Snapshots: Literacy Minilessons Up Close

Visualizing during reading. Choosing just-right books. Using a table of contents. Peer editing. What do these strategies have in common? They're all tools of skilled readers and writers. And there's no better way to teach them than through minilessons. Minilessons provide strategic, focused instruction that children can put to immediate use. They capture interest without risking boredom.

Linda Hoyt, author of the popular Revisit, Reflect, Retell, returns with the definitive guide to conducting minilessons across the literacy spectrum. Linda covers oral reading, guided reading, independent reading, and writing, providing more than 170 of her best minilessons for understanding individual words and whole texts, fiction and nonfiction.

For each "Snapshot," Linda guides you through a process for gradually handing over responsibility to your students:

• Demonstration: It's important to communicate the goal of the lesson to your students. Then, using one of the book's many reproducibles or your own text, model what you want them to do, explaining how you arrive at decisions. Make your thinking as transparent as possible so students will understand how to apply the strategy.
• Guided and Independent Practice: Give students the chance to try the strategy, perhaps in pairs, small groups, or teams--with you as coach. From there, allow them to apply the strategy in their personal work as you assess them for what they're doing well and where they need support.
• Reflection: Students must think about the strategy, to promote its long-term use. What did we learn? How did the strategy work for us? How else might we use it? Linda includes "Key Questions" within each Snapshot to get you and your students started.

Snapshots is essential for making the most of even the shortest moments of your day. It will help you broaden your students' vision so they can see the many functions of literacy and apply them in real and meaningful ways.