For Other Professionals
Classroom Strategies
Our library provides teachers with effective, research-based classroom strategies to help build and strengthen literacy skills in the following areas: print awareness, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.
When using any teaching strategy, teachers should (1) help students to understand why a strategy is useful, and (2) describe explicitly how the strategy should be used. Teacher demonstration, modeling, and follow-up independent practice are critical factors for success. Student discussion following strategy instruction is also helpful.
Each strategy in the library includes:
- Instructions on how to use the strategy
- Downloadable templates
- Examples
- Recommended children's books to use with the strategy
- Differentiation for second language learners, students of varying reading skill, students with learning disabilities, and younger learners
- Supporting research
Which strategy?
The chart below lists all of the strategies currently in our library, with guidance on when to use each strategy. It allows you to see right away if a particular strategy should be used before, during, and/or after reading.
| Print Awareness | Before reading | During reading | After reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Concept of Word Games |
| Phonological Awareness | Before reading | During reading | After reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blending/Segmenting Games | |||
| Elkonin Boxes | |||
| Onset/Rime Games | |||
| Rhyming Games | |||
| Syllable Games |
| Phonics | Before reading | During reading | After reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alphabet Matching | |||
| Matching Books to Phonics Features |
| Fluency | Before reading | During reading | After reading |
|---|---|---|---|
Choral Reading  | |||
| Paired Reading | |||
| Reader's Theater | |||
| Shared Reading | |||
| Tape Assisted Reading | |||
| Timed Repeated Readings |
| Vocabulary | Before reading | During reading | After reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| List-Group-Label | |||
| Possible Sentences | |||
| Semantic Feature Analysis | |||
| Semantic Gradients | |||
| Word Hunts | |||
| Word Maps | |||
| Word Walls |
| Writing | Before reading | During reading | After reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Descriptive Writing | |||
| Dictation | |||
| Framed Paragraphs | |||
| Paragraph Hamburger | |||
| Persuasive Writing | |||
| RAFT | |||
| Revision | |||
| Sentence Combining | |||
| Story Sequence | |||
| Transition Words | |||
| Writing Conferences |
