Here is the most recent assignment we turned in--a professional development library. We were asked to make a list of books and resources we use in our classroom for professional development. These are all personal favorites of mine, and I hope that you are able to use some of them to be successful in your own classroom!
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Click the link to purchase the book, if you don't have it already!
Click the link to purchase the book, if you don't have it already!
Since I am a fairly new teacher, I have relied heavily on my professional development library and resources to pull ideas. There are ones that I use more than others, so instead of listing them alphabetically like I’d planned on, I am going to list them in the most used or most relevant for my Kindergarten classroom to the ones that I use, but not as frequently.
McCarrier, Andrea, Irene C. Fountas, and Gay Su Pinnell. Interactive Writing: How Language and Literacy Come Together, K-2. Heinemann, 1999.
The authors show how teachers can use interactive writing to teach a range of foundational literacy skills by sharing the pen with young writers. This book focuses on the early/emergent writing stages of K-2. I use this book as a part of my daily routine for ideas and procedures for interactive writing, which is a fundamental part of the balanced literacy program. You can implement interactive writing lessons from pretty much anything! I’ve used this to turn our district’s awful worksheets into engaging interactive lessons! Plus, it’s been a great resource to give to teachers who are interested in the way I teach (as opposed to the rote textbook learning that goes on in our halls).
Fountas, Irene and Gay Su Pinnell. Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children K-3. Heinemann, 1996.
This book was written for K-3 classroom teachers and reading resource teachers. It explains how to create a balanced literacy program based on guided reading which is supported by reading aloud, shared reading, and interactive writing. There is a great list of leveled readers for reference. I use this book most when working with guided reading groups, checking on leveling my students for guided reading or using the resources for workstations.
Boushey, Gail, & Moser, Joan. The Daily 5: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades. Stenhouse Publishers, 2005.
The Daily 5 is a classroom system created by “the sisters” that helps to foster independent literacy. The components of Daily 5 are: read to self, read to someone, writing, word work, and listening. I teach and model these practices in my Kindergarten classroom and, students have developed habits that have made them more independent. I have just used aspects and components of this book instead of implementing the whole practice. I have found it works best in my classroom, but if you are lacking any framework, this is a great place to start.
Adams, M., Foorman, B., Lundberg, I. & Beeler, T. Phonemic Awareness in Young Children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brooks Publishing, 1998.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. This book gives activities and ideas to use phonemic awareness in your daily lessons. These activities are not ones that take very long and you can implement right away. I use many of these in small groups, but you can adapt them for whole group learning also.
Diller, Debbie. Spaces & Places: Designing Classrooms for Literacy. Stenhouse Publishers, 2008.
Spaces & Places is a book designed to help teachers in whole group and small group reading instruction, classroom libraries, and organizing. There are many real life pictures and text to go with them. Diller does a great job of including charts, posters, rationale for arranging her room and using her time. I used this book quite a bit my first year of teaching when I was trying to “build Rome in a day” and arranged my room so many different ways. I loved this book because it gave me a visual and a reason for why we arrange and teach the way we do. This book bettered my instruction by getting me organized and ready to teach in a meaningful way. I also still have many of these charts up in my classroom today.
Ray, Katie Wood & Glover, Matt. Already Ready: Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten. Heinemann, 2008.
This book helps teachers increase writing opportunities in their early childhood classrooms. It provides helpful examples and comparisons and demonstrates how to make sense of writing, see developmental differences, and recognize the thinking that goes into the children’s writing. This book helps me with Writer’s Workshop mini lessons, ideas and rubrics. It showed me that even in the emergent stages of writing, the students are still writing and are engaged in their own ideas. I love to save my students’ writing from year to year and compare how different they all are along with the differences in the way I taught Writer’s Workshop. The stages of developmental writing is very helpful in this book.
Pinnell, Gay Su & Fountas, Irene C. Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom. Heinemann, 1998.
Word Matters is a great resource and follow-up book to Guided Reading by the same authors. This book presents information on implementing a systematic literacy program to help students learn letters, letter sounds and words. The key elements of this book include: word study, writing and reading. There are tools, reproducibles and many mini lessons. I have used this book to help with workstations and word study lessons in small groups. It has been very beneficial in my classroom.
Horn, Martha & Giacobbe, Mary Ellen. Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers. Stenhouse Publishers, 2007.
Talking and drawing in Kindergarten provides students with natural born writing. Students create their own writing and are able to read their own writing through lessons in this book. The book’s lessons include: oral storytelling, drawing, writing words, assessment, introducing booklets and moving writers forward. This has been a fabulous tool in my Writer’s Workshop lessons and outlook on where my students are. There are great lessons and wonderful rubrics for grading writing. I also use the writing organization to document where writers are and what they are able to produce. I love this book!
Fisher, Bobbi & Medvic, Emily Fisher. For Reading Out Loud: Planning and Practice. Heinemann, 2003.
The authors draw on real life experiences with students from pre-k to 2nd grade in read aloud settings. The practice of a read aloud is more than just reading a book aloud to students and children. These authors give strategies and ways to dig deeper into higher level questioning and comprehension. This book has shaped the way I spend my time reading aloud and the types of questions that I ask my students. My comprehension scores on the TPRI have increased greatly since I have taken the time to change my read aloud mentality and question my students. They are able to retell details that sometimes I don’t even remember!
Fisher, Bobbi & Medvic, Emily Fisher. Perspectives on Shared Reading: Planning and Practice. Heinemann, 2000.
This is a sister book to the read aloud book by the same authors. Teachers can find an array of useful resources and strategies for implementing shared reading techniques in pre-K through 2nd grade. The authors use models from Don Holdaway. From big books to chanting poems, the book organizes ways to implement participation in shared reading. I used this book a lot my first couple years of teaching. Making charts, chants and anchor charts in your classroom helps to increase reading strategies and can be used for shared reading. I have gained a few ideas from this book, such as using pointers from different places and hanging charts on hangers to better use my space.
Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom: Strategies and Tools for Responsive Teaching
Tomlinson, Carol Ann. Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom: Strategies and Tools for Responsive Teaching. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2003.
According to Tomlinson, good teaching comes from knowing your students and knowing their abilities and interests. This book helps plan and organized differentiation in your classroom. There are different lesson examples such as the BINGO lesson that lets the students choose their activity from ability and interest. There are many rubrics for assessment in differentiation. I used this book my second year to dive into the world of differentiated instruction and would have struggled without this being a resource readily available to me. I love the Tic-Tac-Toe and BINGO lessons that give my students some choice in what they are doing for an activity. Differentiating a classroom not only makes it beneficial for the learner, but makes it less stressful for the teacher who is grading based on the one student’s ability and not comparatively to the rest of the class.
Pinnell, Gay Su & Fountas, Irene C. Phonics Lessons: letters, words and how they work: Grade K. FirstHand an imprint of Heinemann, 2003.
This is such a fabulous resource! It contains many lessons on phonics, word study lessons, and letters. I use it in my small group and workstation time mostly, but it can be adapted to teach in many different ways. There are planning pages and then actual teaching pages that can be used as a tool to teach phonics.
I am so lucky to have these resources in my own library. My school allows the check out of similar books, but I love that I have been able to pull these in the middle of planning and make sure that I am doing what I should. I have all of these highlighted and tagged where I turn to them most often. These are wonderful resources that I can share with my colleagues and tell them about how I actually use them in my classroom.
What are your favorite professional development resources?
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