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
Inferring and Word Learning in a Small Group
While demonstrating this lesson in front of teachers, Clare Landrigan uses the students’ previous work with inferring about author’s message to have them infer with unknown words they encounter in text.
“If You Like Matt Christopher” Student Book Share
In this video, two boys share other books beyond the writing of Matt Christopher that might interest their three classmates. The boys report on the books and describe components that are important to them.
Middle School Book Clubs: Introduction
In this video we see Katie Doherty's middle schoolers conducting book clubs in heterogeneous groups discussing books of their own choosing. Katie shares her successes and challenges with book clubs.
Middle School Book Clubs: Response Options
Katie Doherty explains the options for response as students finish their books in book clubs. She meets with the readers of Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell and discusses their plan for response.
Making Predictions and Finding Evidence in Text
In this video from a 5th grade small group, Clare Landrigan talks with students about making predictions and finding evidence in text. The text used is Jean Little's Hey World, Here I Am! Poems and short essays are excellent choices for small-group comprehension work, because the text can be read, reread, and discussed in just a few minutes.
Book Matchmaker: Read Alouds for 1st Grade
Lori Sabo is looking for new read alouds for her first-grade class. There are so many terrific picture books that are great read alouds in first grade. When I...
Middle School Conferring About a Series
In this video from Katie Doherty's sixth-grade classroom, Katie confers with a student who has returned to a series book she had previously rejected. Katie weaves in talk about strategies,...
Book Club Meetings in 3rd Grade
When I began planning for book clubs in my classroom, I knew that the readers in our class needed to keep their read-to-self time as a sacred opportunity for them...
What is the Content for Small-Group Instruction? (Part 2 of the Grouping Series)
My colleague Pam, who is new to small groups, had a goal of meeting with three groups of fifth graders each day. We had several pieces of information in front...
Narrative Nonfiction in 5th Grade Part 1
In this lesson from a 5th grade classroom, Aimee Buckner guides students in a notetaking process to help understand the qualities of nonfiction narrative writing.
Narrative Nonfiction in 5th Grade Part 2
In this lesson from a 5th grade classroom, Aimee Buckner guides students in a notetaking process to help understand the qualities of nonfiction narrative writing. Students use their notetaking to lead them deeper into questioning as critical readers.
Sticky Notes to Determine Importance
Beth Lawson confers with a third grader about her book about Blues singers. The student is keeping track of important ideas on sticky notes and has quite a collection. Beth makes suggestions about ways to organize all the notes.
Accuracy and Comprehension: Conferring in Second Grade
In this video from Sean Moore's second-grade classroom, Sean confers with a student who comprehends text well but has some issues with accuracy.
Main Ideas, Summaries, and Notes in a Reading Conference
In this conference with a 4th grader, Aimee Buckner tackles text choice, notes, and main ideas all in less than five minutes.
Scaring Up Better Narratives Part I
Aimee Buckner leads a lesson on brainstorming topics in writer's notebooks using the mentor text Some Things Are Scary. In this first installment of a three-part series, Aimee reads the book and models her own thinking process and use of a writer's notebook.
Scaring Up Better Narratives Part 2
Aimee Buckner leads a lesson on brainstorming topics in writer's notebooks using the mentor text Some Things Are Scary. In this second installment of a three-part series, Aimee continues to confer with students and helps everyone refine potential writing topics in their notebooks.
An At-Home Summer Reading Camp
Many teachers find ways to earn some extra money throughout the summer. I have friends who teach summer school, coach, tutor, and pick up odd jobs. I have chosen another...
Point of View: Conferring with a 5th Grade Reader
In this conference with a fifth grader, Aimee Buckner shares two strategies -- one to use when putting a book away between readings, and another to help keep track of characters in a complex narrative where the point of view is constantly shifting.
Point of View in Historical Fiction: 5th Grade Minilesson
In this demonstration lesson from a fifth-grade classroom, Aimee Buckner works with students to construct an anchor chart for understanding the genre of historical fiction.
Matching Students to Nonfiction Texts in Grades 3-6 (BOOKLIST)
We hear so much about matching students to nonfiction texts based on their needs and interests. Often the lens is very broad ("tweens will like this book") or very narrow,...
Class Discussion: Test-Taking Strategies (Part 3)
Andrea Smith leads her 4th grade class during word study time as they analyze a math word problem. In this video, she debriefs with the whole class after partner work. This is the final video in a three-part series.
