our new dog, Daisy!

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As Katherine ate her after-school snack  yesterday, she started to cry. I could barely make the words out through the sobs but I could tell that she was the last one in her class to finish a test and that she felt really badly about it. I do believe in an academic kindergarten but… I […]

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I’m thrilled to announce that it’s time for the  Cybils  (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literacy Awards) to begin! And I’m even more thrilled to announce that I was chosen to serve as a second round judge for the Easy Reader/Early Chapter Book category! Much more to come but for now please head over to Easy […]

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  As often happens these days, my personal and professional lives are focused on the same topic. At the moment, that topic is the reader’s right to choose their own books. When I began working with a new group of teacher’s last week, they were overwhelmed by the thought that their students would be choosing […]

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Against the advice of many wise people, we are getting a new puppy on Thursday. Jenny died less than two months ago and to many, this sounds too soon. Many others though, have told us that we’ll know when the time is right to bring a dog back in to our lives. Our house has […]

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    I have read the work put out by the Reading and Writing Project at Columbia Teacher’s College for years. I have quoted Lucy Calkins to parents and teachers. I have watched the workshop method of teaching as both a professional and as a mom. But for some reason, I have never attended a […]

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Yesterday was like my first day of school. I presented the first in a series of eight professional development days for a local school district on the topic of reading workshop. I was reminded of both the joy and the frustration of being with a group of teachers. I loved hearing their questions and their […]

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You know when you don’t see a person ever in your life and then you meet them and you see them every where? This is now happening to me with Read Together Books . Read Together Books are those books that the emergent reader can’t yet read independently in their entirety but that they can tackle with […]

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  “Ms. Washington would read to us every day after lunch, and her voice was like ten different musical instruments.  She could make her voice go low and deep and strong like a tuba, or hop, hop, hop quick and light like a flute. When she’d read, her voice wrapped around my head and my […]

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Next week I begin a new series of professional development sessions with a local group of teachers. This group will be transitioning from a whole group basal based method of teaching to a reading and writing workshop. This is a huge change for teachers and I anticipate many questions, concerns and some hesitation among the […]

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