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
Designing Comprehension Constructors: Helping Adolescent Learners Develop Reading Strategies (E-GUIDE)
Comprehension instruction has value and lasting impact when teachers know how to design lessons, activities, and materials that match the needs of their students. Prefab worksheets or generic activities and...
Moving Beyond the Basics: Teaching Inferring to a Fluent Young Reader
In this conference, Gail Boushey (of "The Sisters") confers with Brandon, a reader who is becoming fluent in his reading. Gail helps him understand the concept of inferring, and Brandon...
My Son Clark Kent
The day my son Alec was born I read him Jules Feiffer's Bark, George in the hospital. It was a gift from my cousin, who taught me the importance of daily reading...
Learning to Cross-Check: Conferring with Hailey
Joan Moser confers with five-year-old Hailey and helps her set a reading goal. Hailey reads a text, and Joan demonstrates how cross-checking can be a useful strategy for readers in...
Comprehending Graphic Novels: A Primer for Teachers
Some year ago I discovered a whole new "room" in the library, one I'd never visited before. Likewise, I have found shelves in the bookstore that I've only ever walked...
Understanding the “Silent Period” with English Language Learners
If you have a new English language learner in your class who is not speaking, don't worry. According to language researcher Stephen Krashen, most new learners of English will go...
The Read-Around: Raising Writers
The read-around is the classroom equivalent to quilt making or barn raising. It is the public space -- the zocolo or town square -- of my room. During our read-arounds,...
Chapter Book Read Alouds in the Primary Classroom
"It will never work," said Leela, a veteran kindergarten teacher with 25 years of experience. "They love the pictures. They all get up on their knees to see the pictures...
Small Group Instruction: Inferring Focus
In this example of reading instruction with a small group, Gail Boushey of "The Sisters" leads a discussion of inference, using Peter Rabbit as a focus text. All of the...
Shopping With Ana: Expanding Our Definition of “Just Right” Books in Grades K-2
My six-year-old daughter Ana has recently discovered the joy of gift certificates. She received a gift certificate from Borders Bookstore from my parents for Valentine's Day. Ana seemed to grasp...
Noticing Words to Expand Vocabulary: Conferring with Mariah
In this conference with six-year-old Mariah, Joan Moser of "The Sisters" has chosen to focus on expanding vocabulary. Joan uses the charts in the classroom linked to read-alouds to anchor...
Flexible Groups: Moving Beyond Levels to Assess Reading Needs
In the past, flexible groups really weren't that flexible in our classrooms, especially when we based the groups on students' reading levels. For years we said, "Yes, of course we...
Whole-Class Vocabulary Lesson, Grades K-2
In this five-minute video, Joan Moser of "The Sisters" teaches a whole-class vocabulary lesson. The focus is on helping students notice interesting words, and make connections between daily read-alouds and...
Inviting Students to Organize Books and Materials
Are you always looking for something in your classroom? Maybe it's that special pair of scissors, your attendance/grade book, or the long overdue library copy of Cynthia Rylant's The Journey: Stories...
Introducing Bull’s-Eye and Waves Written Responses in Synthesis Work
My students helped me understand that to synthesize what you are reading, you have to stand in two places at once: in your own shoes and in the shoes of...
Time for Reading
How much time do your students spend actually reading text during the literacy block? This question came up during a meeting of elementary classroom teachers. These teachers are required to...
Concepts of Print: Conferring with a Kindergartner
In this conference with five-year-old Mariano, Joan Moser (of "The Sisters") assesses his understanding of reading, print, and books at the start of the school year. After the conference, Joan...
Minilessons to Start Conversations with Students About Books
In my work as a curricular support teacher, I find myself thinking about people who have been important to me in my role as classroom teacher. When I think about...
Noticing Interesting Words: Small-Group Vocabulary Lesson
In this five-minute video, Gail Boushey leads a short small-group lesson on vocabulary. In the debrief after the lesson, Gail talks with Joan Moser about vocabulary instruction and the importance...
What Are the Seven Reading Comprehension Strategies?
A "strategy" is a plan developed by a reader to assist in comprehending and thinking about texts, when reading the words alone does not give the reader a sense of...
Digging Deep: The Power of Rereading
It is the first day of school; the classroom crackles with whisper voices as a new group of fifth graders investigate my classroom library. I stand back, giving my students...
