Supporting all learners in a mixed ability classroom can be a daunting challenge. Over the years, I've found that having the righ...

Analyzing stories is a tough task for fourth grader. First they have to read and understand the whole of the story. Then they have to analyz...

I love the promise of text annotation--the idea that students will take purposeful notes on a text, drawing arrows and underlining important...

There are some activities that transcend classrooms, ages, and ability levels. These are the golden activities that have big ideas that can ...

Teaching theme can be a real challenge. When kids have trouble, here are a few tactics that I've used. Give kids a list of themes : I ...

As fourth grade readers encounter more challenging texts, they need to pay close attention to setting details. Sometimes, these details will...

Well, we're finally moving on to story elements! This year, I'm trying to work on two thorny setting issues--the issue of multiple l...

One of my favorite ways to start with reading instruction is to work with young readers on the topic of story elements. Why? When students c...