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
Not Available in a Six-Pack: Books to Place Alongside Leveled Texts for Our Youngest Readers
Some of my favorite days in teaching have been when a new reader insists on reading a book aloud to me (and everyone they meet that day) because they've discovered,...
Thinking About 5th Grade Read Alouds
It's that time of year again -- the time when I sit down at my diningroom table, surrounding myself with books I have read recently and some old favorites. And...
Towards Thoughtful Strategy Instruction
I think it's about to happen again. Education is famous for wide swings of the pendulum. From code emphasis to meaning emphasis, from whole class to small group . ....
Expedition Mondays: Launching the Week with Nonfiction
If you were to visit my classroom on any Monday morning, students would beg you to join us for Expedition Monday. What would this opportunity mean for you? ex·pe·di·tion NOUN: A...
Accurate But Not Quite Fluent: Books for Second-Grade Readers in Transition
This summer I have had much to think about as I loop with my first graders into second grade. Knowing their taste for books, I have enjoyed finding books about...
Punctuation Study with Third Graders
[Writers] deliberately choose certain marks because they know these marks signal us to inflect our voice in a particular way, emphasize a word or phrase, or slow down. We know...
Engaged by the World: Maps, Globes, Reading, and Writing with Young Children
I had been puzzling over Luis for some time. I couldn't get him interested in doing more drawing or writing, and he wasn't like other 3 to 5-year-old children in...
Twitter Me This: Using Cell Phones to Build Literacy Skills and a Reading Community
On any given day teachers can be seen lecturing in classrooms across the country. At the same time on any given day students can be seen, with arms outstretched, trying...
Unlucky Lists: Raising Non-Writers and Non-Artists
In my work as a literacy educator at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, I often walk by a poster at the elevators that makes me pause and think: "Unlucky Arithmetic:...
Where Am I?: The Power of Wordless Photo Books for Preschoolers
With pre-kindergarten learners, it is essential to help them see the connections between themselves and the experiences we structure for them. To help with this, we often photograph our children...
Dear Mrs. T: Moving Students from Summaries to Rich Response
"Dear Mrs. T" are three of my favorite words in my 5th grade reading workshop. They are the first three words in the reading letters I receive from my students...
Making a Difference: Examples from Children’s Literature (BOOKLIST)
Last year, my nine-year-old daughter Ana decided that she did not want gifts at her birthday party. She had heard about other kids who had used their birthday party as...
Challenging Advanced Young Readers: Harder Texts Aren’t Always the Answer
As we work with primary-grade teachers during reading workshop, many of them ask us how to challenge the advanced readers in their classrooms. These young students learn to read quickly...
From Page to Screen: My Top Ten Film Adaptations of Children’s Books
My friend and I went to the movies last month to see The Time Traveler's Wife, the film adaptation of one of our favorite books. I had my fingers crossed. Watching...
Great Nonfiction for Elementary Students
When I scan the nonfiction shelves of our school library, I notice the quality of nonfiction books for children is so much better than it was years ago. Looking at...
Choosing New Books for Comprehension Strategy Studies with Young Children
The books I have chosen for reading comprehension have been amazing journeys that we've taken as a class. I thought I would use the books just to help to learn...
Biographies Off the Beaten Path
We had a set of biographies in our elementary school library when I was a child. I can still remember exactly where they were on the shelves. I read several...
Using Summer Reading to Expand the Whole School Reading Community
I have always worked hard to prepare my students for a summer of reading. When I was a classroom teacher, we spent quite a bit of time during our last...
Books That Invite Conversations About Perspective (BOOKLIST)
I have recently found several books that invite conversations on perspective - books that for some reason or another, help you look at something from someone else's point of view....
Character Study in Grades 3-6
When I think about my own reading and the favorite books that I remember from different eras of my life, it is the characters that I remember. I remember Betsy,...
Just Because It’s Skinny, Doesn’t Mean It’s Easy: Matching Books to Transitional Readers in Grades 2-4
I buy a LOT of books for my classroom library. But, there are also many books that I won't buy! My husband has a lot of trouble believing I reject...
