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
Seedfolks: Connecting Community and Literature
I had my first anxiety dream about school starting last night. It was the first day of school, and I was late. Not just 5 or 10 minutes late. I...
Clearing Up Confusion
Brian needed a change. He had been voraciously reading graphic novels since school began two months ago, and I had been wondering when to start nudging him to change it...
Books to Celebrate Earth Day
As we think about celebrating Earth Day in our schools in April, we can expand the things that we can teach children by the books that we share. There are...
Read Alouds for the First Day of School
Last year we surveyed Big Fresh subscribers to learn their favorite literacy activities for launching the school year with students and colleagues. This week and next we'll feature suggestions for read alouds...
Book Matchmaker: Characters Across the Grades
Jennifer Allen is looking for a new set of books to use with her teachers in her role as a literacy coach. She said, "I am working to differentiate...
Teaching Students Retelling Strategies
As we meet with teachers around New England to analyze various assessment data (Dynamic Reading Assessments, conference notes, running records, and informal retellings), we notice a pattern -- retelling the...
Literacy Rights and Responsibilities
Something bad was happening. I looked around the room during reading workshop at my students who should have been eagerly gobbling up the pages of their choice books, and this...
Choosing 5th Grade Read Alouds for the New Year
It's that time of year when I gather together all the books I think would be good to read aloud and share with my 5th grade students for this year....
Next Steps: Thinking about Retelling During Reading
To demonstrate retelling skills, we model keeping in mind story elements as students determine what will be important for retelling. In a minilesson, we use a book we've already read...
Reading Preferences: Social, Pleasurable, and Sometimes Awkward
Like many people, I made a few resolutions as the new year was ushered in. One of those resolutions was to be better at tracking the books that I read....
Primary Series Study
One of my first goals at the beginning of the year for my first and second graders is to help them find and choose books to fill their book bins....
Book Matchmaker: Teaching Point of View
Jennifer Allen is looking for a new set of books to use with her teachers in her role as literacy coach. She said, "I am working to differentiate the...
Uncovering Reading Behaviors
It's "Reading Opportunity" time in Katie Doherty's sixth-grade classroom. As resident researcher, I'm still getting to know the kids, the routines, and the special culture of the school and classroom....
Content Connections in Reading Workshop
In this four-minute video, Andrea Smith confers with a 4th grade student interested in immigration, helping her set up an independent reading and learning plan.
Revising Titles Minilesson
In this minilesson from Franki Sibberson's grades 3 and 4 classroom, Franki takes students through the process of selecting and revising titles. She uses the poem "Confessions of a Reader"...
Book Matchmaker: Helping a Struggling Reader in 5th Grade
Deb is a teacher who works with struggling readers in grades 3-5. She is particularly interested in finding books for one of her 5th graders who is reading at...
Preschool Book Browsing Time
This five-minute video from Kelly Petrin's preschool classroom shows the value of book browsing time. Kelly explains the skills children develop in language, book handling skills, and literacy independence during...
Book Matchmaker: New Books for Intermediate Readers
Lori Sabo, a first-grade teacher, asked me to suggest some books that she could recommend to former students who still ask her advice about books. She wanted a...
Linking Reading, Writing, and Getting to Know You Activities During the First Week of Middle School
The first day of 6th grade in my school is a challenge. The 6th graders get the school to themselves for a day since they are new to the building:...
Starting a Newbery Club with Students
The Newbery Award has long stood for excellence in children's literature. About five years ago we started reading potential nominees and trying to predict the winner before it was announced....
Using Comics in Literacy Workshops
Franki Sibberson works with her 3rd and 4th graders to use comics in the literacy workshop.
