Five Steps for Teaching Reading Strategies: This reading blog post shows how reading strategies can be taught in your classroom using reading strategy posters, guided reading instruction, independent practice with reading graphic organizers, and more! Reading strategies include visualizing, making connections, building background knowledge, asking questions, determining importance, monitoring comprehension, and synthesizing information.

reading strategies

Students always hear that they should explain what they read. This is often referred to as summarizing, retelling, or recounting the text. It is important to

Yesterday, I posted about the different types of text features that students will explore under standard 5. Today, I want to share a lesson that I like to do

Teaching Point of View to upper elementary students with a simple, sequential approach! First person, second person, third person limited, and third person omniscient.

It is so hard to believe that yesterday started the beginning of the 3rd 6 weeks. Where has this year gone? I managed to somehow get everyt...

10 Questions - Close Reading

Genre and Concept Charts – Charts That Teach Beyond “Just the Facts” Routines were the main topic of our last post and aligned with the first section of our new book, Smarter Charts for Math,…

Reading Nonfiction

When I was a kid, I do not recall reading much nonfiction. In fact, I am not sure my teachers even taught me the difference between fiction and nonfiction, but since most of our students reading content is nonfiction, it’s URGENT that you spend time teaching kids how to read it and here’s how you ... Read More about Teaching Nonfiction Text Structures with Mentor Texts

I've seen this on a bunch of blogs and thought it would be fun to do. Most recently, I saw it on Farley's blog, Oh Boy, Fourth Grade! What a great blog by the way! You can make your own "Currently" from her template and join her linky party. I didn't join the linky party, but I see 173 blogs linked that I can't wait to check out. By the way, the only reason I didn't link is because I'm not exactly sure how. When I'm feeling better, I'm going to figure out how to do that. Anyway, I found…

Sometimes I'm hesitant to post anchor charts because I don't have a ton of information or activities to go with them, but I thought I'd go for it anyway! These are two that we have done this week as we get started on our next units. In math, we are beginning to do some work ... Read more

Character Traits

A blog full of tips, lessons, and ideas to use in the upper elementary classroom.

reading strategies and skills mini anchor charts