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
Knowing Genres
“Mrs. Robek, what is blue tape?” I knew this question would come one day. Katie was book shopping in our classroom library. When I started teaching, my mentors modeled using...
Establishing Independent Reading Is Like Planting Seeds
The beginning of the year is an exciting time: new possibilities, fresh faces, shy smiles. There’s a lot to teach, and I tend to over-plan, moving lessons from one day...
Reading Threads
I have a confession. I have never read Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s The War that Saved My Life. Despite the fact that I am certain I would love it, it has...
Opportunities Offered in Book Shopping
There are so many routines that are necessary to make reading workshop run smoothly. We teach students how to gather on the carpet for the minilesson, how to physically turn...
Reading Specialists Can Change the Narrative
When I started working with Trevor in reading support during his first year, he was significantly behind his peers. Though most of his classmates were on the path to learning...
Using The Proudest Blue in the Classroom
We loved using picture books in our fourth-grade classroom. We’d use them for everything: read alouds; reading and writing minilessons; writing mentor texts; small-group shared texts; vocabulary; and to promote...
Studying Character in Intermediate Grades
Tried and true: a North American phrase meaning something in the past that has proven to be effective and reliable (from Oxford Languages dictionary). Synonyms include dependable and time-tested. The...
Interpreting Figurative Language
Your life is dependent upon your relationship with words. —Jason Reynolds These words are the perfect launch into reading Long Way Down with our seventh graders. Jason Reynolds’s novel in...
Creating Thematic Text Sets for Inquiry
Choosing a one-word theme for the year has been gaining in popularity. Based on what they want to accomplish and how they want to feel, people choose one word to...
Understanding Literary Language
“Mrs. Mulligan, what does ____________ mean? I’ve never heard that word before.” This is a question one child asks frequently. He is someone who notices language and asks questions. As...
The Big Screen: Reimagining Read Aloud
“Zoom in! Zoom in! A little more...” Giggles erupted as kids realized that Snail had turned his eyes to the stick on the ground, leaving Worm looking at him in...
Planning for Virtual Literacy Intervention
If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that nothing is for sure. At least, not during a pandemic. Early on, I found myself scrambling to help teachers shift...
A Collection of Treasured Life Lessons
“Good morning, Arielle! It’s nice to see you,” I said. As she responded with her morning greeting, my eyes were drawn to her book bag. If she tries to add...
Creating Progressions to Meet Learners Where They Are
We’re a family of skiers who have been on the slopes for most of our lives. Each time we get on the mountain, we’re looking for ways to slightly improve...
Determining Importance in Fiction
Dylan, a fourth grader, was a beautifully fluent reader. The words flowed seamlessly from his mouth. He used punctuation to guide him, pausing at commas, his voice lilting melodically with...
Teaching Character Traits
This PD2Go focuses on digging deeper into defining character traits by pairing a conference led by Clare Landrigan with an article about analyzing character traits by Gigi McAllister. Gigi McAllister shares...
Student-Led Reading Seminars
First thing in the morning: “Hi, Mrs. Mulligan, do you think I can read this to the class today?” Later at a transition, another child asked, “Could I read this...
Create-Your-Own Reading Challenge
Beginnings are a great time to look ahead, make plans, or set goals. For teachers, beginnings can be a new calendar year, a new school year, a new grading period,...
Invitations to Reading a Variety of Genres
Moving to middle school years ago I noticed right away that my students didn’t seem to understand genre any better than my elementary kids had. I wanted to explore genre...
Picture of the Week
“Mrs. Parks, can you take a picture?” is a common question that I hear throughout the day. For better or worse, my smartphone and iPad camera have become an extension...
A Perfect Opportunity for Choice: Showing Theme
In our first whole-class novel study, one of my goals for the unit was for students to make progress toward mastering this standard: RL.7.2. Determine a theme or central idea...
