In her comprehensive guide, Better Book Clubs: Deepening Comprehension and Elevating Conversation, literacy coach and staff developer Sara Kugler shows you how to combine the power of book clubs with assessment-driven instruction to support your students as they talk and think about texts together. Using authentic book club conversations as an assessment of academic talk and text understanding, Kugler raises the bar on typical professional discussions about book clubs, moving beyond teacher-directed interactions and surface-level conversations to include:

• Structures, teaching methods, and routines that support authenticity and independence in book clubs
• Suggestions for starting, scaffolding, and sustaining effective, student-centered book clubs
• Tips for listening in on clubs as a way to assess academic talk and text understanding
• Methods for moving from observation into instruction that improves conversation and comprehension
• Touchstone anchor charts and sample lessons for launching and maintaining strong clubs at a variety of independence levels

With a dual focus on stronger comprehension and improved conversations, Better Book Clubs will help you establish effective book clubs that will engage your readers, enhance your learning communities, and become an indispensable component of your literacy classroom.

Better Book Clubs: Deepening Comprehension and Elevating Conversation

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In this episode of Teacher’s Corner, we tune into a conversation between Matthew Kay and Jennifer Orr, authors of We’re Gonna Keep On Talking: How To Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Elementary Classroom.  They discuss how they chose the book’s title, productive strategies for talking about race with young children, and what readers can expect in their new book.

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Whether its literacy or math, the goal of conferring with students is to understand student thinking and support their learning in the moment, nudging them forward through brief, informal conversations.

Today’s podcast features Gina Picha, author of Conferring in the Math Classroom, and Maria Walther and Karen Biggs-Tucker, co-authors of The Literacy Workshop, in discussion with Stenhouse’s Sarah Haynes-Dietzen about where conferring in math overlaps with conferring in literacy, as well as where the two diverge.

Conferring in the Math Classroom

The Literacy Workshop

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