Content Category: Choice Literacy
Results
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...
In the Zone: Conferring with a Young English Language Learner
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is a concept developed by the Russian language researcher Lev Vygotsky nearly a century ago. The theory simply stated is there is a learning...
Getting Started with Your Own Writer’s Notebook
It's summer and school is out - at least in Georgia. There are a zillion things I love about the summer: waking up without an alarm, having my morning java...
Family Dichos: Bringing the Language of Home into the Classroom
A friend and colleague, Espie dela Vega, mentioned a dicho that guided her and her family as she was growing up: En cada cabeza, el mundo. When someone acted differently, or in...
Over, Under, and Beyond Words: Alternative Strategies for Observing Talk in Classrooms (E-GUIDE)
In the book Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning Peter Johnston writes about the importance of teacher talk with students. He notes, "Teachers have very different ways of...
What’s Valued? Exploring Different Values in Evaluation (E-GUIDE)
This series of four activities is designed for use in workshops or mentoring sessions, with a goal of helping everyone ferret out their school community's history, beliefs, and goals in...
Opinion Exchange (E-GUIDE)
An "Opinion Exchange" is a wonderful activity for a study group session or faculty meeting to explore beliefs and build community around an area of interest. The activity also fosters...
Community Language Board: Building Vocabulary All Year Long
The "Community Language Board" is where the class shares interesting new words from read alouds, sight words, and alternatives to common words in writing. In this video tour, "The Sisters"...
Idealism Fades to Reality: Thinking Back to My Days as a New Teacher
I still remember picking up the phone in my kitchen and hearing the words, "We would like to offer you a third grade position." Fifteen years have passed, yet the...
Conferring with a Child in the “Silent Period”
Larisa is a six-year-old who speaks Russian at home, and is in the "silent period" in school. In this conference, Ruth Shagoury demonstrates different strategies for eliciting responses from Larisa....
Writing About a War-Torn Home: Zerina Talks About Finding Her Writer’s Voice
English language learners enter our classrooms with histories from many different cultures—sometimes as immigrants from other countries. Although there are many reasons why families choose to immigrate, none are more...
Conferring with Anna
Anna is a five-year-old student in an Oregon kindergarten classroom who speaks Vietnamese at home. In this conference with Ruth Shagoury, she shares writing about her classmates and a snake,...
Every Language Counts: Adding Multilingual Counting Activities to Morning Meeting
Every year I have children who come from homes with many different first languages. In the past year alone, first languages included English, Spanish, Hmong, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Russian. One...
Spacing Words: A Minilesson with Young Writers
In this two-minute video, Andie Cunningham reinforces the concept of spacing words with her kindergartners using her own writing and a brainstorming web.
Layered Support: Meeting the Needs of Beginning Teachers
The new teachers who reported feeling the most supported described their schools as having what we called "integrated professional cultures." There, new teachers could expect frequent and meaningful interaction among...
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...
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...
Power Tools
One of the benefits of living in the South is the warm weather most of the year. Two of the downfalls, though, are the humidity and mold. Usually, opening the...
Coaching Moment: Reorganizing a Classroom Library
It may sound like such a minor coaching experience, and yet it was so powerful. I was asked by a second-grade teacher to help reorganize her classroom library, so it...
Listen In: Jeffry’s Ocean Story
As a literacy coach, I'm lucky to be in the same class once a week for writing workshop throughout the year. Sometimes I refer to it as my "lab classroom,"...
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...
