It can seem like there are hundreds of skills to teach when it comes to reading fiction. We've seen anchor charts covering every inch of classroom space. Teachers spend hours and hours sifting through resources to decide what to teach each day. It is overwhelming and exhausting. Maybe we don't need to make it so complicated. We spent time thinking about how we could make it all a lot simpler. We realized that all of the skills and teaching points we ever taught for reading fi

One common question we are asked is, "How do I choose a book to use for instruction?" This question is so common because we know how important it is to find a book that students will enjoy and also learn from. But, there are no magic books or right or wrong books for teaching a reading strategy. Think of it this way, when you are teaching students a strategy for understanding characters, you must have a book with characters, but the rest is up to you knowing your students wel