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 First Days of Reading and Writing Workshops
I find that most of my fifth graders enter our room seeing reading and writing as something done for school. There are the few kids who love reading, but most...
Fourth-Grade Reading Conference: Focusing While Reading
Aimee Buckner helps fourth grader Isaiah focus his reading early in the year in this quick conference. Isaiah is reading Morning Girl by Michael Dorris.
30 Books in 30 Days
At the start of the school year, I use the 30 Books in 30 Days project to introduce my sixth-grade students to new authors and genres through previewing a wide...
Character Through Literature Early in the Year
This year as I began to prepare for my new class, my mind turned to units. What would be the first units I would teach? I thought of comprehension strategies,...
The Rapid Reader: Tutoring Esther
Esther, a rapid reader, is in third grade. She spurts words, one after another, racing to the end of a paragraph, page, chapter, or book. Periodically she pauses briefly, a...
Sticky Notes Small Group
Sean Moore meets with a group of second graders to remind them of the value of using sticky notes during reading in this quick video.
Book Choice Conference in Kindergarten
Teaching children how to make thoughtful book selections is hard work, but it’s not out of their reach, or ours. Debbie Miller Today was an exciting day in our room....
Animal Backpacks and Literacy Joy
Let the beauty of what we love be what we do. Rumi Children love stuffed animals. When my own children were small, stuffed animals took over their beds. Bedtimes were...
Kindergarten Moments Count: Morning Message
The morning message is an activity I use to introduce and reinforce several different skills in my kindergarten classroom. It is also a process that evolves as the year progresses....
A Booklist for Memorial Day
This year, Memorial Day will be celebrated on Monday, May 26. Many local communities have parades and lay wreaths at monuments to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Volunteers...
Final Literacy Contracts: Student-Generated Themes
It is hard to believe we have reached the end of the school year and this series. We hope you have gotten a lot of ideas on how to use...
Capturing the Elementary Years with Photo Essays
In our district, sixth grade is the end of a significant time period as student prepare to move to middle school. Recalling major events spanning from kindergarten through sixth grade...
Home and School, Fiction and Nonfiction: Eighth-Grade Conference
Katie Baydo Reed confers with an eighth-grade student, giving advice about which books are appropriate for home reading, and moving between fiction and nonfiction texts.
Reader Response Anchor Charts
“There’s a bunch of kids stuck there together.” October 9 This sentence, followed by a date, was a typical entry recorded by my students in their reader response journals. This...
Nonfiction Graffiti Walls
I love nonfiction. I love learning about new things and broadening my horizons. But when I was a sixth grader, I was singing a different tune. I all but ignored...
Reading Interviews: Part 3
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as readers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: How does your reading...
Getting Ready for Summer Reading: A Lesson Cycle
I used to spend a lesson or two getting students ready for summer reading. We’d have a visit from the local librarian about their summer reading program, and we’d have...
Reading Interviews: Part 2
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as readers throughout the year. Questions in this installment include these: What do you need to...
Mental Images: Connecting Reading and Sketching
Sean Moore confers with second grader Teague, encouraging him to sketch as he reads.
The Gifts of Literacy
“I will miss you all the way to heaven and back.” Peyton modified one of my favorite lines in children’s literature in a way that both revealed a surprising depth...
Reading Interviews: Part 1
Ruth Shagoury interviews sixth graders in Katie Doherty's class about their interests and progress as readers throughout the year. In this installment, students answer these questions: What's a book you...
