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
Teaching Economics with Children’s Literature
When I began teaching, I taught my first seven years at an alternative public school. A focus for our school was to use children's literature across the curriculum to help...
Bucking Broncs and Spitting Bulls
The opening moments of the local rodeo were familiar: cowgirls raced their well- trained horses all over the arena and sponsors flags waved in the wind. A local high school...
Animals as Ambassadors: Using Class Pets to Reach an English Language Learner
Teachers collect a variety of usual and unusual items for their classrooms and students. You just never know when and why you'll need these treasures, but you know you will...
Community First: Using Read Alouds to Strengthen Classroom Connections
There's a lot to accomplish at the beginning of the school year: routines to teach, expectations to communicate, communities to build . . . but not necessarily in that order....
The Draw-a-Reader Test: Informal Assessment Supporting Teacher Inquiry
My department was trying to fill a position in science education and we were interviewing a candidate who had worked extensively with inner-city youth to support their interest in and...
Questions and Answers about Home Reading Logs
It's so helpful when we can take the time to think about the work we do with children. It's even more helpful when people ask questions and probe. I recently...
A Workshop Model in the Library: Time for More Than Book Checkout
Starting a new job as a school librarian has been a learning experience for me. There is so much to love from being around books and kids all day, sharing...
Step by Step: Integrating Nonfiction into Primary Classroom Instruction
Young readers are often fascinated by nonfiction. Have you ever watched a child browse a book filled with vivid photographs? I love how the images often invite conversation among children...
Multicultural Books for Beginning Readers
"Why isn't there an African American Henry and Mudge?" asked a teacher in the audience of a session on multicultural children's literature. I reminded her of a previous slide stating...
Easing into Assessments During the First Six Weeks of School
As Lucy Calkins reminds us in The Art of Teaching Reading, "Once you really pull in close to consider children's understandings (and misunderstandings), it quickly becomes clear that 'simply' giving children...
New Versions of Old Favorites (BOOKLIST)
We seem to have gotten away from reading new versions of old stories. With the focus on guided reading and leveled books, I worry that our students aren't hearing the...
Characters We Love (BOOKLIST)
When I think about matching students to books, I want my students to find books for a variety of reasons. I know that finding favorite series and characters are key...
Inspiration from Author Visits: Tips and Web Resources
The fifth and sixth grade students at my school were fortunate to be visited by author Stacy Hillmer. Stacy is the author of five published stories and one book, An Armadillo...
Conferring with Children: Principles and Procedures
Just for fun, when we're in a new classroom of young children together, we often introduce ourselves and begin by asking the class a question. "Who do you think is...
A Tornado of Books
Each year, for the last ten years or so, a "tornado of books" has hit my room sometime in the first two weeks of school. It is pure craziness; books...
Books to Get Us Ready for Summer Vacation
When spring finally arrives, I am always excited to find books that make the transition to summer seem so much quicker for my students and me. This year, I have...
Ready for Guided Reading?
Last spring I walked into Kate's office, which doubles as the book storage room. Kate is a literacy coach in a K-5 building. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded...
Talking with Parents about Text Difficulty
Parents want what is best for their children, but often lack understanding of the importance of matching texts to readers. Teachers come to us seeking advice about how to help...
Going from the Known to the Unknown: Vacation Reflections on Fluency
From the minute we got on the plane and the flight attendants played the safety video with Spanish subtitles it all started coming back to me -- the two years...
Sharing Our Lives as Readers with Our Students
As a classroom teacher, sharing my own life as a reader has always been an important part of my teaching. I believe that if we are to have authentic conversations...
Build Fluency with Books That Are Fun for Kids to Read Aloud Over and Over and Over Again
Fluency has been such a hot topic lately. Our students are tested and timed on passages to check their reading progress. There is so much to fluency, but it has...
