The Stenhouse Blog

While Gravity Goldberg and Renée Houser created the Teacher’s Toolkit for Independent Reading to inspire immediate action, it’s important to note that a thoughtful vision lies at its foundation. Gravity and Renée spent many hours thinking about and researching what successful independent reading and impactful conferring entail and why they are so essential. Here are the seven core beliefs—in the authors’ words—that grew out of that research and became the cornerstone for this long-awaited resource for teachers.

"I think that understanding literature itself as socially situated that literature doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's very much plugged into the real world."

Here is an excerpt from Jennifer Jacobson's No More, "How Long Does It Have to Be?" in which she suggests pausing before you launch your writing workshop to take what she calls Quiet 5. Learn how this small step can have big benefits to you and your students.

Even though there's still a winter chill in the air, it's not too early to make summer plans for your professional learning. Here are a few ideas to help you get started!

The following is excerpted from Chapter One of Engaging Literate Minds, the newest book by Peter Johnston, et al. Read to discover what inspired this important book.

There is a lot of children’s literature out there. So how do you know which ones will not only work best with your literacy instruction, but will also capture the interest and imagination of your students? Our authors have been in the classroom and know how hard it is to find time to choose the best books, which is why they did the work for you! Here is a list of the classroom library collections they have curated to enhance their popular professional resources.

In the decade since its first publication, The CAFE Book has changed the way teachers assess, teach, and track student information, positively impacting the way students learn, practice, and talk about reading. In this Teacher's Corner episode, Gail Boushey and Allison Behne, authors of The CAFE Book, Expanded Second Edition, reflect on the insights they've gained from working with hundreds of teachers and students across the nation and how those insights have informed this exciting new edition.

When students make progress as writers, that progress is likely to spill over into other parts of their lives—both academic and personal. In order to be successful writers, however, students need to be connected to their writing, which might not be so easy to teach. Here are some resources from Stenhouse to give your writing instruction a boost and help your students find their voice and learn to love writing.

“The book and the lesson sets have really rocked my teaching world. I’ve never been happier teaching in my 24 years, and I know this is a huge part of it.” ~Patti Austin, Second Grade Teacher from Islip, NY

As teachers and students engage in Choral Counting together, they often get quite intrigued by what they are seeing in the numbers and begin to wonder which patterns might arise, where regularities might repeat, and why certain things are happening. The ongoing thinking and conversations propel teachers to engage students in this activity over and over, finding new ways to adapt and innovate based on what students are exploring.