Reading teachers cover a wide variety of  genres: realistic fiction, folktales, fairy tales, mysteries, historical fiction, etc. One genre, tall tales, may be considered by most a genre only for lower grades, but there are many wonderful reasons to use tall tales in upper grades as well! Using tall tales to teach reading in upper grades can be fun and beneficial for our students. My Favorite Tall Tale Books There are many wonderful tall tale picture books that are perfect for upper grades. These books contain wonderful stories with rich characters that make perfect read-alouds to model many types of reading lessons. Some of my favorite tall tales for upper grades include Swamp Angel, Thunder Rose, John Henry, Dust Devil, and Dona Flor. Swamp Angel is a tall tale set in the Appalachian Mountains. The main character, Angelica, is larger than life, literally, and encounters many problems. This a fun read-aloud, especially using a Southern accent. Kids love the extr......

Your literature book selection is off the charts. You are set for guided reading groups for the next ten years. But then you realize, you lack a good selection of informational text. Your class library doesn't have enough titles to make one guided reading group, and your school book room is inadequate as well. You want to make informational text not only a part of your teaching, but you want to make it engaging for your students as well. Believe it or not, there are some great informational text websites out there that you can start using right away. Here are some great websites (many of which are free) that will help teach informational text to your students. 1. Readworks This is probably our favorite informational text website. It does a great job of finding informational text articles that relate to many different areas in both science and social studies. For example, there are many articles on Westward Expansion, Civil War, Slavery and so many more. The great thing a......