Latest Reading Posts from the Blog

3 Effective Strategies to Use With ANY Informational Text
Picture books and other fictional literature have long been a focus in elementary school, and that won’t be changing anytime soon. What has shifted in

The Power of Charts, Graphs, and Timelines: Can They Really Help Students Understand the Text?
Sometimes it seems like most information that adults encounter these days is condensed into a visual format. We just don’t have the attention span to

How to Inspire Students to Ask and Answer Meaningful Questions About Informational Text
Most teachers out there would agree that questioning is an essential part of reading comprehension. Students have to be able to answer questions about what

3 Ways to Help Students Learn from Illustrations in Informational Text
Students are very used to seeing illustrations in the texts that they read. When reading fiction, illustrations can add rich details or set the mood

Stories, Poetry, & Drama: Fun, Effective Ways to Review Throughout the Year
Stories, Poetry, & Drama: Fun, Effective Ways to Review Throughout the Year Imagine…you reach the end of your fiction reading unit, your students have worked

Text & Illustrations: Why Pictures Really Are Worth A Thousand Words
Text & Illustrations: Why Pictures Really Are Worth A Thousand Words We’ve all heard the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words,”

Character Traits & Story Events: How to Help Students Discover a Meaningful Connection
You’ve been working with your students on understanding character traits for a while now. They are practically experts at: identifying character traits describing characters finding

Point of View: Why It’s Tricky, Why it Matters, and How to Help Students Understand
For many elementary students, the idea that other people have a different outlook on the world than their own view is pretty new! Kids tend

3 Powerful Strategies to Teach Asking & Answering Questions
Asking and answering questions come naturally to kids! Asking and answering TEXT DEPENDENT questions that can be answered with text evidence or through inference? Welllllllll…not

Central Message Made Easy: 3 Valuable Tips to Help Students “Get It”
The central message of a story is super important for students to be able to identify, but unfortunately can be a tricky concept for kids

Everything You Need to Know About Launching Reading Workshop
So, you’ve decided to launch reading workshop, but maybe you aren’t sure where to start exactly. I was in that same place when I started

5 Qualities Kids Need to Follow Their Dreams
As parents and teachers, one of our goals is to help our children and our students achieve their dreams and to succeed in whatever path