Why are reading conferences so important?

What do effective reading conferences look and sound like?

How do I fit reading conferences into my literacy block?

“Conferring,” writes Jennifer Serravallo, “is where the magic happens.” In this primer, she reveals that this seeming magic is actually... more

About the Grade 4 Units

Written for children on the cusp of writing more academic texts, the fourth-grade units familiarizes students with the genres they will regularly encounter throughout school—thesis-driven persuasive essays, literary essays, and research reports. Each of the units begins where children are and then provides a progression of... more

“Writing allows each of us to live with that special wide-awakeness that comes from knowing that our lives and our ideas are worth writing about.”

—Lucy Calkins

Teaching Writing is Lucy Calkins at her best—a distillation of the work that’s placed Lucy and her colleagues at the forefront of the teaching of... more

About the Grade 5 Units

By the time children enter fifth grade, they will have been introduced to most if not all of the new skills expected of fifth-graders. The sequence of fifth grade units consolidates those skills and introduces the learning objectives called for in the sixth-grade standards: how to conduct research using primary sources, how... more

About the Grade 1 Units

The first-grade units are written for children who are just tapping into their burgeoning powers as readers as well as writers, and believe they can do anything. Students begin with the always-popular unit Small Moments: Writing with Focus, Detail, and Dialogue. In this unit students take the everyday events of their... more