This recommended practice focuses on how teachers can foster an engaged community of writers by writing together with students, providing choice, and encouraging collaboration and feedback among students. This presentation gives ideas about how to create an engaged community where students feel safe. The two tools associated with this recommended practice are designed to help teachers plan collaborative writing lessons and reflect on current practices in building a community of writers.

Establishing a whole-school culture of data use helps all stakeholders make thoughtful, consistent, and appropriate data-based decisions. Schools can develop a data plan and team to guide the use of data and to support a culture of data use. The data team can develop a shared vocabulary for critical concepts of data use and learning.

A teacher discusses the importance of giving students a choice over what to write about, what to write with, and where to sit when they are writing. When given these choices, students are able to write more, they enjoy it more, and the quality of their writing improves.

Dr. Louisa Moats, reading expert and consultant, illustrates the difference between a phoneme and a letter and explains why it is important to teach phonological awareness skills in addition to letter knowledge.

A reading specialist demonstrates modeling, guided practice, and error correction strategies during an intensive one-on-one lesson on letter sounds. She discusses how she models correct sounds and scaffolds using the "I do, we do, you do" approach.

Watch Dr. Louisa Moats, reading expert and consultant, demonstrate activities for teaching segmentation and connecting sounds to letters.

Hear a principal and teacher describe how their school has implemented a coherent approach to writing instruction. The principal ensures high-quality writing instruction by visiting classrooms every week during dedicated all-school writing time.

Listen to a member of the IES Panel discuss how teachers can helps students use strategies to plan and evaluate their writing. He illustrates the importance of peer interaction in revision and describes how teachers can gradually release students to use self-regulated strategies.

Dr. Ellen B. Mandinach discusses the importance of providing professional development to help teachers learn how to use data. She emphasizes the need for the professional development to be aligned with the school's goals and needs. The professional development should be timely and ongoing.

This video walks viewers through a 3-step routine for teaching academic vocabulary to young students. The routine is aligned with evidence-based recommendations from two What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guides on teaching early literacy skills to all students and may be especially beneficial for students whose home language is not English.

Teachers illustrate what they do to create a community of writers in which their students feel comfortable and safe. Activities such as Author's Chair and Publishing Parties are important for creating this sense of community.

Dr. Joanna Williams discusses the importance of teaching children about narrative and informational text structure and describes some instructional tools she has used in her research with teachers.

Listen to a literacy coach discuss why it’s important to teach text structure beginning in kindergarten. She describes the differences between narrative and expository text structure and gives examples of teaching tools.

Dr. Nell Duke, who served on the IES Panel that developed the Pratice Guide on Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, discusses the recommendation to teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies.

Dr. Steve Graham discusses the four recommended practices from the Practice Guide, Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers. He describes how the process of writing instruction becomes more complex as students move through the elementary grades. He also explains three common challenges and strategies for overcoming each one.