Content Category: Choice Literacy
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Conferring with Children
One of the hardest things for us to learn in improving our conferring skills was to truly get up, move about, and start conferring with children one-on-one. We were accustomed...
The Anticipation Guide: A Tool for Study Group Leaders
When I was a fifth-grade teacher, a typical day ended with a hundred and one important details that needed my attention -- planning for the next day's classes, calling parents...
Linking Math and Writing Through Word Problems
In this six-minute video, Franki Sibberson demonstrates how she helps her 3rd and 4th grade students make connections between writing workshop and math problem solving.
Middle School Classroom Makeover Part I
In this first of a three-part video series, "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) help 7th grade teacher Erin declutter and rearrange her classroom.
Student Reading Interview: Assessing Ana Part 2
This is the second video in a two-part series. Principal Karen Szymusiak interviewed Ana, a second grader, to learn more about her strengths and needs as a reader. In this...
Big Books and Charts Organizer
In this two-minute video, Joan Moser shares a simple tool teachers can create for their classrooms to keep Big Books, charts, and laminated large materials organized.
Watching Teachers Teach: An Observation Form for Literacy Coaches
Early in my first year as a literacy coach, I tried to go into classrooms to watch teachers teach. I wanted to know what was happening in classrooms, and I...
Open Book Clubs
Monroe School was very pleased with their literacy instructional program. The students were encouraged to read independently and kept track of the books that they were reading in reading logs....
Multicultural Picture Books for Young Children
Children learn about the sounds of language through exposure to linguistic awareness games, nursery rhymes, and rhythmic activities. Engaging children in choral readings of rhymes and rhythms allows them to...
Letting Go and Holding On: Evaluating Our Work as Literacy Coaches
As a literacy coach, I am very interested in the progress of our students and value that data as an indicator of the success of my work. I also solicit...
Grade Level Team Meeting: Test Preparation
In this video of a 3rd grade team meeting, literacy coaches Janet Scott and Gail Boushey help third-grade teachers think through what is going well with test preparation, and what...
Makeover for the Teacher Desk Area
"The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) work with Sarah Thibault and friends in Maine to makeover the teacher desk area in her 4th grade classroom.
New Teacher Conversations: Management Stories from the Classroom
Classroom management was on the new teachers' minds at our last meeting of the year when we asked them what they would like from us for resources and discussion the...
Quotes about Literacy Leadership and Change
I suppose that leadership at one time meant muscle; but today it means getting along with people. Indira Gandhi Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in...
Giving New Readers a Diet of More Than Leveled Books
I am going on another diet. Not one of my favorite things, but something I have to do. I know that for the diet to last through all of the...
Chance Encounter
It was supposed to be a casual and quick lunch with a couple of colleagues I worked with when I taught in a middle school some years ago. It turned...
Picking a Partner: Demonstration Lesson and Debrief
In this demonstration lesson from a K-2 classroom, Joan Moser leads students through guided practice in picking a partner. In the debrief with Natalie, Joan talks through issues and...
3rd Grade Meeting Area Makeover
Are your meeting area wall displays too cluttered? "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) help a 3rd grade teacher rethink her wall displays and meeting area in this ten-minute...
The Language of Coaching Part I: Word Choices
Giving written and spoken feedback is an opportunity to be very thoughtful about the words we choose in communicating with teachers. This is a challenge. There are nuances to our...
Favorite Mentoring Quotes
Looking back across my timeline through school, and indeed in the early days of teaching, I see one good thing about being filled with insecurities. Knowing that I had everything...
Notetaking Series Part V: Getting Out of Notetaking Ruts
Routines are wonderful -- they help us organize our days, weeks, and months in a way that helps us accomplish goals. Yet routines also can lead to ruts -- certain...
