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
Let’s Get Some Attitude
"All our attitudes come out in language," says English maven Robert MacNeil. Not just thoughts. Not just ideas. Not just imaginings. Attitudes. Maybe that's part of what's missing in those...
Boys’ Book Club in Second Grade
"The girls started it." That's how Linda remembers book clubs were born in second grade. Two girls had become interested in the Warriors series by Erin Hunter and...
Common Core Conversations: Increasing Argumentative Writing
"Let's argue more often!" Does this exclamation bring up some feelings for you? Are they positive? Maybe . . . if you won debates in high school. Perhaps the word...
“I Am the Book”: Helping Emergent Bilingual Learners Connect with Books
Too often in school, emergent bilingual students have trouble connecting with the book. This fall, I planned to change that. I wanted to help my English language learners read with...
Important Book, Important Notes: Guiding Young Students Through Notetaking
For about six weeks last winter, my daughter Lindsay was doing research on dogs during her self-directed learning time in kindergarten. She checked out a pile of Eyewitness books about...
A Strategy Lesson for “Drive-Thru” Readers
Early in the year, like many teachers across the country, I work diligently to teach and reteach my students how to choose a just-right book. We review the parts of...
Teaching About Words, Grammar, and Mechanics Through Children’s Literature (BOOKLIST)
When I think about my students as learners, I want them to be more than just good spellers. I think that this year, many of my daily word study lessons...
Choosing Books in Verse
Poetry can seem intimidating to some young (and old) readers. So asking a student who isn’t too sure about reading a single poem to read an entire novel written in...
Panels and Pages: Using Graphic Novels in the High School Classroom
My students love graphic novels, and as I’ve made more of an effort to read them myself, so do I. However, I have noticed that there is still a bit...
Ready-to-Go Book Talks
It’s the beginning of the school year, and you have several book talks already written in your plan book and ready to go. You are ready to pitch these books...
Setting Middle School Readers Up for Success
In my class, students do a good deal of reading outside of their literacy hour in a block of time called “independent reading.” While I still encourage students to read...
Photo Booth and Young Readers
How many times had I seen that Photo Booth icon on my laptop but not really given it much thought? How many times did I think of Photo Booth as...
Book Matchmaker: Read Alouds That Invite Young Readers to Participate
There is nothing like a great story that naturally invites readers to join in. Our youngest students love those repeated phrases, and don’t need a prompt to jump right into...
Launching a Classroom Library
I learned the hard way you simply cannot just hand over the keys to your classroom library and let 23 kids take it for a spin. Disaster will shortly ensue....
Field Experience: Supporting Independent Reading, Choice and Stamina
Helping students learn to choose books and develop stamina are important to developing independent readers. This field experience offers opportunities to see minilessons, small group instruction, team meetings and a...
Field Experience: Book Talks to Empower Independent Reading
Helping students find books they want to read is the heart of powerful independent reading. This field experience chronicles the way book talks put books in adolescents' hands that have...
Moving from Whole-Class Texts to Independent Reading: Characterization
In an effort to make more space for independent reading, over the years I have reduced the number of whole-class novels that I read with my classes to two, maybe...
The Shades of Sadness: Character Feelings and Traits
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions). Considering my...
Book Matchmaker: 3rd Graders Reading Below Grade Level
Ellen is a tutor and works with 3rd grade students who are reading below grade level. Although these students are reading below grade level, they want to read...
Activities Linking Books and Visual Learners for Early in the Year
By late August I wake two or three times every night, thinking about that first day of school. I love the early days of school. I love meeting new students...
Helping Kids Lead Every Day: Changing Who “Owns” Small Groups in the Classroom
One Sunday evening, while planning for my small-group instruction in reading, I paused. Why was I thinking about these groups as my small groups? They are the kids’ small groups,...
