Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

10.20.17 How Eric Snider Rolls Out His Discussion Procedures

  We’ve been watching a lot of footage of the first weeks of school lately—observing how top teachers set expectations and install systems that they’ll use throughout the year.  We recently watched a clip of Achievement First Bushwick Middle School’s Eric Snider teaching his students to have productive discussions. My colleague Maggie Johnson loved it and…


02.04.16 On Control the Game and the Culture of Reading

We’re in Albany today with 150 or so educators from around the country talking reading. We spent a bit of time this morning talking about a video that I love—it’s of Maggie Johnson doing Control the Game reading of a key excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird with her 8th graders. This is one of my favorite…


11.15.15 Preventing the “Gist” Discussion: A Daily Template for Close Reading

Recently I observed a very good high school reading teacher leading a lesson that did a lot of things well. But the lesson also struggled with some very common challenges, especially around the idea of Close Reading (a topic we discuss extensively in our forthcoming book Reading Reconsidered) and it got some of us at TLaC…


03.11.15 Watch the Videos from Ian Leslie’s Guardian Story (Video)

I spent some time with journalist Ian Leslie last fall when I was in London–we spoke a couple of times and he came to a couple of workshops.  This morning he published a reflection on Teach Like a Champion and the ideas behind it in the Guardian. I was very happy to see the work my…