Content Category: Choice Literacy
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1st Grade Room Tour with Kelly Yahr
In this four-minute video, Kelly Yahr introduces viewers to her 1st grade classroom. Kelly emphasizes how much ownership students have of wall displays and the library, especially through their writing...
Teaching Inferring with Picture Books Part III: Whole-Class Debrief
Following a read-aloud and small group discussion, I like to debrief with the class about each group's conversation. There is a level of accountability here. My students know they are...
4th Grade Small-Group Lesson: Dialogue
One of the challenges of working with intermediate writers is helping them understand how and when to use dialogue in their writing. In this video of a small-group lesson, Aimee...
Main Ideas in Nonfiction
In this whole-class lesson, 5th grade teacher Karen Terlecky and her students consider how main ideas work in nonfiction texts. The lesson includes reading and discussion of a short text...
Fifth-Grade Room Tour
"The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) show the many creative and low-cost ways in which a colleague displays books and materials to build interest in literacy.
Keeping the M
In an age of standardization, when even preschoolers are expected to perform flawlessly on literacy tests such as letter naming and recognition, it is important for early childhood teachers to...
Middle School Library Makeover Part I
In this first of a two-part video series, "The Sisters" (Joan Moser and Gail Boushey) work with students, a librarian, and a principal to makeover a middle-school library. This first...
Tiger Teams: Mixed Age Student Groups
In this video, Karen Szymusiak (the principal at Glacier Ridge Elementary School in Dublin, Ohio) explains how "Tiger Teams" work. Tiger Teams are mixed age groups of K-5 students who...
Helping Young Readers Become Independent: The “Next-Read” Stack and Peer Groups
I find next-read book stacks to be critical for students in the transitional years of reading. Many young readers are just beginning to read books that take longer than one...
Middle School Library Makeover Part II: Stacks and Recap
The Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) collaborate with a middle school librarian, principal, and team of students to makeover the school library. In this final segment of the series,...
6th Grade Classroom Room Tour
Katie Doherty shares how she has organized her 6th grade classroom to support students at her bustling middle school.
Helping Students Set Nonfiction Reading Goals
For years, no matter how hard I tried, fiction seemed to take over my students' reading workshop time. I realized that with only one block of time to read, students...
1st Grade Room Tour with Katie DiCesare
In this video tour of her 1st grade classroom, Katie DiCesare highlights the many areas of the room used to support literacy, including the classroom library and wall displays.
Animals for Literacy: 4th Grade Room Tour
In this five-minute video room tour, 4th grade teacher Andrea Smith from Dublin, Ohio shows how she builds a classroom community and much of her literacy curriculum from the care...
Book Choice and Planning Lesson
Book choice is something that we talk about all year long. Years ago, I did several minilessons on book choice early in the year and assumed that once my students...
Coaching in Kindergarten: Conferring
What's in a name? For kindergartner Maria, it's the start of learning how letters and sounds work. In this coaching session, Joan Moser of "The Sisters" helps Daniel understand how...
Student Reading Interview: Assessing Ana
Principal Karen Szymusiak interviews Ana, a second grader, to learn more about her strengths and needs as a reader. Here are some sample reading interview questions: How would you...
Sports Writing Group Discussion
As part of our nonfiction writing study, many of the students in the class began to write about sports. Every year that I've taught in any grade, this is a...
5th Grade Room Tour
Karen Terlecky's classroom tour focuses on the anchor charts and wall displays she uses to promote literacy with her 5th grade students. Two of the books Karen discusses that have...
Talking About Tests
For several years, I have been spending about a month before state testing on a test-taking genre in reading. It works like any other genre study, allowing students to learn...
Literacy Chats: An Open Discussion Format
In my school, the teachers have monthly "literacy chats" to discuss current trends and issues that arise in our classrooms. These are informal discussions designed to help us build a...
