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"Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him." ~Maya Angelou

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Leveling books in your classroom library is important so students know which books are going to be the best for them to read so they aren't bored or fristrated.

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Shel Silverstein is a very popular and brilliant poet. His poetry books have been passed down for so many generations and it's a book that children will enjoy to read because not only is the poetry fun and quirky, the illustrations along with them are relevant and cute.

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Playing off of the popular DVD rental service "RedBox", the "ReadBox" is a new way to organize your classroom library to make it fun, appealing, and relevant to the child.

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You can have student's create a "Silhouette Collage" of themselves. The teacher creates students silhouette and students use different pictures from magazines and newspapers to fill up their head with what they're thinking about or what they like. They then create a poem based on their mind and collage.

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Highlights Kids is a great magazine to promote literacy. Each issue of the magazine contains several different sections, such as stories, craft ideas, letters to the editor from fellow peers, a survey, a jokes page, etc. It is a fun and colorful way to use literacy in the classroom away from a conventional book.

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"I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" is a great example of literature to use in your classroom. After reading the book, this is a great activity to use with your students to reinforce concepts learned while reading and enhance comprehension.

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Children's literature are stories, books, magazines, and poems that are enjoyed by children.

Children's literature brings enjoyment and pleasure to the classroom. It enriches the curriculum and motivates students to read. The literature can convey messages to the children about many social and political issues, whether it's obvious or not so obvious.

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"Teaching in the internet age means we must teacher tomorrow's skills today." ~Jennifer Fleming

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You can create a classroom Twitter, blog, Wiki, or even padlet to promote discussion in the classroom. Students are using these social media platforms everyday and can enjoy using these websites for homework.

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WebQuests are an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all the information that students interact with come from resources on the internet. This is a great way to incorporate technology in the classroom and promote higher order thinking skills. They revolve around a question asked by the teacher and students go on a "quest" to try and answer that question.

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Discussion boards allow a group of students to to hold discussions without using email by posting messages on a bulletin board and other users can respond to these messages. You can read, post a message, and come back later and see if anyone responded or started a discussion with you. This is a great way to promote discussion in the classroom using new literacies.

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Virtual field trips are an excellent tool to use with students. Say you did a unit on "The Little House on the Prairie" but can't get to the Ozarks to see the actual house. There's a website that allows you to take a tour of the house and gives you information about the book and events in history during that time period. Virtual field can also be watching the geysers at Yellowstone National Park erupt (live!) or using another website to visit the rainforest.

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There are many popular websites for streaming videos, such as YouTube and The Discovery Channel. Video clips can enhance a child's comprehension, develop prior knowledge, and reinforce content that the student previously learned in class.

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This is a program called "Building Language for Literacy" and it has three sections: Reggie the Rhyming Rhino, Nina the Naming Newt, and Leo the Letter-Loving Lobster. Students can use this SmartBoard program to build on their literacy skills.

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A SmartBoard is a touch-sensitive whiteboard connected to a a projector and a computer. Teachers can run programs on the SmartBoard and interact with it just using a finger. There are many applications available for literacy as well.

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Many students have mobile access through smartphones and iPod's, podcasts are a great way to get information delivered through audio recordings. There are many websites online that supply teachers with educational podcasts to help struggling readers.

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Also known as e-books, these have become very popular recently. You can purchase books off many popular devices, such as an iPad, and even an e-reader itself, such as a Kindle or a Nook.

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A lot of classrooms today either have iPad's or some sort of tablet, such as Kindles, for student use. Downloading educational learning apps to these devices can help students learn a specific skill or set of skills while getting to be hands-on and interactive with the new technology.

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New literacies are new forms of literacy made possible by digital technology developments. New technologies are continuously emerging and will require students to read text and comprehend meaning in different ways using different processes.

New literacies are emerging everyday in a students life because of the advancement of the internet and other new technologies. Teachers must teach these students how to navigate these new literacies because they are important to a child's future. The Internet and new technology isn't going away anytime soon and teaching these children the right way to utilize and navigate these literacies is important.

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"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." ~E.L. Doctorow

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You can create a self-checklist like this one to give to students to monitor their writing and see how far they have come along and if they are following the rules of the workshop.

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You can have a poster of different goals you hope the students can accomplish in the school year. Using small post-its, students put their names in the goal they are working on.

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A Sample of How to Divide up Writer's Workshop Time

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A Sample of How to Divide up Writer's Workshop Time

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Using clothes pins, students can move their pin to each area of the writing process they are on. This is a great way to visually see where they are in the process and a good way for the teacher to see how far along students are.

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You can have students be writing buddies and they can read each other's work and give compliments, suggestions, and corrections based on what they read. This is great to promote peer reviewing.

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You can use a "Story Tower" to display your students work. Using cardboard poster trifolds, stack them on top of each and fasten them down to create a tower and staple their work on the visible sides.

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Use A.R.M.S and C.U.P.S to remind students the difference between revising and editing because those are common mix-ups in the writing process.

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You can have a poster such as this one hanging in the classroom to remind students how to make an organized, cohesive paragraph after the skill is taught.

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You can use a method called "I Wonder..." and have children free write to brainstorm ideas for what they're going to write about. Most student's have trouble staring at a blank sheet of paper and figuring out what to write, so using free writing can help them write down anything they know about a given topic and spark more ideas.

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Writing as a process has 5 steps: pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. 1. Pre-writing: this is the planning phase of the process and the most important. Student's should be brainstorming and gathering their ideas into an outline or graphic organizer. 2. Drafting: student's should be creating a draft of their writing in an organized manner to convey their ideas. 3. Revising: student's should be reviewing and modifying their work by adding, changing, or taking away content in their writing. This stage is meant to improve their writing. 4. Editing: this is the stage where writer's proofread and correct any errors they see in their writing, such as grammatical and spelling errors. 5. Publishing: the final piece of work is shared with the group or even published online or printed out.

Writer's workshop is composed of 4 different areas. There is time for a mini-lesson where you focus on one skill for the students to learn, there is time to assess the status of the class and see what each student is working on, there is time for writing and while students are writing, you can conference, and there is time for sharing where students read what they wrote and they are provided with feedback.

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Writing as a Process and Writer's Workshop

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Writing as a Process and Writer's Workshop

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"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies; the man who never reads lives only one." ~George R.R. Martin

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Guideline for children when picking out books to read for Reader's Workshop, Helps them pick out books on their instructional level instead of independent or frustration level.

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This activity is called "Spelling Roll-A-Word" and is a great activity for centers. Using dice, you roll it and do what the corresponding number says. It's also great for vocabulary words.

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Using a cookie sheet, students can assemble sight words with magnetic letters. You can also use vocabulary words, spelling words, etc. It's very versatile.

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This center is called "Learning to Write". Students create letters out of stones you buy at the craft store and they write the letter on the white board after they finish assembling it.

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Student's can write letters to you after they have finished reading the book. This gauges their comprehension while also teaching them writing skills.

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These are guidelines to follow when conducting a Reader's Workshop in your classroom.

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You can have students sign the "Reader's Workshop Contract" in the beginning of the year. This gives you a chance to explain what the workshop is and what the rules are during workshop.

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Reader's Workshop is a teaching method where the goal is to teach students strategies for reading and comprehension.

The workshop allows teachers to differentiate and meet the needs of all the students in the classroom. The workshop allows to children to develop a love for reading and give them the chance to practice strategies independently and with guidance.

Learning centers are designated areas in the classroom where children are put into small groups and they have to complete an activity in a certain amount of time before they move onto the next center. Learning centers allow children social interaction while practicing hands-on skills.

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"The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go" ~Dr. Seuss

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You can use "Comprehension Sticks" after reading the story. Students draw a stick and they must answer the question they receive.

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These are "Retelling Gloves". Made from winter gloves on clearance at any store, there are 5 parts: character, setting, problem, events, solution. You can add little pictures to the words, but it's not necessary. You must model a retelling prior to giving students the gloves to use.

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Students can play "Roll-A-Story" after reading a book. Students take turn rolling the dice and answering the questions for the number they roll.

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You can use this poster in your classroom. These are 6 great ways to promote reading comprehension and make the students think when they're reading.

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While this activity is helpful for students who can read fluently but cannot remember what they read, the whole class can benefit from it. When students read, they should be using post-it notes to mark down their thinking accordingly.

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Comprehension can be defined as the ability to understand something. Reading comprehension is the ability to read text, process it, and understand its meaning.

Reading comprehension is important because without it, reading would just be following the words left to right on a page. You wouldn't understand what these words mean when they are put together. The goal of reading is to derive something from it and without reading comprehension, that cannot be done.

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"Reading is the basic tool in the living of a good life" ~Joseph Addison

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"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader" ~Margaret Fuller

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"Learn your language and command it well, and you will have the first component to life." ~Edward Murrow

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Tape vocabulary words on the side of a jar and fill it with marbles or rice. You can also place small objects that are related to the vocabulary words in there too, such as the example below of ocean-themed vocabulary words. Students take these "Vocab Jars" and they write a story based on the words they see.

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Introduce words using the read aloud method.

Provide a kid-friendly definition of the word. Use the word in sentences and give several meaningful examples. Have the students switch roles and do what you just modeled.

Use and apply the word. Have the students use the word and define it for you. If they can do this, they demonstrate understanding. If they can't, they just need more practice.

Show and display the word. You can put the word on the classroom word wall to showcase it.

Write and draw the word. Students should write the new word and its definition. If applicable, they should draw a symbol next to it so it can help them remember.

Use the words often. Model the word in sentences and use them often. Encourage students to do the same.

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Using the lids of empty baby wipe containers, glue them onto a dry erase board. On the lid of the container, write the vocabulary word. On the inside, write the definition of the word. Students can practice their vocabulary on the "Vocab Board".

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After student's have been introduced to the vocabulary words, you can play this fun game with them called "Toss and Answer". Write the vocabulary words on an index card and place them in a muffin tin. The student tosses a small ball into the tin and whichever word they land on they must define. This is a great reinforcement activity.

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Vocabulary development is vital for student's. There is a link between vocabulary knowledge and comprehension. Teacher must be using direct and explicit vocabulary instruction in the classroom daily. Student's enter school with different levels of word knowledge. Teacher's must model good word learning strategies to immerse the students. Just having students look up definitions in the dictionary is the least effective way to increase their vocabulary, Teachers need to know a number of different ways to teach students vocabulary.

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Eric Carle has excellent books that are wonderful examples for read alouds,

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You can use a "Guided Reading Cube" for students during guided reading time. They can roll the cube and they have to answer the statement they rolled.

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You can have children keep independent reading journals and they can get assessed for how they were reading by themselves. This is a great visual for students and they understand what they are being assessed on.

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Use a poem to start off shared reading. The teacher starts first and models skills that proficient readers have, such as fluency and expression, Then you can go around the room and everyone reads the poem and substitutes their name in the blank space.

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You can make a poster like this one to promote proper independent reading skills and hang it up near the classroom library.