8 Reasons to Encourage Students to Read Book Series

Getting students hooked on a series means that there is a built-in next book that they are already excited to read. When the series ends they will be looking for a similar one to fly through during independent reading time! Discover eight reasons that encouraging students to read more series will help them in and […]

By |July 7th, 2022|Guided Reading, Independent Reading|0 Comments

12 Books About Environmentalism and Climate Change

Kids are the future, and the quality of their lives depends on the state of our planet! Although your students may think they are too young to make a change, these timely books about environmentalism say otherwise. Encourage readers of all ages to get involved in saving the Earth when you share books about climate […]

10 Ways to Engage Readers for Long-term Success

While we know literacy impacts success across all subject areas, there are many factors that affect why students may struggle with or dislike reading. Luckily, there are also many reliable ways to engage readers and help them achieve long-term success!

1. Choose books across various topics and genres.

If a student is not excited to […]

The Power of Book Access: Why I Take My Students to the Public Library Every Year

Recently, I was presenting on books, children and teaching at the Virginia Reading Association Conference. I was brainstorming with other teachers, trying to think of ways to get books for their students. Of course, the public library came up. You know how sometimes we can operate in a bubble? When a teacher stated that she […]

By |February 14th, 2019|Independent Reading|0 Comments

How I Reimagined the Whole Class Novel and Transformed My Students Into Readers

Thank you to high school English teacher Jacqueline Stallworth for sharing how a shift in her thinking on the whole class novel helped engage her students as readers! 

I started teaching a VERY LONG TIME ago, and I was teaching books that I thought were “good literature,” because they were novels in the traditional, literary canon. I remember […]

By |November 7th, 2018|Independent Reading|3 Comments

3 Readers You’ll Meet in the Middle School Classroom

Guest post by Carly Black, Teach Mom Repeat. Thanks to veteran middle school teacher Carly for joining us to share some of her favorite tips for matching books to readers!

The anticipation for class rosters hangs in the hot humid air of summer all season long. A reading teacher’s mind continuously swirls with ideas for the […]

By |July 31st, 2018|Independent Reading|1 Comment

5 Compelling Reasons to Say Yes to Book Candy

My favorite candy is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I love everything about them: the small size cups, peeling off the paper and the perfect mix of the soft peanut butter with the hard chocolate. There is nothing I don’t like. But if I ate them all the time, I’d probably get really tired of them. […]

By |September 29th, 2017|Independent Reading|0 Comments

From Reluctant to Engaged: 4 Secrets to End Fake Reading

A few months ago, I went to Michigan Reading Association’s annual conference to learn—and to share what I’ve learned throughout my career with Michigan teachers. I attended two sessions on engaging readers and combating fake readers, and one of my presentations was titled “From Reluctant to Engaged: Secrets to End Fake Reading.” All three sessions […]

By |August 15th, 2017|Independent Reading|12 Comments

Choose, Check and Champion Student Reading

When I was asked by my principal to create a skills class for my developing readers nearly 10 years ago, I knew I wanted to incorporate a choice reading program that was structured, but loose enough where students could choose, check and champion their own reading without the risk of an assessment or using reading […]

By |July 11th, 2017|Independent Reading|0 Comments

8 Alternatives to Reading Logs for Holding Students Accountable During Independent Reading

Research validates what we already know, that time spent reading improves reading achievement (Anderson, 1985; Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding, 1988; Fielding & Pearson, 1994; Taylor, Frye, & Maruyama, 1990). It sounds simple, but I’ve never had a class in twenty-four years where students would just go get a book and read on the first day […]

By |June 30th, 2017|Independent Reading|10 Comments