Content Category: Choice Literacy
Results
The Big Fresh February 25, 2017 Celebrating Read Alouds
The fire of literacy is created by the sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading. Mem Fox One day before winter break, my classroom was filled...
Increasing Read Alouds in the Primary Grades
Years ago, I was sitting in a workshop led by Debbie Miller as she talked about the importance of reading aloud to students. Of course I already knew the importance...
Poetry Read-Alouds During Transitions
There they sat. Spines showing and alphabetized by author: never moved, read, or enjoyed. I would gather some for Poetry Friday, only to realphabetize and let them sit until the...
Read-Aloud Gone Awry
Some years back, I was reading a book aloud to my seventh graders. We weren’t yet to the halfway point, and I was happily enjoying the whole thing—I loved the...
The Big Fresh February 18, 2017 Totally
Sometimes advice from others is more difficult to bear than even slang. Amit Kalantri When I was 15, I was riding in my father’s truck on our way to...
Heart Words
Katrina Edwards demonstrates a daily word work activity with her first-grade students in which they use oral and kinesthetic routines to master new words they should "know by heart." ...
Student-Generated Vocabulary Discussions
While discussing read-alouds with a middle school colleague recently, the topic of vocabulary came up. The question “How do you choose the vocabulary to introduce in your read-alouds?” came up....
The Big Fresh February 11, 2017 Say Yes to Something Else
Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the...
Fact or Fiction? Introducing the Task
For years I have taught my middle school students the mnemonic Nonfiction Is Not Fake and Fiction Is Fake. The idea of the trick is to help students distinguish which...
Fact or Fiction? Discussion
Christy Rush-Levine has her middle school students complete a fun and sophisticated reading activity using Muse magazine to sort through what might be fact or fiction. In this second installment...
Getting the Ball Rolling in a Realistic Fiction Unit
Sometimes I think of the beginning of a writing unit as the beginning of a snowman. You start with a patch of snow, and then you start rolling. You hope...
Free-Range Learning with Nonfiction Part 2: Infographics and Maps
Each extended family, workplace, and classroom has those innovative, creative members who bring a refreshing flair to the scene. Nonfiction’s extended text family is no different. Infographics are those interesting...
Minilesson on Facts and Sources
Katherine Sokolowski presents a minilesson to fifth graders on ferreting out facts while completing independent research projects.
Rhyming Words and English Language Learners
I don’t understand . . . Luis just can’t rhyme, and we’ve been practicing rhymes for weeks. You would think that he would’ve gotten it by now. Right? What am...
The Big Fresh February 4, 2017 Branding
Do what you do best and link to the rest. Jeff Jarvis When I remember my favorite teachers through the years, I realize that each of them had a...
Life in a Single Breath
the sky shivers in the pond, clouds pass through watery leaves— autumn darkens great silent owl sweeps over the field, moonlight splinters late september woodsmoke and leafpiles— the last of...
Minilesson: Tips for Book Talks
Gigi McAllister shares tips for better student book talks and models one to be critiqued.
Free Range Learning with Nonfiction (Part 1)
I have always been a nonfiction lover. Even in the early 1970s before the children’s book industry embraced informational texts for children, I loved reading about my world. Fact lists...
Creating Curiosity with Story
“You can’t stop there. We want to know more!” “It’s like stopping in the middle of a movie!” When I am doing my minilessons before having my students read, I...
The Big Fresh January 28, 2017 Kickball
Play is the beginning of knowledge. George Dorsey Every outdoor recess of my entire fifth-grade year, I played kickball. I was not particularly good...
The Big Fresh January 21, 2017 What Motivates You?
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. Jim Ryun Over the past two years I’ve become fascinated by the concept of habit and routines...
