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Next Gen GR
Guided Reading Planner (Template)
Guided Reading Planner Example

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Your Research-based Guide to Developing Skilled Readers. 300+ strategies with learning progressions support 13 reading goals, with each strategy cross-linked to skills, teacher tips, prompts, research, and reading levels—everything from fluency to literary analysis.

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Level Bands AB - KLM

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Text Complexity K-2 Tool for Supporting Readers.pdf

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Debbie Miller

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Introduction: We Can Do This

Asking Beautiful Questions

Paying Attention to What Doesn't Feel Right

Asking, "What If?": Creating Space for Possibility

Chapter One: What If Each Day's Teaching Focused on Children's Agency?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: The Disengaged Child

What's the Best That Could Happen? Agency Fosters Engagement

Imagining New Possibilities for a Child

Conferring to Support Access and Choice

Paying Attention During Independent Work Time

Conferring to Inquire and to Offer Community

Postscript

Chapter Two: What If We Made What Children Make and Do Our Priority?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: Workshop Planning

What's the Best That Could Happen? Meaningful Work

Planning for What Children Will Do First

Planning for What Teachers Will Do During Work Time

Figuring Out What to Teach

Playing with the Sequence

Taking Ownership

Chapter Three: What If Our Classroom Environment and Routines Offered Choice?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: Frustration over Supplies

What's the Best That Could Happen? Managing Their Own Work

Being Intentional in Our Language

Cocreating Routines

Designing Agentive Environments

Chapter Four: What If We Owned the Units We Are Asked to Teach?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: The Units We're Given

Are These the Right Goals?

Which Texts Work Best?

How Will We Know When We're Done?

How Can This Happen Within Daily Workshop?

What's the Best That Could Happen? Perfection in Imperfection

Chapter Five: What If Read-Aloud Sustained Children's Independent Thinking?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: The Wisdom in Children's Thinking

Expecting Brilliance

Finding Time for Read-Aloud

Reading Aloud for Joy

Teachers and Children Thinking Aloud

What's the Best That Could Happen? Being Inspired to Act

Conclusion: In Pursuit of Beautiful Questions

We all have difficult moments in our teaching, and without a question to drive us forward, we can get stuck. But that difficult moment might be the question we need to ask ourselves. Questions can bring a positive attention, creating a presence in the moment. When I ask children, "Are you the kind of kid who...?", I'm inviting them to imagine a new possibility for themselves, one in which they have more power than they did before. I want those new possibilities for teachers, too. Are you the kind of teacher who is ready to try something new, something that will make your students stronger, more joyful readers and bring you greater joy in your work? I think you are.

Asking questions leads to opportunities-it's about growth, openness, and a willingness to change, which top-down models don't allow. It's a way for us to focus our thinking and be present in the lives we've chosen to live. Asking the question is the essential behavior of teaching. It's not a perfect call-and response but a messy business of wondering, stumbling, and figuring things out. It requires bravery and commitment, but that's what teaching is. It's a joyful, creative, purposeful profession. If you feel you've lost even some of your passion for teaching, I would love to help give it back to you. So, in this book, we'll talk about creating beautiful questions about the teaching of reading. To help you take on the process of asking beautiful questions, I'll share how I got to some beautiful questions about teaching reading and what I did with them as I worked with teachers in classrooms across the country.

This book is about owning our teaching and making decisions based on who we are and what's best for the children in our classroom today. That all sounds ambitious and brave... and the work is-teaching is-but it happens in so many small and simple ways. My wish is for you to think about what you do and ask your own beautiful questions, so that you and your children can thrive and view yourselves and each other as valuable, idea-filled, creative, and contributing humans who own your teaching and learning. Be open and receptive to possibilities! Think: "What if we did it this way?"

"A one-of-a-kind book, full of wisdom and heart. Debbie Miller inspires educators to step back and question everything-challenging us to rethink and reinvent the ways we teach. What's the best that could happen? Read this book and it will help you find your own answer to that beautiful question."

-Warren Berger, author of A More Beautiful Question and The Book of Beautiful Questions
"Debbie Miller is a magician with children, and in What's the Best That Could Happen? she hands us her magic wand. With honesty, humility, and optimism, she shares her thoughts and actions about teaching and learning. Run-don't walk-to conjure up this essential book!"
-Stephanie Harvey, coauthor of The Comprehension Toolkit series, From Striving to Thriving, and Strategies That Work
"Debbie Miller is suggesting something revolutionary. She is suggesting the way to ensure all students learn is to intentionally and persistently expect not just capability but brilliance from them."
-Gretchen Morgan, author of Innovative Educators: An Action Plan for Teachers

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"One of the great joys of teaching is anticipating children's brilliance." In What's the Best That Could Happen?, Debbie Miller confronts a challenge all

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Phonics Small Group Planner (Template)
Phonics Small Group Planner Example

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Planning Doc

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Burkins and Yaris

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Following up on Reading Wellness, Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris explore how some traditional scaffolding practices may actually rob students of important learning opportunities and independence. Who's Doing the Work? suggests ways to make small but powerful adjustments to instruction that hold students accountable for their own learning.

Educators everywhere are concerned about students whose reading development inexplicably plateaus, as well as those who face challenging texts without applying the strategies they've been taught. When such problems arise, our instinct is to do more. But when we summarize text before reading or guide students when they encounter difficult words, are we leading them to depend on our support? If we want students to use strategies independently, Jan and Kim believe that we must question the ways our scaffolding is getting in the way.

Next generation reading instruction is responsive to students' needs, and it develops readers who can integrate reading strategies without prompting from instructors. In Who's Doing The Work?, Jan and Kim examine how instructional mainstays such as read-aloud, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading look in classrooms where students do more of the work. Classroom snapshots at the end of each chapter help translate the ideas in the book into practice.

Who's Doing the Work? offers a vision for adjusting reading instruction to better align with the goal of creating independent, proficient, and joyful readers.

Learn more about Who's Doing the Work? Lesson Sets.

Learn more about Who's Doing the Work? Independent Library Collections.
eBook Available Through Major Retailers
We offer ebook editions for most of our print titles so you can access on your computer, tablet, or e-reader from several major retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, OverDrive, and ebooks.com. View the full list of retailers here. For eBook purchases of 10+ please email us for a quote. Purchases of 20+ qualify for a bulk discount.

If you previously purchased an ebook from Stenhouse.com, they will remain available in your digital library.

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Following up on Reading Wellness, Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris explore how some traditional scaffolding practices may actually rob students of important learning opportunities and independence. Who's Doing the Work? suggests ways to make small but powerful adjustments to instruction that hold students accountable for their own learning.

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Harvey, Ward, Hoddinott, Carroll

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Intervention Reinvention | The Scholastic Teacher Store

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Expanding on the research, theory, and practice featured in From Striving to Thriving, this book builds a case for voluminous independent reading as a vital component of all children's growth pathways. The authors offer an easy-to-use guide that begins with foundational actions for increasing volume and, from there, diagnostic questions, instructional options, and targeted practices for launching students into the virtuous cycle of reading success.

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Jennifer Serravallo

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jen shows how small groups increase time for meeting individual students’ needs. You’ll work closelt with more readers each day using assessment

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Jennifer Serravallo

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The Literacy Teacher’s Playbook, Grades 3-6

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Four Steps for Turning Assessment Data into Goal-Directed Instruction

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The version of the browser you are using is no longer supported. Please upgrade to a supported browser. Dismiss

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What do we already know? What can we anticipate?

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What do we already know? What can we anticipate?

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The version of the browser you are using is no longer supported. Please upgrade to a supported browser. Dismiss

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Sample Progression

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Powering up talk in book clubs through written response

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Powering up talk in book clubs through written response

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Podcast: The heart of strong book clubs and role of technology in book clubs

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Podcast: The heart of strong book clubs and role of technology in book clubs

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On the Podcast: Getting to Know Your Readers with Sonja Cherry-Paul and Dana Johansen

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In this episode, Sonja and Dana chat with Brett Whitmarsh about the role of technology in book clubs, and what is at the heart of starting a strong book club.

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Teach kids to discuss productively- Kate Roberts

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Teach kids to discuss productively- Kate Roberts

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Podcast: What to do when your clubs aren't working?

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Podcast: What to do when your clubs aren't working?

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What do you do when you've tried book clubs, and they just didn't work?

Today on the Heinemann Podcast we're joined by Sonja Cherry-Paul and Dana Johansen, co-authors of " Breathing New Life into Book Clubs." In a recent article on the Heinemann Medium blog, Sonja and Dana wrote about some of the common roadblocks that teachers encounter when leading book clubs. They say that "organizing clubs, managing them, determining the instruction that students need, and trying to empower students to take the reins of their own reading journeys, can feel daunting. But we cannot throw in the towel."

We started our conversation asking, "why can't we give up on book clubs?"
Below is a full transcript of this episode.
Dana: I think over the years Sonja and I have been using book clubs in our classrooms ever since we started teaching and it's the one thing that we've just seen has helped students flourish with reading and find joy for reading. It really matters in their readerly lives. We see that these are spaces that transform their attitudes toward reading through choice and ownership and we see their reading skills strengthen because they're transferring the instruction from class to the books that they're reading and discussing with peers. We see, oh my gosh, so much energy as they come to life as readers in the classroom. They love journeying through texts with their peers. Reading is such a social experience to gain people's different perspectives on what's going on with the characters and the plot and the moves that the authors are making. It's a really exciting place where really great conversations can happen. Students can really get to know each other as readers and their thoughts about texts. It's a really, really joyful experience.

Sonja: Yeah. I think adolescence, it's such a critical time for reading. We see now more than ever, our kids' schedules are jam packed with so many responsibilities, the responsibilities of schools, the responsibility of homework. There's just a lot of pressure on students these days. The thing that I'm concerned about is with all of this pressure comes this loss of power that students have around their academic lives, this lack of autonomy to make choices. When Dana and I think about book clubs, this is the joyous space where kids get to exert their power around reading. The books that are available to kids right now are just so exciting and kids do want to read them. I think that book clubs are the spaces where kids get to make those choices. Too often in teaching, we're imposing upon students what they should read and not only what they should read, but what they should think about what they read.

We get caught up in the practice of teaching a book. I've just heard from so many educators who the thinking is I teach insert title here, whatever it is, The Outsiders, or I teach To Kill a Mockingbird, or I teach The Giver. Dana and I, we often talk about that. No, we don't teach books. We teach children and we teach reading. I think when we get caught up in the teaching of a book, we alienate of our students. For me, book clubs is that space where we're inviting all kids into this magical world of books and where kids have choice and they have autonomy over what they're going to read and how they're going to read it.

Brett: How do we then take that and breathe that new life into book clubs?

Dana: I think one of the central ways is with choice and ownership. The first thing we need to do is really get to know our students as readers, and like Sonja was just saying, really find out what they want to read and then get those books. It's very hard getting books into our classrooms. We have to be strategic and work together and find ways to get the titles that students want and not limit ourselves. We want to find out what they're interested in in terms of graphic novels, nonfiction and fantasy, and not limit ourselves to the traditional book club models where it's historical fiction and realistic fiction. We want to branch out and embrace our students' interests.

Then we want to honor their choices and give them ownership in their club in a variety of different ways. Another thing we want to do is we really want to make sure that as teachers we're stepping back and allowing our students ownership of their clubs. What this means, very bluntly, is that there are no assigned roles, no turn-taking rules. There are no limits on ways that kids can respond, and keeping the joy of reading central to the clubs and honoring their choice and ownership.

Sonja: I think to pick up on what Dana's saying, the biggest way you can breathe new life into book clubs, I think, is for teachers to reevaluate their role, their stance in the classroom around book clubs. When Dana says no roles and no rules, this doesn't mean that we're allowing clubs to just run rampant and to run a muck in our classrooms, but what it does mean is that we're reevaluating and adjusting our own goals and really putting our students central in this experience. The more that we sort of impose these rules and structures, we've found the more stagnant the book clubs become. They sort of peter out. If we could get teachers to just think about book clubs that they might be a part of in their own lives and tap into that experience and lean into that in the classroom rather than be fearful of it, I think that they will see that book clubs become this incredible experience for kids and that's what they'll want to do all year long.

We sort of sell our kids short, I think, when we impose the ways that they should exist in a book club as opposed to letting them take ownership of it and read and enjoy reading without us feeling like we have to micromanage every single moment of a club.

Dana: This reminds me actually of a conversation I was having this week with some teachers who I work with. They were so excited because the book clubs that they're using with third graders, the third graders, they all have their own book in the club. It's really a sort of out of the box model and all the kids come together and they share what's going on in their books and they're so excited each week to say, "Hey, this is what I'm reading. This is what I'm excited about. I want to share my ideas with you. I'm not sure where my book's going, but this is my prediction and I really want to hear about your book and maybe I want to read your book next." They've really just breathed new life into book clubs that way. It's really cool, really exciting.

Brett: Sonja, you mentioned just a second ago about being mindful about not micromanaging the book clubs. Dana, you mentioned earlier than that that we need to be mindful about the roles of students in the book clubs. With those two ideas in mind, what is often misunderstood about our role as teachers in the book club?

Sonja: I think one of the big misconceptions is that when book clubs are up, the teachers really need to track exactly what kids are reading, how many pages they're reading, whether or not they've comprehended every line of the text. Are they writing a response every time they sit down to read? Are they having the most profound conversations every time the club meets? The reality is no. We could just let go of that. No, they're children. They're kids. Sometimes, yes, they're talking about pizza for lunch and sometimes they are talking about soccer practice. I think that's all typical kid stuff. If we could just sort of relax ... There's something around book clubs that makes teachers become so anxious, like they don't expect them to be kids anymore.

That being said, we want to make sure that kids are reading and they are reading when they get to choose what they read. We want to make sure that we're reminding the kids to support one another so that if someone is having a challenge, "I have this big test coming up," or, "Something's going on at home," what can we do as a club to support one another? We want kids to tap into their own sense of humanity and to demonstrate that as part of the club.

Dana and I have this sports analogy for the role of the teacher in clubs. I think it works so beautifully because when we look at kids and if they're, again, on the soccer field or they're playing basketball or volleyball and they're at practice, there is a time where the coach is giving maybe a 15, 20, 30, maybe even 40 minute, having a discussion around an instructional play or a move or a kick or hit or how they're supposed to engage in the game, but when it's time for them to actually play, you don't have that time anymore. You get maybe five minutes to coach them off to the side and then you have to send them back out to play.

Dana and I want teachers to think about book clubs as the game and the game is on. Now is not your time to deliver a 45 minute ... I don't know when you should be delivering a 45 minute speech ever in the classroom, but it's certainly not during book clubs. You've got a couple of minutes to go in there and make a difference with that club and figure out what's going to be the best use of your time with them that's going to help move them forward. I think that is what we'd like teachers to think about is your role is of a coach and your job is to get in and get out and let the kids do the work.

...
Learn more about Breathing New Life into Book Clubs at Heinemann.com

Follow us on Instagram @heinemannpub to stay up to date on the latest books, your favorite authors, and upcoming events!

Sonja Cherry-Paul, EdD, has taught middle school English for twenty years. She is a literacy consultant who served on the Jane Addams Children's Book Award committee for ten years. Sonja leads presentations about literacy at national conferences and provides professional development for educators on reading and writing instruction and racial literacy.

She is the coauthor, with Dana Johansen, of the titles Teaching Interpretationand Flip Your Writing Workshop.

Follow Sonja on Twitter @LitLearnAct

Dana Johansen has taught elementary and middle school for more than fifteen years. Dedicated to the ever-expanding applications of technology in the classroom, she presents at national conferences on the use of blogs, digital texts, and flipped learning in literacy instruction.

She is the coauthor, with Sonja Cherry-Paul, of the titles Teaching Interpretation and Flip Your Writing Workshop.

Follow Dana on Twitter @LitLearnAct

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On the Podcast: What To Do When Your Book Clubs Just Aren't Working with Sonja Cherry-Paul and Dana Johansen

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What do you do when you've tried book clubs, and they just didn't work? Today on the Heinemann Podcast we're joined by Sonja Cherry-Paul and Dana Johansen, co-authors of " Breathing New Life into Book Clubs." In a recent article on the Heinemann Medium blog, Sonja and Dana wrote about some of the common roadblocks that teachers encounter when leading book clubs.

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Example 1
Example 2

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Book Club Checklist for Teacher Observations

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An Inquiry Into Feature Articles vs. News Articles

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Presentation for  News Broadcasts: Journalism UoS

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Jeff Anderson (2017)

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ISB G 4&5 Patterns of Power Planning Process

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Possible Lesson Sequence (adapt to YOUR kids!)

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Possible Lesson Sequence (adapt to YOUR kids!)

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Free resource from Stenhouse

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These vocabulary lists were built from an analysis of difficult words that appear in basal readers and other books commonly taught across the grade levels. Those words were then analyzed to see how often they appeared on ELA tests given, primarily in upper grades.

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Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more.

Part One
Ch. 1: Increasing Engagement Through Choice of Genre
Ch 2: Choice of Genre Through Craft and Process Studies
Ch. 3: Teaching in Craft and Process Studies

Part Two: The Units
Ch. 4: Launching Writing Workshop: Fostering Self-Direction
Ch. 5: Reading Like a Writer
Ch. 6: Using Strategies to Find Topics
Ch. 7: Finding and Developing Independent Writing Projects
Ch. 8: Launching the Use of a Writer's Notebook
Ch. 9: Independent Genre Study
Ch. 10: Planning
Ch. 11: How to Have Better Peer Conferences
Ch. 12: Revision
Ch. 13: Genre Overview
Ch. 14: Illustration Study
Ch. 15: Using Illustrations and Text to Create Meaning in the Upper Grades
Ch. 16: How to Make Paragraphing Decisions
Ch 17: General Craft Study
Ch. 18: Using Punctuation as a Crafting Tool
Ch. 19: Using Text Structures as Crafting Tools
Ch. 20: Author Study

"How do you ensure that children become engaged enthusiastic writers? Read Matt Glover's book Craft and Process Studies. Delightful to read and highly practical, it shows us how to teach writing so that children become and continue to be engaged while expanding their writing repertoire. It is the antidote to orthodoxy in the writers' workshop. Thoroughly illustrated with concrete examples and videos, it offers multiple versions of units as flexible frameworks inviting us to innovate responsively and purposefully."-Peter Johnston

"After reading Craft and Process Studies, teachers will walk away with a thousand ideas to help them 'genre bust.' That's my term! Matt's argument that students need significant periods of time to write outside of conventional genres is strong, rational, and compelling."-Ellin Oliver Keene

"In Craft and Process Studies, master teacher Matt Glover recovers a key, maybe the key, principle of writing instruction-choice. Too often, students are marched through genre units, often presented as distinct types, with little opportunity to write about what matters most to them. Genre becomes not a resource, but a constraint. A means becomes an end. Matt retains the idea of a units of study, focusing on processes and issues of craft that can apply to whatever genre the student might choose. In the best tradition of mentor texts, these units build insights inductively, by a careful study of what authors actually do. What's more-we get to see Matt in action, conducting conferences and mini lessons in over forty video clips."-Thomas Newkirk

"Matt has long been a passionate advocate for student choice, and in this book he shows teachers how to put choice at the center of all their planning and decision making. What a gift to be able to learn from Matt's years of experience doing this work in so many different classrooms. There's no question you will think so much more expansively about the teaching of writing after reading this book. If you've ever felt like your students were boxed-in by the narrow confines of genre study after genre study, you'll find so many possibilities for breaking out of that box and supporting student writers with smart, bold studies that lift the level of their work in genres they have chosen for themselves."-Katie Wood Ray

"Matt Glover's Craft and Process Studies is my new favorite book on the teaching of writing! Not only does Matt make a compelling-and essential-argument for including units of study in our writing curriculums that give students the opportunity to choose the genres in which they write, but he also shows us how to do this by detailing seventeen beautifully realized units of study on process and craft." -Carl Anderson

"Writing is a content area, and Matt's generous, joyous, crystal-clear, and thoughtful compendium of all things worth teaching about craft and process in addition to genres, will help teachers build a compelling and robust year of learning for young writers. Stunningly, if students could be in classrooms that follow his map for how such units could go, I believe that genre knowledge would take care of itself! After you read and underline every other sentence, as I did, you will want to meet with your colleagues immediately to begin planning your next writing study."-Katherine Bomer

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Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more. Part One Ch. 1: Increasing Engagement Through Choice of Genre Ch 2: Choice of Genre Through Craft and Process Studies Ch. 3: Teaching in Craft and Process Studies Part Two: The Units Ch.

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Chapter 4: Launching Writing Workshop: Fostering Self Direction & Chapter 5: Reading Like a Writer

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Chapter 4: Launching Writing Workshop: Fostering Self Direction & Chapter 5: Reading Like a Writer