom and the hallways of my school is thick with excitement and anticipation as we look forward to the preteens...
Running Record: Kaenon
Bitsy Parks completes a running record with first grader Kaenon.
Jillian’s Running Record
Bitsy Parks completes a running record with first grader Jillian.
Philanthropy and Literacy in Eighth Grade
Beth Honeycutt and Rita Schaeffer introduce a reading and writing activity to their eighth-grade students designed to help them understand philanthropy.
Running Records: Rationale and Procedure
Bitsy Parks explains how and why she completes running records in her first-grade classroom.
Reading Workshop in Kindergarten: When and How to Launch
We are often asked when kindergarten students should begin reading workshop or independent reading. Is there a time of year that is best? Is there a certain reading level that...
Shallow Books? Learning from a Reading Celebration
I remember my first children’s literature class as an undergraduate majoring in elementary education. I had always been a reader, but hadn’t really thought much about children’s books since I’d...
Learning to Observe: Inviting a Parent to a Tutoring Session
But—more than anything—I liked him because he treated me as a companion and conversationalist in my own right. —Donna Tartt, in The Goldfinch Persistent parents, pushy parents, perpetually pestering parents....
Multicultural Series Books
There were about 20 emails in my inbox that morning in March. They all had the same subject line: “Where are the people of color in children’s books?” The emails...
Character Traits and Vocabulary Development
In my fourth-grade classroom, we spend a great deal of time analyzing characters. Recently, it has become apparent to me that students lack the vocabulary necessary to discuss a character’s...
Conferring About Characters in First Grade
Katie DiCesare confers with Vidhi about the main character in her independent reading book.
Supporting Introverts in Literacy Workshops
I value opportunities to share my thinking with colleagues in support of work and/or learning. Writing response groups, committees committed to a specific task, collegial conversations in a class, and...
Slow Thinkers
“Let’s go around and introduce ourselves,” says the facilitator in a recent class I attended. This is a common occurrence at workshops and conferences. When my turn comes, I will...
The Silent Period
He has been listening. He has been listening all day long, but he hasn’t said a word to me or to friends. It looks like he is imitating behaviors like...
Inform, Inspire, Instruct: Essays as Mentor Texts in High School
“We are really quite concerned,” stressed the school counselor as she handed me the essay a student of mine had submitted for the state writing test. I smiled and even...
Shorter Research Projects: Rethinking Notetaking Strategies
Research in fifth grade can be mind-numbing. Add notetaking into that equation, and you are in for an exhausting unit. Notetaking in the world of fifth graders is always tricky....
Whole Class Partner Share Session in First Grade
Katie DiCesare leads her first graders in a reading share session during a character traits unit.
The Power of Reading Habits
This year, for the first time in my career, I taught teenagers—seventh graders whose reading, thanks to a looping arrangement, I’d been able to nurture the previous year. The heart...
