we know that if you’re taking the time to read blogs about literacy then you are probably as passionate as we are about all things reading and writing. which is why we feel it’s important to advocate for literacy for all whenever we get the chance. right now is one of those times.      while our days are spent working with school age readers and writers, we are also involved in working with adult learners who cannot read and write. this vulnerable population includes those learners who may have struggled with reading and writing in school and never mastered these skills or ..read more

oh, august. the sunday night of the summer. our hope is that this august has brought rest  and summery things rather than frantic prepping for the school year ahead. and, if you’re in a place that school doesn’t start until after labor day, we hope that august starts to slow for you a bit and you soak up every minute of freedom left. to those of you who have started or are starting in the next two weeks: we hope the start has been smoother than anticipated. no matter how you’re feeling about the beginning of the school year, we’re sure you’d agree that the chance to start over every year ..read more

we recently had the opportunity to attend a writing retreat hosted by choice literacy. this was the second writing retreat with choice literacy we’ve been on, and they’ve both been inspirational as well as both relaxing and productive (the writing retreats are seriously the only times we can think of that we’ve felt both relaxed and productive). this writing retreat, we were gifted a copy of textbook amy krouse rosenthal and encouraged to use it in specific ways to inspire our writing throughout the two days we were together. we knew of amy from her children’s books, and hearing of her passing ..read more

we aren’t just teachers of reading and writing workshop. we’re believers in reading and writing workshop. we also believe anyone who has the chance to visit a classroom using the workshop model would be believers, too. the reality, though – and we know this from experience – is that doing workshop well is hard. it takes time and a lot of learning to feel confident. it’s easier and maybe, therefore, tempting at times to assign everyone the same book or hand out a worksheet to practice a writing skill. like all (almost all?) hard things, though, workshop is worth it. it’s worth the yea ..read more

you can picture speed dating in your head: two rows of people facing one another, talking in pairs. when a timer goes off, one row of people move down one person and begin talking to their new partner. and so it goes, until they’ve talked to everyone or time is up. speed booking works the same way, except the conversation is focused on books rather than one another. we first learned about speed booking many years ago at a tcrwp summer institute with brooke geller, a staff developer. during speed booking, students pair off to share about a favorite book and are given a short amount of time ..read more

if you’re in new jersey like us, you might have enjoyed your first real snow day this week. at the first sign of snow, we jump on the chance to pull out two snow-related books. below, we’ll share a few quick ways you might use them in your classroom. snow day! by lester laminack is a perfect one to read on a missed snow day. you know, the day that everyone was anticipating as a snow day, but you ended up in school nonetheless. it can also fit after a real snow day or when you’re at school as the snow is starting and the class is hoping to get called home. this book is written from t ..read more

this post will focus on creating character posters to share during a reading celebration. we have used this celebration method at the end of a unit of study that focuses on character, which is often a unit during which students plan and read at least one book with a partner. when planning for a celebration using character posters, we think about the focus of our unit and what our expectations should be so that students can show their work toward these focuses. because we devote a day of reading workshop to creating the posters, we want to make sure that they are valuable, and so we have t ..read more

this week we focus on gallery walks as a way to celebrate reading work. as the name implies, this type of celebration is structured like a museum gallery walk and is an idea that we’ve borrowed from mary ehrenworth, a staff developer at tcrwp. during a gallery walk, students open their reader’s notebook to a page that they are particularly proud of and leave the notebook out at their seat. we sometimes place large post-its in at each table for gallery walkers to leave feedback. once all the notebooks are out, students travel around the room looking at the work that other students hav ..read more

happy 2017! the break went too quickly, as all breaks usually do. when we return this week, we’ll be excited to hear about our students’ winter break adventures and, as we’re hoping is the case for many, the reading time that they managed to steal. if you helped set your students up for reading success before the break, you will want to find ways to celebrate this when they return. here are some ways you might do this: if you gave your students self addressed post cards, share them before a mini lesson and then find a place to display them in your room. have students give some book talks on b ..read more

we’re sure that many of you are like us and have hung on carol dweck’s research on the benefits of a growth mindset for your students  – benefits for them as people, as learners, but also benefits for your classroom community – and looked for ways to help foster this kind of growth mindset in your kids. in a recent article we read, dweck addressed some of the misunderstandings of her research around mindsets. one area that stood out to us was the dangers of praising the effort when a student is struggling or failing. dweck said, “teachers were just praising effort that was not effective ..read more