Content Category: Choice Literacy
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Understanding the Middle East Through Children’s Literature (BOOKLIST)
As educators of kids, as well as literacy coaches who work with adults, we have been searching for quality children’s literature about the Middle East. Countries from the Middle East...
Every Picture Tells a Story
My house is decorated with a hodgepodge of artifacts, memorabilia, and photos that transport friends and family to different times and places. Gazing at photos and reliving these experiences is...
Research IS the Project (Primary Research Series)
Have you had good chocolate and then tried really excellent chocolate? Were you ever able to go back to the just-good chocolate? Yeah, me neither. That’s what happened when I...
Embracing the Growth Mindset with Audiobooks
Have you ever been at a school or community event where kids are challenged to three-legged races or water balloon tosses? And then all of a sudden they announce a...
Audioboo, QR Codes, and Authentic Reading Response
This year I have given a lot of thought to authentic reading responses. I don’t know about you, but I do not typically finish a book and create some type...
The Big Fresh April 6, 2013 Thanks
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a...
Teacher-as-Writing-Model Minilesson in Fourth Grade
Beth Lawson shares her writing process, as well as the emotions and struggles writers face, with her fourth-grade students.
KLWL: Ordering Research (Primary Research Series Part 3)
Whether it’s the cart before the horse or the tail wagging the dog, there are plenty of sayings about the accepted order of things. With the inquiry process of KWL,...
Tips for Effective Family Communication from “The Mouse”
As a mother of a now five-and-a-half-year old, I’ve had many firsts with my son, Jordan. The calendar of his first year chronicles his first bath, his first word, his...
Family Literacy Night
The pursuit of home-school connections never ends for educators. As a principal, I make mention of literacy in virtually every monthly newsletter I send home. In fact, this is a...
A Literary Taste of Home (Home is Where the Books Are Series)
It shocks me that my kids are Californians. Such a big part of my identity is being a New Englander (hard worker, slower to make friends but keep them for...
Hindsight: What I Wish I’d Known Before My School Burned Down
As trite as it sounds, you never think it is going to happen to you, until it does and then hindsight is just that -- a lot of "wish I...
The Big Fresh March 30, 2013 Appreciation
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. William James I've often wondered why people choose the bumper stickers they do. Stickers like "My kid...
Just-Right Poetry and Individualizing Instruction
One of the challenges of teaching is finding the right books and materials to address specific instructional goals. Once teachers have found the perfect book to help their students understand...
The “Tys” of Student Research: Safety and Credibility (Primary Research Series Part 2)
I’ve been feeling very “meta” lately as I research research about research. Christopher Lehman’s book: Energize Research Reading and Writing: Fresh Strategies to Spark Interest, Develop Independence, and Meet Key...
March Book Madness
During the month of March, like many people in the United States, I am consumed by college basketball. In my opinion the NCAA Basketball Championship is the greatest thing in...
Poetry and Fluency Minilesson in Second Grade
Sean Moore uses poetry for a short minilesson on fluency, and then follows with a partner share and vocabulary discussion. The poem Sean reads with the children is The Busy...
Beyond Text Features in Nonfiction Instruction
When I think back to my past teaching connected to nonfiction reading, I often (no matter the grade) did a unit on nonfiction text features. We worked for a few...
Putting the Search Back in Research
When I saw an entire subsection in the Common Core Writing Standards devoted to “Research to Build and Present Knowledge,” I rubbed my hands together and said, “It’s time.” My...
The Big Fresh March 23, 2013 Reteaching
Sometimes it is necessary To reteach a thing its loveliness . . . Galway Kinnell I'm in a long line of idling cars to pick up my daughter at...
Science Challenge
Franki Sibberson's fourth-grade students share results from the weekly science challenge.
